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handy real-world skills?—to deduce this woman’s name.

Not from town. One glance had told me that much.

She didn’t have that hungry expression of someone in the industry, and she was far too into simple, real beauty to be from Southern California. Light makeup, unstyled hair, an unassuming dress, heels from a common big box store.

Not that I was judging her.

She looked absolutely beautiful, completely appealing, much more so than any of the women I’d laid eyes on in the last few months. Hell, maybe the last few years.

It was just . . . context as I searched my mental database for names.

Blond. Not from town. Maggie’s friend.

She could only be one person.

“Oh, no,” I said, lightly gripping her ankle and bringing her foot up. She wavered, and her hands went to my shoulders, just as I’d planned—muhaha—and I slid the heel onto a foot with sky blue painted toenails. “I know who you are. You’re Tammy, and you’re from Darlington.”

Maggie’s tiny hometown in Northeastern Utah.

I kept scrounging those memory banks when Tammy’s lips parted, her eyes widening in surprise. “You’re a police officer,” I said. “Which explains the gun.” I tapped a finger to my chin. “Though I’m not sure you’re abiding by California’s concealed carry permit restrictions. The gun laws here are pretty strict.”

A roll of those hazel eyes, and I was caught for a moment as they seemed to shift from tawny brown to a streaked emerald.

They really were the most gorgeous pair of eyes I’d ever seen.

“Well, technically, as an enforcement officer, federal law allows me to carry across the country,” she said, mock-condescension in her tone, “so don’t you worry your pretty little head.”

I wanted to worry about her.

That urge came on hot and heavy and intense. This yearning to be something to this woman, to understand the emotions flickering across her face, to mean something to her, even though, by rights, we’d only met a bare five minutes before.

Bare.

Heh.

I recognized the burst of humor for what it was.

Reality pushing fantasy away. Because as much as Tammy might be fascinating and beautiful and a little distant when everyone else around me always seemed to want to get closer, as much as that trifecta was absolutely intoxicating, our worlds were too far apart.

She’d go home and back to her life.

I’d move on with mine.

“Lean on me,” I told her.

Her fingers clenched my shoulders, and I felt an arrow of desire fly straight toward my cock.

If she were a normal woman of my sphere, if she weren’t Mags’ friend, I’d turn on the charm, I’d beg, borrow, and steal to get Tammy into my bed.

But Mags was my friend and my publicist.

And I, for lack of a better and less crass phrase, I didn’t shit where I ate.

“Come on,” I coaxed, sliding my hand up the calf above her bare foot, feeling silken skin under my palm and determinedly ignoring the way my cock twitched. Mags’ friend. Mags’ friend. Mags’—

She teetered, gripping tighter, her weight moving forward and her thighs brushing against my face.

“I’m sorry,” she said, immediately putting distance between us.

“No worries.” I slipped the other shoe on when she lifted her foot, resisting the urge to shift my hand higher, kicking myself for playing Cinderella, as she’d called it.

The hint of her against my nose, knowing there was black lace beneath, adding my hand on her bare skin and having caught a glimpse of those luscious thighs as she’d peeled the stocking down one inch at a time . . . yeah, none of that was great for my self-control, nor for the whole Mags’ friend thing.

Good times.

I set her foot down, forced my hands to drop away from her skin, and stood.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“You’re welcome.” And then I stood there like a dope.

My only consolation was that she was standing there like a dope just like me. For my part, I was transfixed as the twinkling strands of bulbs hanging over the garden flashed across her face, transforming the colors of her eyes like the most intoxicating light show.

She . . . I didn’t know her well enough to say for sure.

But I did feel the heavy weight of her gaze on my body, tracing down and back up, as though her fingers were stroking across my chest, my torso . . . lower.

I don’t know who shifted closer—if it was me who’d taken the first step or her—but suddenly I found my chest against hers, my fingers brushing along the outside of her arm.

My voice was a murmur. “Are you—”

A mistake. Speaking right then. I should have continued with the stroking, kept on with the brushing, the moving closer, then maybe . . .

She straightened, taking a huge step back, kept retreating as she pointed a finger at my chest. “Next time, if a woman starts disrobing, thinking she’s in private, you need to speak up.” Eyes narrowing. “Before she takes off her clothes.”

I bit back a smile. “One might say that a woman who’s disrobing, thinking she’s in private, should, perhaps, confirm that she is in private.”

Thunderclouds sailed through those eyes.

But she didn’t snap back as I’d half-expected.

As—I might as well be honest—I’d half-hoped.

She was gorgeous just standing there as she was, but she was absolutely beautiful while pointing a gun at me like some deadly assassin. I could see the camera angles, picture the shots. If a director could capture that fierceness in her expression and deliver it on screen, it would be a hit.

Especially when it was juxtaposed with this.

The girl next door.

Except, I didn’t want to share her with the world. I didn’t want her face on the big screen or in millions of homes. And suddenly, I thought, to hell with the fact that she was Mags’ friend, screw that she lived several states away.

I wanted her for me.

My feet carried me to her. “Tammy—”

The tink, tink, tink of someone tapping a glass invaded the space, the voices outside the garden quieting, until just one rose above all else.

Maggie’s.

“Thank you