Quinn lay on the weight bench, ignoring the nagging ring of his phone. It was somebody from the Gearing Agency. Quinn used a specific ringtone for the few that had his number—that way he could decide if it was a call that he could put off indefinitely or if he needed to answer it just to get some peace.

When certain people called, namely his dad or his twin brother Luke, Quinn usually answered. Calls from Jeb Gray, a friend from his army days, were a little more iffy. Sometimes Quinn felt like talking to Jeb. Other times, he didn’t.

Then there had been a few calls from Theresa, and although it surprised the hell out of him, Quinn answered each and every one of those calls. Hell, he answered those calls more often than he answered calls from Luke and his dad.

The rest of the calls, though, more often than not, came from somebody at Gearing and Quinn rarely answered those. He often wondered why they even bothered calling. They had better luck getting in touch with him via e-mail.

Most likely they were calling about another job. If that was the case, they could e-mail Quinn the details. So it rang and rang, and stopped, then started all over again. He tuned it out. After about five minutes, the ringing stopped.

Staring at the ceiling, he slowly lifted the bar up, lowered it back down. Again, and again, going through his workout on autopilot.

But his mind wasn’t on reps.

It wasn’t on building muscle mass.

It wasn’t on maintaining his physical strength.

It wasn’t on work.

No, he was actually reliving a very, very vivid dream. A dream that had him waking up with a raging hard-on, a dream that still danced through his mind hours later.

A dream that had starred none other than the very sexy lady who had taken up residence a few floors above him.

Dreams about having a taste of that mouth of hers, seeing if she was as soft as she looked, seeing if she tasted as sweet as he thought she’d taste.

As he finished the last rep, he heard footsteps going by the window. He glanced up but couldn’t see much more than a pair of tennis-shoe–clad feet and shapely calves. He hadn’t managed to get a glimpse of those calves yesterday—he’d been too busy focusing on her mouth, then on her ass, but he knew it was her.

Sara.

She was pacing back and forth.

Back and forth.

On her third pass by his windows, he grabbed a bottle of water and headed for the door. He climbed the stairs that led to his private outside entrance and leaned against the railing as he eyed his new neighbor.

She had her hair scooped up into a stubby ponytail and was staring at her feet as she paced. Halfway down the brick sidewalk, she stopped and turned, staring at the gardens. Judging by

the grim look on her face, he had a feeling she wasn’t admiring Theresa’s pride and joy.

“Everything okay?”

She flinched and went dead white. Her eyes cut to him and he watched a series of emotions flit across her face. Nerves. Something too close to fear for his liking. Determination. Then, finally, recognition.

She was good. He had to give her that.

In the span of maybe three seconds, she went from ready to fight or flee, to giving him a rueful grin. Quinn suspected there were quite a few people that wouldn’t have picked up on that quickly hidden fear, even though it caught his attention.

“Pep talk.”

“Pep talk.” He cocked a brow. “Looks more like pacing.”

“Mental pep talk combined with pacing.” She rolled her eyes and sauntered his way.

It took a focused effort to watch her face and not the sway of her hips as she drew nearer.

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