She tended to attract the kind of man that she liked. She gave off a bohemian vibe, and she often worked at arts-and-craft fairs and farmers markets. She was primed to manifest the kind of man who frequented those places.

But that meant she didn’t really try in a specific sense. But she didn’t know what Ryder liked. Apart from the fact that she was now convinced that he liked her.

She had never known any of the women that he had slept with.

And if pressed, she would have said that he probably liked a neat, practical woman. One with contained hair. Possibly a brunette. Who favored T-shirts and jeans.

Except that he wanted her. She was sure. And she had only become more sure over dinner tonight.

And when he’d said...when he’d said he’d had seventeen years of self-control.

Seventeen years.

All this time.

It was mean of her to do it like this, she knew.

And maybe even a little bit cowardly. Because they could have talked about it. They talked about everything, though. And she was kind of tired of talking, because it hadn’t gotten them anywhere interesting. No, last night had been the big advancement, and he hadn’t been using his tongue to form words.

Heat spread through her body and she picked through the tall grass, heading toward the main house. But she didn’t go to the front door. Instead, she crept behind the large oak tree that stood on the side of the house. She hiked her skirt up, another reason to wear underwear if she could ever think of one, and leveraged herself up onto the lowest branch. Then she began to climb. Higher and higher until she reached the second floor. Until she reached a very familiar window.

She hadn’t done this since she was maybe...nineteen? Probably the last time she had ever done anything quite so silly as climb through this window and get into bed with him. But she was doing it now, and it wasn’t for innocent reasons. Of course, he might have locked the window, which would ruin her plan.

And she had no other backup plan except maybe coming to the front door.

Which she was not above doing.

She made it to the top of the tree, and shinnied out on the branch toward the window. She reached out, testing it and finding that it gave easily. And then, with as much grace as she could muster, she slipped through the opening and into his bedroom.

She swallowed hard, looking down at his sleeping form.

She’d never thought about doing this. Not once. She had no idea how she hadn’t thought of it. Especially when she had come in here so many times as a hormone-ridden teenager.

But Ryder had never been about hormones. He’d always been about safety.

And if she contorted she could pretend that there was an element of wanting safety and security here, too. But that wasn’t the why of it. It was because she wanted—no, needed—to touch him.