“Win? Is this a game to you?”

He lowered his gaze to her lips. “A game? No. A competition? Yes.”

Thea braced her hands on the edge of her dresser behind her as Gavin inched ever closer. Her eyes darted to his lips and lingered there. Blood roared through his ears as logic and reason failed him. Because instead of backing away like he should have, he leaned closer. Dipped his head. Nudged the tip of her nose with his.

“What’re you doing?” Thea whispered. She might have been aiming for angry, but the breathless anticipation in her voice gave her away. She was as turned on as he was.

“Sealing the deal,” he rasped.

Then he palmed the back of her head and he kissed her. He kissed her like he had last weekend, open-mouthed and probing. And just like last weekend, she greeted his passion with a split-second of resistance before all but melting into him with another one of those sighs that sent a surge of lust to his groin. Gavin changed the angle of his mouth and went deeper, pouring everything he couldn’t say and she didn’t want to hear into the push and pull of his lips against hers.

Thea’s hands fisted the front of his shirt. And when she pulled back enough to suck in a shaky breath, he took advantage. He lowered his lips to the hot, sensitive skin of her throat.

“I’m going to fix everything,” he whispered, heated and fervent. “I swear to God, I am going to make you trust me again, Thea. I’m going to make things perfect again.”

And just like that, she went stiff in his arms. She pushed him away and turned her face.

“What’s wrong?” Gavin panted, holding her hips to keep her from slipping away.

“There’s no such thing as perfect,” she said flatly.

Gavin begged for Lord Seduction’s guidance on what to say but came up empty. His delay gave her time to grab his wrists and pull his hands from her body. “I need you to leave now.”

“Thea—”

“Go, Gavin.”

Gavin stepped back and wished he was wearing a longer shirt to hide the hard bulge in the front of his jeans. Thea slid to the right and turned around, hands pressed to the top of her dresser as if she needed help standing up. He’d probably pay for it later, but he couldn’t stop himself from stepping closer once again. He lowered his mouth to her ear. Her shoulders tensed.

“I know what you’re doing,” he whispered. “And I know why. But I’m not going to let you push me away again. Not without a fight.”

Her breath caught. “Why are you doing this?” she rasped. “What do you possibly get out of this?”

A smile spread his lips wide. Thank you, Lord Benedict. “I get the best prize of all,” Gavin murmured, dragging a finger down the nape of her neck. “I win you.”

* * *

• • •

A strange sound woke Thea the next morning.

It sounded like rain, but the sky outside her window was lavender and clear.

It wasn’t until her skin felt the warm brush of humidity that she realized what it was. Thea shot up and kicked free of the sheets. The bathroom door stood ajar, letting out a soft billow of steamy air.

No. Oh, hell no. Gavin was using her shower? It was bad enough that he was essentially blackmailing her into kissing him every night. But the shower? That was so not going to happen every day.

The water suddenly turned off, and Thea sprang out of bed. She stumbled on her morning legs like a newborn colt learning to stand for the first time, and caught herself on the bedside table. She was not going to be in there when he got out, because there was no way she would give him that satisfaction. She heard the glass shower door open. Time to run. But just as she stepped forward to bolt, her pinkie toe collided with the same table that had saved her moments earlier.

“Motherfu—” She bit off the curse and hopped on one foot. But she was still in newborn-colt mode, and she toppled backward onto the bed. Dammit! She had to get out of there before—

The bathroom door swung open wide. And out walked her husband wearing nothing but a towel tied loosely around his hips. Another hung around his neck.

Sweet Jesus. His torso glistened with droplets of water that he’d missed in his hasty swipe with the towel. Gavin never dried off completely after a shower, and at this moment, she hated him for it. A line of water dripped between his massive, toned pec muscles, before getting lost in the tangle of dark hair that spanned his rock-hard abs.

His hair was wet. His chest was wet. She was suddenly wet.

Dammit! Why, dear God, WHY did she have to be married to a man whose job literally depended on him being in peak physical shape?

“Hey.” He smiled, dazzling white teeth sparkling, or actually not, but that’s how it seemed because he looked like a fucking TV commercial. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

Thea shot back to her feet, pinkie toe still throbbing. She welcomed it, though. It fueled her rage. “You’re cheating!”

