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“Stomach?” I asked.

Silence.

“Voice box?”

He flexed his jaw. “It’s not a good idea for you to be here right now,” he said flatly, his voice cold.

I gave him a crooked smile. There was nowhere I’d rather be. I didn’t give a shit if he was contagious. “What hurts?”

It took him a moment. “Everything.”

I snorted. “Wow. A man cold. Okay, I’m equipped to deal with this. Come on. Get in bed.”

“Kristen, you should go. You should look for another carpenter,” he said.

“Wow. Are you dying?” I laughed, opening up my purse and taking out my Aleve. I shook two into my hand and handed him the Coke I brought him.

“It’s funny that you bring up getting a new carpenter.” I handed him the pills, and he stood there looking at them in the palm of his hand, passively.

“Guess who showed up at the butt crack of dawn this morning begging for his job back. Miguel.” I shook my head. He’d seen my carpenter ad on Craigslist. “Lost his job at Universal.”

I put my hands on my hips and peered around his apartment. God, it was a mess. Clothes everywhere. His duffel bag from Vegas was still plopped next to the bed. He probably had two weeks of laundry to do.

Looks like it’s my time to shine. This place was getting an exorcism. I’d get on it as soon as I got the patient in bed.

I turned back to him. “I don’t even want to know what that dude did to get fired. He was always a little creepy. Like, Silence of the Lambs, ‘it puts the lotion on its skin’ creepy. And he came over, and I was in nothing but a robe.” I shivered as it gave me the heebie-jeebies. “To be honest, it was too bad you weren’t there. I could have used a bouncer.”

His eyes bored into me, his messy hair over his forehead. He stared at me just long enough for it to be weird and then set his soda down. In a single fluid movement he gathered me in his arms and folded me into his chest, burying his face in my neck. It was so unexpected I froze.

And then I melted.

I’d missed him. So much. And I loved it when he held me. It was something I couldn’t allow outside of sex because it made me want to never let go. But this hug took me by surprise, and once I was in it, there was no getting out. My heart just wasn’t that strong.

He clutched me to him so hard that for a second I got worried something was wrong. Really wrong. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him back, wondering if he’d gotten some bad news. He didn’t look well, and he never broke my no-affection rules.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

He shook his head in the crook of my neck. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

He dragged his face from my neck and looked like he might kiss me, but instead he put his forehead to mine and closed his eyes.

I gave him a breathless smile. “Well, we’re friends with benefits, right?” I said, my lips an inch from his mouth. “This is the friends part.”

And I missed you. Couldn’t stand not seeing you today. Wanted to take care of you. Needed to make sure you were okay.

He put a hand to my cheek and ran a thumb along my lips. Then he leaned in and kissed me. It was tentative and soft, and I dissolved into it.

It was like the space I’d put between us made me need more of him to make up for it, and I couldn’t get close enough or soak up enough of him.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him harder, pressing against him as he started to walk me backward toward the bed. We tripped over the mess, our mouths never breaking contact, our feet tangling in discarded clothes and boxes. I knocked into his lamp and it fell sideways with a crash, but we didn’t stop. We peeled off each other’s shirts, slamming back into each other before they touched the ground.

By the time we hit the mattress and he glided over me, I was ravenous. I tugged at his sweatpants, but he shook his head and dragged my hands up to hold them against the pillow. “No.” His lips trailed down my jaw.

I tipped my head back while his mouth moved along my skin. “What do you mean ‘no’?” I breathed.

He smelled incredible, his heady masculine cedar scent like an evocative pheromone. Heat came off his chest, and the way he had my hands imprisoned, I was cocooned in his body, nestled between his strong arms.

“You’re in trouble,” he said into my collarbone. “You’ve lost dick privileges.”