Maybe she was getting ahead of herself, making it more complex than it needed to be. Maybe Hayden had some good points. Maybe she would always wonder if she didn’t pursue him now, assuming he was interested.

Maybe to all of that, but…something told her it wasn’t quite that simple.

Chapter Eleven

Tuesday morning, Cole woke up before his alarm. Long before it, thanks to a never-ending shitty night of tossing and turning and trying to get Sierra out of his mind.

Tito, his grumpy cat who looked like a black cat that had had a sack of flour explode nearby, had given up on snuggling hours ago and moved to the spare pillow, where he was currently glaring at Cole.

That kiss yesterday had blown every single fantasy he’d ever had about Sierra to pieces. His fantasies had been enthralling, absorbing, and sexy as hell, but the reality of her was so much more. That kiss, those curves, the sweet taste of her… The memories were visceral, driving him to an ache that was more than physical, that pounded relentlessly through every cell in his body and then some. Nothing would dampen it—not Johnnie Walker Double Black, not an ice-cold shower, not his hand. He’d tried them all.

Though he sometimes hit the office before heading to the day’s jobsite, today he was planning to go straight to the Draper home. He was going to time his arrival to be as close to eight a.m. as possible and not a minute earlier. Get there and get straight to business, with no time for small talk, no time to check out Sierra as she climbed down from her badass truck, definitely no time to rehash what had happened in her office yesterday morning.

He didn’t know how to cleanse his mind and his body of her, but he had to do something, and soon. Maybe he’d hit a bar and try to find a woman who was interested in a few dirty, sweaty hours between the sheets and nothing more. He didn’t do it often, because sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth, but if it would get his boss out of his mind for a night—

His cell phone rang from the nightstand, and Tito darted off the bed, out of the room, probably to lobby near his food bowl. Cole rolled over to see who the hell was looking for him before seven in the morning, and then almost immediately, the thought crashed into him that maybe something was wrong with his mom. Seeing Mason’s name on the screen didn’t help, because Mason didn’t tend to call him unless there was good reason.

“Yeah,” Cole answered, breaking into a sweat.