She sat up slowly and finally noticed that he’d been watching her. She made a mental shrug. It was too late to be embarrassed now, he’d seen her, had her, in many combinations just a few hours before.

He pulled on a corkscrew curl and let it go as his brother had done. “Matt was right. That is fun.” He did it a few times more.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Finished? I need a shower and all of my stuff is at my house.”

“You’re not leaving here. At least not yet. You can wear my shirt with your jeans until you go home to change. I’ll even lend you a pair of my underwear.”

“Which will hang to my knees.” She snorted and then remembered what had happened to her own favorite pairs of underwear and shuddered with revulsion.

“Why the shudder? Do I disgust you?”

“It’s not you. I was just thinking about underwear and then about my underwear that got stolen. And that’s just icky. I feel the need for some retail therapy.”

“Retail therapy?”

She turned to him, eyes widened. “You don’t know what retail therapy is? I thought you were an expert on women?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I thought so until I met you. Now I think that I was an expert on bimbos and I’m woefully uneducated about real women. So teach me.”

She gave him a smug smile. “Good answer. Anyway, retail therapy is shopping. It’s what some women do as a pick me up when they’re down. Although in this case, I’m not down in the traditional sense, things are going pretty well for me right at the moment.” She looked at him and fluttered her lashes. “No, I need to exorcise a demon. A nasty perverted rat bastard demon named Alex who came into my house and pawed through my panties and stole every single pair of my favorite ones.”

“Let me do the work I need to, it should take me about an hour and a half or so. Go home, get showered and changed, bring us back some breakfast and coffee and then you and I are going panty shopping.”

“You? A man? Wants to come shopping with a woman? For clothes?”

“Ah, but not for clothes, not for skirts or shoes.” He shuddered. “For lingerie. And that, my love, is a whole different story. Any time you want to shop for silky underwear, I’ll gladly accompany you.” Did I just call her, my love? He thought about it for a second and realized he wasn’t panicked about it the way he would have been if he’d said it to any other woman. Of course, he never had said it to another woman.

Ohmigod, did he just call me, my love? She panicked and then realized, after a moment that it felt totally natural. “I’ll warn you, I have very discriminating tastes with respect to lingerie. I go to Atlanta for it.”

“Good, we can get lunch there.” He stood and helped her up, swatting her behind as she went up the stairs to grab her pants and the rest of her clothes.

“I can’t wear your shirt, it’s cold out. My pullover is much warmer.” She pulled on her jeans without underwear and a slow sexy smile broke over his face.

Grabbing the pullover from her hands, he turned and pulled something out of his closet, tossing it at her. “There. It’s wool. Very warm.”

She pulled it on, without a bra and had to fold the sleeves up a few times. It smelled like him and felt heavenly against her skin. It was huge on her but it was warm and he looked like he was going to devour her.

“My sweater and no bra, I feel like it’s Christmas morning! I just want to bend you over something. All those alpha male instincts are aroused.”

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing aroused. The man could really talk a good game. He made her tingly just listening to him and he wasn’t even really trying.

Grinning, he walked her out. “Oh, you don’t have your car. I drove.” He reached over and grabbed his keys off the table at the entry hallway. “Take my car. That’s my house key, just let yourself back in when you’re finished. I’ll get to work now. Don’t forget to bring back coffee and breakfast.”

He kissed her silly and fought a smile as she got into his car and had to adjust the seat forward. He opened the garage door for her and stood there as she pulled away.

Maggie’s house was fine when she got home. No broken windows, nothing taken that she could see. Checking the locks one last time, she headed up to take a long hot shower to work out the kinks in her muscles from the repeat performances on the living room floor at two thirty in the morning. Catching sight of what looked like carpet burn on her ass, she giggled as she toweled off. Who’d have ever thought that she, Maggie Wright, would get rug burn from o**l s*x on Kyle Chase’s floor!

Quickly drying her hair, she got dressed, put on a minimal amount of makeup and went down to check her messages and with a smile, got back on her way.

She stopped off at the café and placed an order for two deluxe breakfasts with pancakes and smoked ham to go and headed back to Kyle’s place. When she unlocked the door and turned back to grab the food she’d set down, he was there, smiling at her. Taking the bags from her hands he dropped a kiss on her forehead.

“Hey, Red, set the coffee on the table. I’ll bring the food, plates are already out.” He started opening containers and popping things in his mouth.

“Knock it off. Sheesh, you’re a hound dog in more than one way. I don’t take kindly to my potatoes being purloined.”

“Me? A hound dog?” He grinned as he sat down next to her and she started filling their plates with the huge amount of food she’d brought.