“Um, what?”

“You’re using my shower. That’s cheating.”

“What are you talking about?” He laughed.

Where did he get off laughing about anything? “You using my shower was not part of our deal.”

“We never specified which shower I’d use, Thea. But I can use the girls’ shower, if that’s another one of your conditions.”

“Oh, stop with the innocent act. You did this on purpose.”

“Yes, I purposely took a shower. I don’t normally accidentally take one.”

“You know what I mean! You’re doing this”—she waved in the general direction of his chest and abs and, dear God, the towel was starting to loosen—“on purpose.”

He raised his eyebrows and glanced down at himself. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re walking around half naked just to tempt me!”

“I swear that wasn’t my intention, but if that’s the outcome, I’ll take it.” He waggled his eyebrows and turned away from her. He used his strong, thick forearm to clear a circle in the cloudy mirror. She watched as he picked up his electric razor and began to trim the edges of his beard. He tilted his head to the side and tackled the soft whiskers below his jawline.

Oh, that was—that was just plain dirty. He wasn’t even trying to play fair.

Gavin had called this little proposition a competition.

No. This wasn’t competition.

This was war.

And she could play dirty too. Without thinking it through, because impulsivity seemed to be her worst enemy, Thea grabbed the hem of her sleep tank and whipped it over her head.

Gavin stilled. The razor hovered just above the skin of his throat. His eyes darted from his mirror image to hers. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he stared at her outraged half-nakedness. Meeting his eyes in the mirror, she smiled and yanked down her sleep shorts and panties.

Gavin’s eyes darkened, and he did that slow-swallow thing again. His eyes did a long walk down her naked body and then meandered back up a different path, stopping on parts of her that reacted to his perusal with hot and heavy immediacy.

She planted her hands on her hips. “There. How do you like it?”

“Remind me,” he said, his gaze settling on her breasts. “Which part of seeing you naked is supposed to be punishment?”

Then he winked, and boom, her nipples hardened. What the . . . ? Thea looked down at her round, pink areolas, now tight and pebbled. Jesus. Her tits were like Pavlov’s dog around him.

And he knew it too. His lips curled up at the corners. “If you think I mind this game, you’re wrong. Because I definitely just won this round.”

Thea jerked the shower on, yelped when scalding water beat down on her skin, and skidded backward. “Why do you take such hot showers?” she grumbled, yanking the faucet handle in the other direction.

He returned to his beard trimming. “I had no idea my shower habits would be the cause of our first argument.”

Thea grabbed the bottle of body wash. She was going to make him pay for this. She was going to soap herself up head to toe and make him watch. “It’s not our first argument,” she said casually, squeezing a large dollop of pink scented goo into her hand. “We argued last night.”

“That wasn’t an argument.”

“What do you call it?”

“A negotiation.”

“And what do you call this?” Thea spread the body wash on her stomach in a slow circle. She was rewarded with a strangled noise from the other side of the shower door.

Thea looked up and met his gaze in the mirror once again. She tilted her head innocently as she slid her hands higher to lather her breasts. “You were saying?”

His eyes no longer held hers. His gaze was firmly on her hands as she twirled suds around her nipples. “I missed that last thing you said,” she mused, pinching her nipples.

Gavin’s jaw popped and clenched with a deep swallow. He lowered the razor again and turned around. Through the steam on the glass, she could see him just enough to watch his eyes once again travel the length of her. Her hands moved with him, sliding down to the underswell of her breasts, to the indentation of her belly button, and lower.

The door suddenly swung open, and Gavin walked into the shower, towel and all. He backed her against the shower wall and planted his hands on opposite sides of her. His chest rose and fell as if he’d just finished a round of push-ups. “How far you going to take this, Thea?” he rasped.

“Take what? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He clenched his jaw again. “Give me one w-w-word, and I will replace your hands with mine.”

Thea didn’t bother to hide her smugness as she pushed his arms aside and leaned into the water to rinse the suds away. “Sorry, that’s not on the table.” She leveled a glance at Gavin over her shoulder. There was a muscle jumping in his tight jaw, and it made her smirk. “But don’t worry. I’m a big girl. I know how to take care of myself.”