Free The Sexiest Man Alive by Juliet Rosetti

heart racing. It had been way too long.
    Maybe he ought to phone her and let her know he was coming. He quickly dismissed the thought. Mazie would be home. She was always home on Saturday nights. They had an unspoken agreement about Saturday nights.
    It had been a week now since that stupid fight in the rain. The details had blurred, and now the whole thing seemed pretty funny. Mazie had yelled something about never wanting to see him again, but she’d just been blowing off steam. She’d be over it by now, happy to see him again and delighted with the fish.
    Traffic slowed, then stopped for an accident on the interstate. Getting through the bottleneck took over an hour and it was later than he’d planned by the time Ben pulled up in front of Mazie’s place. He hoped she hadn’t already had dinner. He got out, checked the fish—they were okay, even though the ice was melting—and hauled the chest to Mazie’s door. He rang the bell, surprised to find that his palms were sweating and his heart was beating fast, as though he were about to meet a woman for the first time.
    “Come in,” she yelled. It was something that bugged him. She was way too trusting. A single woman keeping her door unlocked was just inviting trouble. One of these days he’d buy her a top-quality dead bolt, instead of the flimsy chain she now used. He let himself into her flat, through the foyer, into the living room.
    It was an efficiency, just a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room that doubled as herbedroom. Still, it looked terrific, despite Mazie’s skimpy budget. He inhaled. Her place smelled like fresh paint—one of his favorite smells, and—he sniffed again—like pumpkin pie. Had she been baking? Maybe she’d made pie for him. He smiled in anticipation.
    He could hear Mazie clattering around in her bathroom, her bottles and beauty aids clinking against the sink. “Ready in a sec,” she warbled, ducking out of the bathroom with a curling iron wrapped around a lock of hair, “if I can get this stupid hair to—”
    She broke off abruptly, staring at Ben in obvious surprise.
    He took her in, and all his breath seemed to whoosh out of him. He’d forgotten how pretty she was. She was flushed from hurrying and hadn’t finished putting on her makeup; her lips were still their natural, un-lipsticked pink. Her blue eyes were enormous in a face that looked thinner. And her hair—
    “What did you do to your hair?” Ben asked.
    Yeah—her hair was definitely shorter. He preferred long hair on women, but the chin-length cut looked amazing on Mazie. She was wearing a red dress in some kind of silky material that wrapped around the front and tied at the waist. It revealed a hint of cleavage and a lot of leg.
    She’d known he was coming and dressed up for him. She’d just been faking the surprised look. She looked ravishing, and he wanted to be her ravisher. A jolt of pure, unadulterated lust shot through him, leaving him hot, hard, and ready for action. He let the ice chest crash to the floor and moved toward Mazie, wanting to take her in his arms, feel her lips on his, run his hands along her sweet flesh—
    Mazie jerked up the curling iron and pointed it at him as though she was about to fire off a warning shot. Ben stopped in his tracks, his radar picking up subtle signals. This did not appear to be a woman in want of ravishing, a woman ready to welcome home the conquering hero of a lake full of bass.
    She wrinkled her nose. “You smell fishy.”
    “That’s the cooler,” he said. “I brought you some fish.”
    He wanted to punch himself.
I brought you some fish
. How lame was that? “I was up north,” he explained. “Lake Namakagon. Doing some fishing.”
    “Fishing,” she repeated.
    Heat prickled across Ben’s face. Maybe he ought to have phoned her. Maybe he ought to have changed before showing up here. He was wearing a sweaty porkpie hat studded with fishinglures, a flannel shirt with ripped-off sleeves, a grungy T-shirt,