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presently erratic, Lance moved for the alabaster and wood staircase. He took one step and something snapped inside her. It didn’t even make sense—she just knew he could not go upstairs. That was her home, her life, and he was not allowed to enter it as he pleased and make it a mess by putting his Lance Denton figurative lips all over it.
    Maggie lunged for him, tackling him around the waist and swinging him around with her weight. They both landed on the hard floor, but he was gentlemanly enough to spin them so he took the brunt of it. He hit the wood with his back. Maggie was draped over him, still as stone as air forcefully left him in a painful rush.
    They lay like that for some time, neither feeling the need to move. Maggie, because she was appalled by her behavior and their current physicality, and Lance, she assumed, because he was having a hard time breathing. As the seconds turned into minutes, it started to get awkward—or more awkward.
    Lance’s tone was conversational as he asked, “You’re not wearing a bra, are you?”
    Maggie began to take note of things. The hardness of his chest, the boniness of his hip as it dug into her abdomen, how close her face was to his neck—how well her breasts molded to his shoulder and arm, and the fact that she was feeling a draft in a place she rather would not be feeling one.
    “Shit!” She scrambled back and spun away as she tucked a boob back within the confines of the tank top she wore under the robe. Then, brave person that she was, she sprinted up the stairs, dove into her room, and flipped the lock on the door.
    Chest heaving, blood burned through her veins as her heart thundered out a fast beat. Maggie took quick, shallow breaths, but all that did was make her need more air. She would stay in her room, wait him out. They had too much history, too much pain between the two of them, to be anything but strangers. He would leave eventually. He’d get bored, or hungry, or realize it was futile to think she’d ever hire him on as her personal trainer.
    Maggie nodded to herself. Right. That was exactly how things would go.
    That settled, she sat on the bed and listened for the front door to shut, a clear signal that he had left the premises. Instead she cocked her head as a faint, scratching sound met her ears. Not owning a pet of any kind, that puzzled her. She moved for the door, reaching for the doorknob just as it powerfully swung open and smacked against her forehead.
    “Ow!” Maggie stumbled back and careened to the left, hand held to her stinging flesh.
    “Oh. Whoops.” Lance stood with his hand raised, bobby pin within it. He tossed it over his shoulder and stepped inside. “Nice room.”
    Maggie’s voice sounded like gravel as she said, “First of all, why are you carrying around a bobby pin?”
    Lance blinked at her. “How else was I going to open the door you so rudely locked?”
    “It’s my bedroom,” she shouted, a slice of sanity sliding away. “I could have been naked!”
    His eyes went up and down the length of her, lingering on her breasts as a smile skipped along his lips. “Don’t tease. It’s unkind.”
    Palm to her head, she seethed at the man standing in her bedroom. “Get . . . out . . . of . . . my . . . house.”
    He moved to sit on the bed, bouncing up and down a few times before looking at her. “You need me.”
    “I need you like I need—”
    “Watch it. You might regret what you say and then you can’t take it back.” He reclined on the bed with his hands behind his head.
    “I doubt I’d want to take it back.”
    “I like your bed. It’s comfy.” Lance jumped to his feet like a spring and clapped his hands together once. “So . . . where’s my room?”
    Maggie gaped at him, hand falling limply to her side.
    “Downstairs, down the hall? Guest house? I see my physical perfection has you speechless.” Shrugging, he said, “That’s okay, I’ll find it.”
    When Lance reached her, her hand shot out and slammed