Yeah, Mitch Landry was something to look at.

Hot. That was just the best word. Hot. Rugged. He clearly worked outside and was completely comfortable in worn denim and t-shirts that molded to his lean, hard, muscled body that could do things that she hadn’t ever had done to her before.

He was older than her. Twenty-seven to her twenty-two. And his, ahem, experience showed. She also appreciated that. Along with his laid-back-ness.

She knew more about his sexual skills, of course, since 90 percent of the time they’d been together they’d been naked and doing a lot more than talking.

But when he’d asked for her number and she’d told him that she wasn’t looking for anything serious he’d said, “That mouth, those eggs, and you don’t want any strings attached? I take back everything I’ve said about the perfect woman not existing.”

Yes, he’d complimented both her mouth—and the blow jobs it had given him—and the eggs she’d made him the next morning. Well, at 4 a.m. when they’d finally taken a break and realized they were hungry. He’d added a shit ton of hot sauce to his, but he’d said that had nothing to do with the eggs and everything to do with the fact that his Cajun roots had ruined his taste buds for anything less than a six on a zero-to-ten heat scale.

Then he’d looked her up and down and said that was why when he’d seen the blond who was a ten out of ten on the hot scale he’d had to have her.

It was corny and predictable. But even as she’d rolled her eyes, she’d laughed and maybe even blushed a little. Mostly because yeah, he’d had her.

“So looks like the guy is here to check… your heating system,” Piper said, stepping forward onto Paige’s mat and putting her hands on her shoulders, making Paige focus on Piper’s face. “I’ll finish the class for you so you can go talk to him.”

“Oh, um…” The guy and her heating system...

“He’s not from here,” someone in the class said.

“I want to get his card though,” someone else—someone female—said.

That snapped Paige out of her stupor.

Shit. She couldn’t have Appleby-ites standing around gawking at Mitch and wondering what he was doing here.

What was he doing here? He wasn’t supposed to be here for two more days. And it was still early. Or, at least, it wasn’t past closing time which was when he was supposed to come by. So she needed to hide him.

She headed for him. “Right. Yes. Mr. Landry. Thanks for coming on short notice. The heating…”

She got close to him, and those green eyes actually twinkled at her. Twinkled. Just like the twinkling lights in the big front window in the lobby behind him. His grin grew too. And then she was close enough to feel him. Not with her hands. She didn’t reach out and grab him, though she was itching to. But she could just feel the electricity in the air as she got close. The heat. The chemistry. The magnetism that seemed to pull her body toward his.

He straightened away from the doorframe, his six feet and four inches towering over her. She wasn’t as short as her sister or mom, but she needed heels to get to five seven. And she hated heels.

God, he was big. She remembered the way he could lift her and shift her, the way he could position her body just right. The way he could…

“The heating?” he asked.

She licked her lips. Right. She’d been talking. About something. “The heating… thing”—Fuck, what did you call the thing that heated a building—“is in here.”

She grabbed his sleeve, wanting, needing to touch him, and pulled him with her into her office. It was a tiny space behind the front desk. She didn’t really need an office except as a place to put stuff. Extra mats and foam rolls and… okay, it was more of a storage room. She did most of her bookwork on her computer while on her couch upstairs in her apartment.

She tugged him inside and shut the door behind them. The furnace… fuck, furnace, she hadn’t been able to come up with the word furnace?... was not in here, but she was hopeful that the people in her class didn’t know that or hadn’t seen where they’d gone for sure.

“Mitch, I…”

He was right there, all of a sudden, his big body caging her in against the door, his forearms braced on either side of her head, his heat, his scent, his just-being-him right there. Finally. After all these months. And, well… to hell with it.

She lifted on tiptoe, put her hand at the back of his neck, and kissed him.

He gave a deep growl and returned the kiss.

And. Then. Some.

2

Six months. He’d been without soft lips, soft curves, soft skin for six months. Because the only lips, curves, and skin he wanted had been in Iowa.

Of all places.

Mitch pressed Paige against the door behind her, gripping her hips, and kissing her deeply.

God, he’d thought about her every single day since he’d met her last July. Her bright, sparkling blue eyes, her silky blond hair, her sweet breasts and ass, her sassy mouth, the way she kissed him and touched him like she couldn’t get enough either, the way she returned his dirty talk and her humor.

She was perfect. Fucking perfect.

Even though she lived one thousand and forty-two miles away from him.

Which just made her all the more perfect. Okay, a few less miles would have been good so they could have met up before six months had passed, but there had been no worries about bumping into her downtown after their hot night together, that was for sure. There’d been no chance that his grandma, Ellie, would return her bra to her grandma after Ellie borrowed his truck and found it tucked between the seats.

Yeah, that had happened once.

There’d been no chance of Paige bringing him a pie the next day and sitting on his porch waiting for him to get home. For two hours. And then him showing up with another girl.

That had also happened once. Or twice. The second time the woman had brought brownies, not pie. But still.

Those things wouldn’t happen with Paige though. Mostly because he hadn’t had even a flicker of interest in another girl since setting eyes on Paige Asher.

But also because Paige wasn’t a bake-a-pie-from-scratch-and-show-up-at-a-guy’s-house kind of girl. Or brownies. At least, not ones that didn’t have zucchini and almond flour in them. She’d only had vegetables and yogurt in her house the next morning when he’d gotten up. No sugar. Not even syrup for the pancakes he’d offered to make. She also hadn’t had any regular flour.

She’d also been pretty fine with him getting right on the road and out of town, sans pancakes. So, no, he did not think she’d show up at his house with pie. And she definitely wouldn’t wait two hours on his porch swing for him.

Though she might throw the pie in his face when she saw him with another girl the very next night. That’s what Abby had done, and he couldn’t say he blamed her.

Paige moaned into his mouth, and her fingers slid into his hair, gripping his head and stroking her tongue against his hungrily.

Mitch slid his hands to her ass, clad in the yoga pants that molded to those curves and made him certain that yoga should be a spectator sport, and lifted her.

Her legs wrapped around his waist and he leaned in, pressing her between the door and his hard-as-wood cock. She gasped as he ground into her, wiggling her hips in response, rubbing against him wantonly.