“By the way, Jack, I’ve noticed that filthy mouth of yours was much more refined the first night I met you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

She nodded. “Yes. Now the way you talk to me is blunter. Rougher,” she said, and she’d seen the slight changes the more they were together. He seemed to let go more with that dirty mouth, using words he hadn’t used the night they’d met, asking rougher questions, demanding answers.

“Maybe it’s part of my plan to woo you,” he joked. “Is it working?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

He leaned closer, brushed her hair away from her shoulder, and whispered hotly in her ear, “I think you’re a very dirty girl beneath that good-girl exterior.”

His words sent a rush through her. He was right. He was so right.

She tilted her face to him, and answered with a curve of her lips. “And you like it that way.”

“I love it that way,” he said in a husky voice that gave away his desire.

She tensed, wondering if he’d been like this with Aubrey. If he’d thrown her down on his desk, if he’d demanded answers about her dirty fantasies. She wished terribly that the thought had not touched down in her head, but now that it was there, it worried away at her. There was no way she’d ask him if he’d been like that with other women. That was too personal. Besides, it was a rude question. Michelle Milo aspired not to be rude.

Instead, she simply sighed.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, as they turned the corner onto a quieter street lined with trees and a mix of pretty brownstones, some white, some brick, all beautiful.

“Nothing,” she said, putting her game face back on.

“I don’t believe that. And you’re too damn smart to think you can get away with that kind of answer.”

“What kind of answer?”

“The kind that’s a lie. There is something wrong, and I bet I know what it is.”

“Okay. Try me,” she said and they were treading in dangerous territory, but then this was her stock-in-trade. Surely, she could handle it with him.

“You wanted to know if I’m like this with other women I’ve been with, don’t you?”

She gasped in surprise, and they stopped walking. She backed up to stand near the brown stoop of a building with planters in the first floor windows.

“I’m like this with you,” he added, his eyes locked on hers as he held her hand tighter.

“You are?” she asked carefully.

He nodded. “Of course I like the way we fuck. I love the way we have sex. Does that mean every other woman wanted it this way?” he asked, and a part of her hoped and prayed he wouldn’t answer. He didn’t. Thankfully. “It means we fit.”

Her heart jumped at those words, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. She wanted to swat it back into place. Hell, they were talking about sex, not matters of the heart, so why on earth should that annoying organ be doing a pitter-patter? But as he gazed at her, his blue eyes never wavering, she saw a flash of something more in his expression. He wasn’t just talking about how they fit in the bedroom.