It was a good thing Carly never waited for a knight in shining armour to arrive on her doorstep and sweep her off her feet. Because the man on her doorstep, the first man to show up calling for her in years, was weaving and reeking of whiskey.

“Carly Jameson,” he slurred, reaching out for the doorjamb but almost grabbing her waist instead. Once his hand settled on the doorframe, his fingers gripping the wood with desperation, he did his best to straighten up and look at her face.

Even bloodshot and unfocused his eyes demanded attention. Bright blue with long lashes and a fierce intensity that not even drunkenness could hide.

He stared at Carly for several long seconds, giving her body enough time to remember what it felt like to be looked at by a man. Really looked at. Dormant hormones suddenly pounded through her veins, heating her blood with a thick flash of lust.

Damn.

She braced against the very hot, very liquid want seeping through her body.

She did not need this.

Get calm, she told herself. Breathe. Easy. In through the nose and out through the mouth. She sucked in a shaky breath, making her chest rise suddenly.

His blue gaze dropped to her breasts, he blinked, squinted, and a grin split across his mouth. “Nice shirt,” he mumbled, staring unapologetically at her breasts clearly outlined by the shirt and perfectly shadowed by the slant of the almost-set sun.

Carly’s nipples tightened. She crossed her arms to cover the very noticeable peaks. “I— Do you…”

His gaze crept down to her stomach, and he swayed, drunkenly leering at the bare skin exposed above her jeans, then finally murmuring, “Your skin looks soft. Very pretty.” He leaned in and raised his free hand, looking like he wanted to stroke her stomach, but the tiny sober part of himself must have made him reconsider because he rolled back.

Carly swayed toward him, the motion involuntary and filled with a hunger she was only beginning to realize was still part of her. Silence swirled between them, drawing her to him, making her want something she knew he could deliver.

He kept staring at her bare skin. She dropped her arms and wrapped them protectively around her waist. But it wasn’t him she needed protection from, it was herself.

That crazy, impulsive side of herself that did first and thought later.

He shoved his hand into the pocket of his jeans, pushing the pants lower, revealing the sharp angle of his hipbone.

Carly braced, stiffening against the hot lust swirling inside her. “Is there a specific reason you came to me—my house?”

Instead of answering right away, which would have been the polite and reasonable thing to do, he swayed in her doorway, obviously and unashamedly leering at her. “I’m sure there is,” he slurred, “But damn if I can remember it right now.”

Against her better judgment, Carly leered back.

A black leather jacket hung loosely on his shoulders, so loosely that it looked as though he’d lost weight recently. But if that was the case, he must have been massive before. Rough and ready were the two best words to describe him. Or rather they would’ve been if he wasn’t reeling from too much whiskey and too little sense.

Under the scruffy brown stubble his face was probably handsome, but it wasn’t his looks that were drawing Carly. It was the unleashed power, coiled deep inside him, looking for release. She sensed it in him because it was also inside her. Only she hadn’t known it until just then.