She hadn’t been in a tub like this since she’d left—

No. She wouldn’t let herself think of that tonight. Chloe knew she didn’t have the luxury of pretending everything was okay—not by a long shot—but deep inside she felt safe. For one night, in this beautiful house, surrounded by grapevines.

She supposed, a few seconds later, that it was precisely that glorious sense of safety—and the memory of how nice it had been to feel so warm and protected in Chase’s arms—that had her body acting so off-kilter when she stepped into the hot water.

Her skin felt extra sensitive as she slowly submerged her hips and then legs and back into the large tub. Sighing with pleasure, she laid her head on the curved rim of the tub and looked up through a skylight that was pinging with the rain from outside. A heavy, heated throbbing pulsed at the tips of her br**sts, which felt even fuller than normal. And between her thighs…she was burning up down there. Heck, she’d been on fire from the moment Chase had held the ice pack against her cheek in his brother’s kitchen.

Both she and the girl in his bed had the same taste, it seemed.

Thinking of the naked stranger—Ellen, she’d said her name was—and her crazy offer to get it on three-way style had Chloe unexpectedly grinning as she scooted down in the tub and tilted her neck backward to get her hair wet in the hot water.

Mmmm, that felt good. She reached for the fancy bottle of shampoo by the side and began massaging the sweet-smelling liquid into her hair.

Chase had clearly been surprised by the naked woman—and by the fact that she wasn’t at all fazed by the idea of more than one person in her bed.

Chloe’s grin shifted into a semi-frown. Not just because she hadn’t thought people actually did that, but because she couldn’t understand Ellen’s thinking.

If Chase had been hers, she wouldn’t share him with anyone.

The shocking train of thought stopped Chloe cold. Soap dripped into her eyelashes and she dunked herself under the water, hoping to wash her unwelcome thoughts away, too, while she was at it.

What was wrong with her? Was she really that blockheaded? That full of fantasies and foolish dreams?

The only person she should be trusting, for a very long time, was herself.

And yet, hadn’t she been doing some verbal sparring with Chase out in the living room and kitchen? Borderline flirting, when she should have been wary. And then, when they’d found the naked woman waiting for him on the bed, she hadn’t been able to hold in her laughter. Finally laughing again had felt too good. She'd had to let it out. Amazingly, for a few moments, she’d almost felt like her old self.

Once upon a time Chloe had been a sensual woman. She hadn’t been one of those girls who was afraid of her own body. She’d loved being kissed. Caressed. She’d loved other things, too. Things her ex-husband had told her were bad. Dirty. Things she was supposed to be ashamed of. Just because she’d done a crummy job of picking a husband didn’t mean those urges, those desires, had ever really gone away.

They’d just gone into hiding.

And Chase was, quite obviously—and unfortunately—a master of hide-and-seek.

Chloe couldn’t believe her body had decided to leap to life now. Tonight of all nights, she should be focusing on getting sleep and food and figuring out what to do next.

Instead, she was lying in the bath thinking about Mr. Hotstuff with his green eyes and wicked grin. Not to mention the ridiculously great body—tall, broad-shouldered, muscular—that those eyes and grin came on.

Frustration ate at her. She had a bad feeling that if she got up out of this glorious tub, instead of sinking into what was sure to be a fantastically luxurious bed, she was going to be tossing and turning with unrequited lust all night.

No, damn it. When she'd left her now ex-husband, she’d vowed to take care of herself. At the time she’d believed that simply meant money and jobs and housing. Evidently, she thought with a slightly rueful shake of her head, it also seemed to mean that if she was feeling unaccountably horny, she was going to have to take care of that, too.

She shifted in the tub at the somewhat shocking thought and as the warm water floated over her curves, she tried to figure out how long it had been since she’d enjoyed sex. Since she’d been able to explore her body and give in to its natural needs. How long had she been ashamed of her sexual appetite?

If only the answers weren’t all so painful.

No. She wouldn’t go there tonight. Not after what she’d already been through.

Tomorrow would come soon enough. But tonight…well, maybe tonight was her chance to start taking some much needed strides to reclaim a part of herself that she’d been forced to deny for too long.

Closing her eyes, forcing herself to relax deeper into the warm tub, Chloe put her hands just above her br**sts and held them there, feeling the quickening beat of her heart. Slowly, she ran her hands down her chest, over her full br**sts, and she sucked in a breath at the surprisingly pleasurable sensations that shot through her.

She used to love having her br**sts played with, feeling a tongue lave them, a man’s lips suckling and tasting. When she’d been younger she could almost make herself come just from playing with her br**sts while fantasizing about a gorgeous man making love to her.

She hadn’t conjured up those fantasies in a long time, but tonight it was only her and her hands and a tub full of steaming water. No one was here to tell her she was a whore for liking what she liked.

Drawing on long-buried sensual memories, she let her mind drift to a scene where she was in a man’s arms and his head was bent down over her br**sts. And then he lifted his head and she gasped as a flush of arousal hit her right between her thighs.

Because the man looked just like Chase.

Chloe should have stopped touching herself right then. She knew she should have had the self-control to get up out of the tub, to go get the sleep she so desperately needed.

But she’d gone without for so long. Far too long. She was thirty years old and heading straight toward her sexual prime, wasn’t she? It was one more reason to be angry.

This was one more part of her life to reclaim.

She was safe here. Tonight she had a chance to feel normal again. And she was going to take it.

Even if the gorgeous face of a man she’d just met—and was impossibly tempted by even though every last brain cell she had knew better—was the very man who was about to have her crying out with ecstasy in a few minutes.

Keeping one hand on her br**sts, she let the other slide down over her rib cage, then her stomach, until she reached the thatch of soft curls between her thighs. It was instinct to let her legs fall open in the water, to probe the throbbing mass of nerves between her thighs with her fingertips.