“Sounds nice,” he murmured.

She cut him a glance. “Please. You don’t think it sounds nice at all. You’d rather be yachting or reading Shakespeare.”

He made a face. “You have me all wrong. When I said I liked to read and run, I didn’t mean that’s all I liked to do. I can relax and veg out with the best of them.”

“Yah, okay, Wall Street. Twenty bucks says you don’t own any piece of clothing more than two years old to ‘lounge around in,’ and I bet you don’t watch movies that didn’t debut at the Cannes Film Festival.”

Mitchell ignored her. “So what happened with Adrian? Did you realize that cheap champagne and crappy music did not true love make?”

“He moved away. I was sad for about two days. Then I met Alessandro.” She frowned. “You know, I’d forgotten all about those two guys until just now.”

“I bet they didn’t forget you so easily.”

Julie raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Are you flirting, Forbes?”

He smiled. “What can I say? Sweat-soaked women with hot-dog breath really do it for me.”

“Yeah,” she said, stretching her arms above her head, displaying all her mussed, sweaty glory. “I get that a lot.”

Julie caught Mitchell looking at her boobs. Apparently he didn’t mind the sweat. She hid a grin.

“So no serious relationships,” he said, dragging his eyes back to hers. “Just a string of casual nobodies. Who was the most recent?”

Julie screwed up her face as she tried to remember. There had been David, but that barely counted. And before that, Aaron . . . Crap. There was really nobody worth remembering.

“Nothing serious for a while,” she replied. “Just dating here and there.”

“What about sex?”

Julie froze. “That’s personal.”

“Oh, come on. Surely you’ve covered this in your articles. You’ve never written about your personal life?”

Julie’s instincts went on high alert. This was dangerous territory. The last thing she needed was him trying to determine how much of her personal life went into a story.

He definitely wouldn’t like the answer.

“Well, sure,” she said cautiously. “But writing about personal stuff is different from talking about it. It keeps it at a distance.”

“So let’s bring it in close,” he said with a charming smile. “How long since you’ve had sex?”

Too long, she thought.

Her expression must have betrayed her because his smile slipped and his expression heated considerably. “Same here,” he muttered.

Julie’s throat went dry. It was just like him to try to get her all hot and bothered in a public place when they couldn’t do anything about it. And she was sick of him calling the shots.

“So what now?” Julie asked, hopping to her feet. “Jumping jacks? Pilates?”

Mitchell stood and began walking east.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Fifth Avenue.”

“Is that where you live?”

“No, I live on Lex. But there’s better shopping on Fifth.”

“Shopping? I am not going shopping like this,” she said, looking down at her damp tank top and muddy legs. “Especially not Fifth Avenue shopping.”

“Relax, we’re not headed to Saks.”

“Then where?”

He named a generic women’s apparel store, and she wrinkled her nose. She might look ratty now, but she did have some standards. This was Manhattan, not Milwaukee.

“Don’t give me that snotty look. I’m not trying to dowdy you up,” he said. “You’ll only have to wear them one day.”

“What day?”

“Today,” he said, sounding exasperated.

“Oh, no. No way. I’m not going to change into anything until I get a shower.”

Mitchell stopped so quickly that she ran into his back. He turned and reached up a hand to flick something off her cheek. Probably dirt. Awesome.

“Me too,” he said huskily.

“Me too what?”

“I want to take a shower too,” he said patiently.

“Okay,” she said, trying to keep up. “So why don’t we just part ways and meet up later? I don’t need the crappy clothes.”

She didn’t question the fact that they’d be seeing each other later. That’s what couples did, right?

Mitchell’s hand slid around to the back of her neck. “I think you misunderstood me again. When I said I wanted to shower . . . I meant together.”

Oh.

Oh.

* * *

Julie almost always called Riley before any sexual encounter to get the latest tips and tricks.

But with Mitchell, the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“This is nuts,” Julie said in a gasp as he pushed her against his apartment door.

“Hey, at least we made it all the way home and up the elevator,” he said, running his teeth along her collarbone.

“Yeah, except we didn’t make it into your apartment, did we?”

Mitchell cursed and tried to fumble in his pocket for his key without taking his mouth away from Julie’s neck.

She wasn’t sure how she’d survived those torturous long minutes between the time when he’d suggested a joint shower and making it to the relative privacy of his apartment.

They hadn’t stopped for clothes.

He’d apparently given up the key search and his mouth was moving in a hot line down the center of her body.

Her very sweaty body.

“Mitchell,” she said, tugging his hair to pull him away. “I need a shower.”

He growled and pulled back long enough to unzip his back pocket and dig out the small key. His fingers fumbled as he tried to get it in the lock, and she couldn’t resist. She slid her hand around to his front and then down over the bulge in his shorts.

“Julie, unless you’re looking to get f**ked in this hallway, I suggest you keep your hands to yourself.”

The harsh language was unexpected, and it sent a thrill through her already overheated body. She was finding she rather liked Mitchell and all of his surprises.

He finally got the door unlocked, and he grabbed her wrist and yanked her inside. She barely had a chance to form first impressions of his clean, homey apartment before he was on her again.

His hands wrapped around her waist, shoving her roughly up onto the kitchen counter. Something fell to the floor and shattered, but neither so much as paused in their pawing of each other.

Mitchell laid a big hand over her chest and pushed gently until she was lying across the cool marble. His other hand pushed her shirt up and he ran his tongue over the strip of skin he exposed. In the tiny corner of her brain still capable of rational thought, Julie realized she was having the most depraved, unexpected sex of her life—with a guy from Wall Street, of all things.

Then the more responsible part of her brain flicked on and screamed a warning at her. This isn’t part of the plan. Sex too soon will ruin everything.

It was true. It was foolish. Dangerous. And yet . . . screw it.

He pushed her shirt up higher, his lips and hands touching every square inch that he exposed. His teeth grazed her bra-covered nipple and they both moaned. He slipped his fingers under the elastic of her sports bra and yanked up. When his mouth closed around her nipple, Julie quit thinking altogether.

She didn’t think how graceless she must look with a sweaty shirt and bra around her neck. Didn’t think about how salty her skin must taste. Didn’t think about how the best sex of her life was with the wrong man.

Because at that moment he felt right.

His tongue swirled around her nipple in a constant rhythm—of course he would have a rhythm—and Julie let him suckle and lick for as long as she could stand it before pushing at his shoulders and struggling into a sitting position.

Julie’s shaking hands grabbed for the hem of his running shirt and yanked upward. He lifted his arms to comply, pulling it up and over his head.

Her throat went dry at the sight of Mitchell Forbes shirtless.

His chest was . . . perfect. She’d seen plenty of perfect chests on the male models featured in her articles, and this one gave them all a run for their money. Better, actually. The models all waxed their chests and then lubed up with oil that made them look absurdly shiny. Mitchell had just enough hair to be manly without being Tarzan.