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The window.

The whiskey.

Me in my underwear.

Sam—the too-attractive man who had seen me in my underwear.

I had straddled this man.

His dick had been hard too. I sighed.

God. Why did I have to drink so much last night?

I pushed myself up, my throat dry. I waited for the heartache to take over—for the panic—but there was neither. Just an eerie sort of quiet inside me.

I felt numb. In a good way. The way you felt when you finished something you’d been tired of working on.

I stumbled off the couch, heartbeat thudding in my chest, and followed the smell of something burning straight into the kitchen.

Sam stood in front of the stove, waving a towel at the smoke. He was shirtless.

Every part of me went on pause.

This man was broad and built like he’d been sculpted from clay by a woman.

And the ink. There was so much ink.

From his shoulders down to the curve of his spine, his back was a canvas of black and grayscale tattoos. Layers of story etched into skin. A snake coiled around a dagger. The word discipline inked across the base of his neck. A compass on one shoulder blade, a pair of dog tags woven into the pattern. Cars and women drawn as demons and skulls. Each one was intricate. All of it was drawn with the kind of detail that said whoever he was—or used to be—he lived hard, fast, and without apology.

Heat crawled between my thighs.

I found myself reaching for him. Ready to trace the ink, just to feel it under my fingers.

He didn’t turn around but he spoke. “You can touch them,” he said, with almost a hint of amusement in his voice. Like a man who knew exactly what his body did to people.

My hand hovered mid-air for a second too long.

“I wasn’t—” I started, but the lie fell flat.

I was.

And he knew it.

He looked over his shoulder at me then back at the stove, flipping whatever he was burning with the calm of someone unbothered by everything.

“You wanted to,” he said, smirking slightly.

I did want to but I lowered my hand. I was afraid if I touched them—or him—I might learn something I wasn’t ready to know about myself.

So I didn’t.

I just stood there, staring. Aching. Wanting.

It took me a minute to find my words, something witty to prove I wasn’t intimidated. “You should put a warning label on your back, in the middle of all that.”

He chuckled—not smugly, just amused like.

He looked over his shoulder again. “Good morning. Sorry I woke you. Didn’t expect the damn fire alarm to be that sensitive.”