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Bethan woke the way she always did, happy to be in her bed. Home at last.

Except today, when she sat up in her bed to start her morning routine, she realized almost instantly that she wasn’t alone.

And even as her body responded with a kick of alarm, she remembered.

Jonas.

My God, something in her sang out,Jonas.

Jonas, who shifted from what looked like a sound sleep to total alertness by simply opening his eyes.

Her breath shuddered out of her.

Because Jonas had always been a beautiful man. Bethan had been known to appreciate that beauty in any number of inappropriate places.

But today he wasin her bed.

And as it turned out, that was a fantasy she hadn’t known she had.

Especially today, when she could remember—distinctly—each and every thing they had done together in this bed. Each touch. Each cry. Each long, hot, gorgeous hour.

She found herself smiling despite herself. Or because of him. Either way, she did nothing to curb the impulse.

“You looked like you were headed somewhere,” he said after a moment, that dark voice moving over her and in her like a new caress. And her body was so attuned to him now that she felt herself shudder into instant awareness. Ready and greedy, just like that.

“I have a morning routine,” she managed to say, without letting that greed color her voice. She knew she probably shouldn’t reach over and touch him, but he wasin her bed. Right there in front of her. What was she supposed to do? “I’m going to guess you probably have one, too.”

His dark eyes gleamed. “We are who we are.”

Her smile widened in delight. “Did you just make a deliberately amusing remark?” She shook her head in mock astonishment. “I really have corrupted you.”

He sat up then, a swift, efficient movement that made her breath catch. Because he was all smooth muscle and leashed power, and she wanted him like she’d never tasted him at all. Like the hunger for him was in her now, on a cellular level, and would never, ever leave.

“Come on,” she said briskly, to cover it. “A hundred burpees before coffee.”

He arched a dark brow. “Is that all? I thought that surely, one of the world’s few female Army Rangers, would do a full Ironman before breakfast.”

She grinned. “Only on alternate Tuesdays.”

Bethan thought this should feel weird and awkward, but it didn’t. She’d never allowed anyone inside her cabin, much less let a man spend the night here. Much lessJonas Crow. But it felt... perfectly normal. She told herself it was because they’d spent a week pretending this was who they were in California.

Don’t make this something it’s not, she ordered herself.

Jonas went downstairs ahead of her to pull on his discarded clothes, and he was already stoking her fire by the time she met him there. As if he knew how she liked to start each day.

And then, with only a faint curve of that mouth of his, he did her morning burpee routine with her, side by side, with a race to the finish. A cold shower, then coffee.

As if they’d done all this together a thousand times before.

As if this were their life.

It was California. It had to be. It was all those long jogs they’d taken, just the two of them together, that made this all feel so easy and familiar.

But somehow, she thought it might be a little bit more than that.

He left her a little bit before the community workout, gruffly telling her that he’d meet her there. And then he shocked her to her toes when he curved a hand over her neck in a hard grip and kissed her.

Swift and knee weakening, leaving her smiling foolishly after him once he left.