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“I made you some hot cocoa, in case you’re cold, baby.”
He winked and kicked off his own shoes. Then he reached behind him for the neck of his black sweater and pulled it over his head in one of those moves she only ever saw in the movies.
Holy. Freaking. Sex. On. Two. Legs.
With one hand over his head, he’d snagged a fistful of fabric and pulled the thing off, tousling his dark hair, and leaving her a perfect view of his magnificent, rippling muscles.
The boy was built. He had muscles on his muscles, and she could not decide where to look first, arms, chest, or abs. Then he unzipped his jeans, and her mouth went dry.
“Of course, you have a happy trail,” she muttered, shaking her head.
"What?”
“Nothing,” she returned, ignoring his smirk.
Shirt off, she took in the glorious view of his shoulders and pecs, before dropping her gaze again, to those crazy hard abs of his. She’d heard of six-packs, but his was like a ten-pack, maybe more. She’d need to get up close and personal to double check.
Whoa.
She swallowed and brushed a lock of hair behind her ears. She couldn’t even be near the man for five-minutes without her mind going straight to the gutter.
Carolina had never had much luck with sex. She’d always chalked it up to simply being bad at it. Although, she had to admit their littleencounter on the counterlast night—snort—was hotter than anything she’d ever done in her life.
Maybe she was so randy because her biological clock was out of whack? Forty was creeping up on her kind of fast. Or maybe it was because of his intense hotness. Jasper was the sexiest man she’d ever seen.
Her ex was decidedly not. He was a middle-aged lawyer and he looked exactly like that. Thin and slight with no muscle tone, barely an inch taller than her, and half as wide.
He’d begun balding as soon as they’d been married, and he had a rather annoying tendency to slurp when he ate. No matter what it was, meat, salad, or soup—the man slurped it up.
Just one of the many pet peeves she’d overlooked when she’d said yes. Looking at Jasper, she couldn’t imagine why she had settled. Well, that wasn’t true. Carolina knew why, but it seemed foolish now.
She just did not want to be alone. Thirty-three at the time of her wedding, and she’d wanted a family. Joffrey had not been enthusiastic on that front, and for the first time, she was glad.
All she could say now was thank heavens it was over, and they hadn’t had children. She had barely survived marriage and divorce with her own sanity intact and would have hated putting any child through that.
Children should be born from love, not to keep a grown up company. She exhaled slowly, coming to terms with the mistakes she made, and letting them roll off her back like water from a duck.
Carolina was not perfect. The mistakes in her marriage had been just as much her fault as Joffrey’s. Looking back she saw the biggest mistake she made was marrying without love. Joffrey was not a bad man, he just never loved her.
If she was being honest, she did not love him either. Not really. She knew that now. Could finally admit the terrible truth, and for the first time in a long while, she felt good and at peace somehow.
It was like her very own Christmas Eve gift from the universe. Caro smiled as Jasper continued to tug his clothing off, and her eyes might have bugged out of her head when she realized he wasn’t stopping at just his shirt.
His long fingers unzipped his fly, and modesty made her cover her eyes even though she really wanted to look. She swallowed air, heart racing at the thought of all that muscle bare and nude for her hungry gaze.
“Um, what are you doing?”
“You wanted me to shift, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“If I shift with my clothes on, they’ll tear,” he explained, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
“Do Shifters always strip first? In front of each other?” she asked out of curiosity, nothing more.
Yeah. Right. Liar liar.
“Yes. Sometimes. Well, unless it’s urgent, and we are forced to shift fast and rip our clothing. But it is bad etiquette to look unless the person is someone you are involved with. Like a lover,” he replied. Jasper’s voice had gotten deeper as he stared, and she gasped as his eyes focused on her, glowing gold as he added, “A mate.”
