SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3

Oliver was sitting on his couch, whisky in hand, college football on in the background, hunched over his coffee table as he searched for the puzzle piece that had been eluding him the entire quarter.

Normally he searched with ruthless determination for a rogue piece, refusing to quit until he found it. Instead, he flopped back into the couch cushions.

It was no use. He’d been trying to convince himself that he was enjoying having a night to himself. Trying to remember that he used to relish nights exactly like this one, with a drink, a puzzle, the game . . .

But what he really wanted was to be cozied up with the redhead next door.

Preferably naked.

His phone buzzed, and he picked it up, wincing when he saw it was a text from Janice saying that although Walter had finally gone down for bed, he’d been more difficult than usual.

Oliver told her to let him know if Walter got up again and wouldn’t settle, though he sent up a quick prayer that it wouldn’t come to that. He’d been on Walter duty last night, and it had been more exhausting than usual. Lately nothing seemed to please his dad, and he let his displeasure be known through increasingly violent means. Throwing, kicking, shoving . . .

Oliver pulled up the reminders on his phone, made a note to give Walter’s doctor a call on Monday to discuss the recent behavioral changes.

The game went to commercial, and Oliver was standing up for a whisky refill when there was a knock at the door. Not Walter or Janice. He knew both Walter’s pounds and Janice’s brisk taps.

This was more . . . tentative.

He opened the door and blinked, wondering if he’d conjured her up. “Naomi?”

She was wearing jeans and a tight-fitting black T-shirt, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, looking very much . . . well, girl next door. Literally.

“Come in,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t betray just how happy he was to see her. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her off when he was finally close to breaking through her walls.

She stepped inside and looked around. “You know, this is the first time I’ve been in here?”

“Is it? That can’t be.”

She nodded. “You’ve been in my place, but the rest of the time we’re always in Walter’s.”

“Ah. Well . . . eat your heart out.”

“It’s very . . .”

“Bachelor pad?”

“Well, it looks like you just moved in,” she said, looking at the bare walls, the minimal furniture.

He rubbed a hand over his neck, trying to see it through her eyes. It was depressingly barren. What was even more depressing was that he’d never really noticed. It was a place to eat and sleep in between work and Walter duties.

“I guess decorating’s not really my forte.”

She nodded in acknowledgment, wandering around. She paused when she looked down at the coffee table, at the puzzle, then shot him a bemused look. “Really?”

“Told you I liked puzzles.”

“I thought you were joking,” she said, bending over to get a better look at the London scene. Or at least, what would be the London scene. He hadn’t even finished the border pieces of this one yet.

“How do you even know where to start?” she asked, picking up a piece, running a finger around the edge as she studied it.

He watched her for a moment, wondering what sort of childhood had resulted in someone never doing a puzzle.

“Well,” he said slowly, coming around to stand beside her. “It’s like I said a while ago: you start with the corner pieces.”

She smiled and looked up at him. “I remember. You thought you’d found one of mine.”

“I know I did.”

“What’d you figure out?”

He held her gaze. “That you don’t trust people. And that you definitely don’t trust men.”

“Yeah, well.” She dropped the piece back to the coffee table. “That applies to most of the women of Manhattan.”

“Because of Brayden?”

She shrugged lightly. “Because of a lot of things. In my experience, men generally aren’t . . . nice.”

“I am.”

She looked up at him again. “Yeah,” she said slowly, as though surprised. “You are.”

His gaze dropped to her lips.

Just friends, he reminded himself. He’d meant what he’d told her the other day. He didn’t think he could survive another Bridget. Couldn’t handle another woman who couldn’t handle Dad. Couldn’t risk falling for her only to watch her walk away.

She bent to the table again, this time to pick up his cup. She sniffed the contents. “High West?”

The woman knew his favorite whisky by scent?

It was too damn late. He was already falling for her. Falling for every one of her moods, and there were many. Falling for her strength and her vulnerabilities, falling for the fact that she was kind even when she didn’t want to be . . .

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said with a nervous laugh. “You can get back to your football game. I can read or maybe figure out how to do this nerdy puzzle thing . . .”

Oliver slid a hand behind her head, tilting her face up to his.

“Wait,” she said a little breathlessly, placing her hands against his chest when he bent his head toward hers. “I just came over to hang out. I thought we weren’t doing this.”

“I don’t know what the hell we’re doing,” he said, his voice a little lower than usual. “Do you?”

Wordlessly she shook her head, and the hands against his chest moved slightly, going from pressing in resistance to tugging slightly at his shirt until . . .

His lips brushed over hers, teasing, testing, wanting.

Her lips softened beneath his, bringing him in, drowning him in her spicy-sweet cinnamon taste, seducing him with every sexy move against his mouth.

He meant to take it slow—to sate them both with a kiss to take the edge off, but his willpower began to fade the second he got his hands on her.

Oliver wanted this—wanted her—in a way that went beyond physical need.

Since the day he’d met her, she’d gotten under his skin, pissed him off, confused the hell out of him, and he was damn grateful for it. Naomi Powell had brought him back to life, made him realize that he hadn’t died with his mom, or with his father’s diagnosis; he’d just been living that way.

He was thirty years old. He was a man.

And right now, he was a man who needed a woman—this woman.

Her hands slipped under his shirt, her nails digging into his back as he kissed her neck. “You like this,” he murmured against the hollow of her throat.

In response she arched into him further, pressing soft feminine curves into everything that was hard and masculine.

“Tell me to stop,” Oliver said, even as his palm found the fullness of her breast. “Remind me . . .”

He lost his train of thought as Naomi stepped back slightly and, holding his gaze, reached down and pulled the hem of her shirt up and over her head so she stood before him all white skin and plain black bra.

Oliver’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. She was beautiful. Stunning. But that wasn’t what undid him. It was the soft vulnerability in her eyes, the quiet warmth that told him this was more than just about the physical for her, too.

He stayed still too long, because her cheeks began to flush and she started to reach for her discarded shirt.

Oliver’s hand shot out to her waist. “Don’t.”

Slowly, deliberately, he bent his head, bringing his mouth once more to hers as he tugged her closer. Naomi sighed against his lips as his hand glided up her slim back. Her breath caught when his fingers unhooked her bra. She cried out when his hands found her bare flesh.

He was lost. Utterly and entirely gone for this woman.

Oliver bent slightly, scooping her into his arms, the old-fashioned gesture feeling exactly like the right one with this thoroughly modern woman.

He carried her to the bedroom and set her on the bed. He saw something flicker in her eyes, something almost familiar that told him he was missing something crucial.

Then Naomi reached for him, warm and willing, feeling very much like his future.