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Ethan Cooper stared out the window, his expression bland. He knew it was bland. He could feel it pulling into lines of complete blank shock.

Fascination.

Lust.

He should move. He told himself to move as he clenched his fists and pressed them into the wall beside the small attic window.

He was going to move.

In just a minute.

Just as soon as he came in his jeans from the sight that met his bemused eyes.

It wasn’t his fault.

He was excusing himself and he damned well knew it. He was just too . . . shell-shocked. Yeah, that was the word. Too shell-shocked to move a single muscle and drag himself away from the little window with a bird’s-eye view into the neighbors’ secluded backyard.

Pervert! he railed at himself.

That didn’t stop him. He was transfixed. His cock was in hell. He was practically drooling on his dusty attic floor as he watched shy little priss, Miss Sarah Fox, naked as God created her.

Glistening beneath the sun, slender hands moving.

He closed his eyes. Swallowed tightly. She thought she was in the privacy of her own home. She thought that sheltering fence she’d paid a fucking fortune to have built around her pool was tall enough to protect her. That no one could see her. That she was safe.

He opened his eyes.

He felt sweat bead on his forehead and roll down his temple as she smoothed her hands over her breasts. Cupped them. Rolled her nipples.

"Christ," he wheezed. There was a flash of gold.

Holy hell.

He felt his cock get impossibly thicker. Felt his balls tighten. His balls? Damn. He could barely breathe.

Prissy Miss Fox had nipple rings. Fucking nipple rings. Beneath those staid blouses and too-long damned skirts she wore, she was wearing fucking nipple rings?

His fists tightened as he pressed them into the window frame. He blinked back sweat, and he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her.

Long nut-brown, riotously curly hair fanned around her. A hell of a lot longer than he had imagined it was. And she was curved. Curved where a woman should be curved.

And her fingers.

He tried to swallow. Her fingers were pulling at the little gold piercings in her nipples, and her expression was filled with pleasure.

Her entire body was sheened with oil. He forced his eyes from her nipples. Down.

"God have mercy." He was breathing fast, hard.

Fine. He was a fucking pervert. He unzipped his jeans, dragged free his dick, and curled his fingers around the shaft, palming it, stroking it.

Because, she was moving again. The fingers of one hand were trailing down her stomach, to her bare, waxed, glistening . . .

He leaned his forehead against the little circular window, stared, fought to breathe. There was gold there, too. Just a flash. Just enough to assure his very trained eye that Sarah Fox had a piercing at the hood of her clitoris.

And she was playing with it. Pulling at it. Stroking her clit with glistening fingers.

She didn’t writhe. She wasn’t arching or giving him a show. She was a woman, lost in her own fantasy, her own touch. Her teeth clenched her lower lip, perspiration beaded her skin. Oil shimmered on it. And she was stroking herself. Slowly. Enjoying it. A woman who liked to be teased. Who liked the buildup. A slow hand.

He timed the strokes on his cock with the slender fingers moving between her thighs. Fine, he was fucking hard-core into watching the coolest little piece of flesh in town touching herself.

Damn. It was good. Who knew?

He stroked his cock, feeling her fingers on his flesh, slick, oil slick. He palmed the thick crown, feeling the steel that pierced the head of his cock, stroked down the shaft, and felt his chest tightening with the release building inside his balls.

And still she played.

His gaze narrowed on her. Her expression was almost distressed. Her fingers were moving faster now, stroking. His fingers stroked. His thumb raked over the curved steel beneath the head of his cock as he imagined the piercing in her clit.

Ah hell. Damn. He couldn’t handle it. He watched. Her fingers, her face, the sweat that ran into her hair and then he blew. He felt the ragged growl that tore from his throat, the blistering curse as his come exploded from his balls, splattering against his fingers as Sarah’s hips arched and her expression twisted.

In disappointment.

Her hand slapped the cement beside her. She sat up, pushed her fingers through her hair, then jerked to her feet and stalked back into her little house as Cooper stared at her in shock.

His come was cooling on his fingers and Sarah had been left disappointed?

He blinked down at the pool area as he absently grabbed an old T-shirt and wiped his fingers clean of his release, then his still-hard cock.

Fixing his jeans he stared out the window, narrowing his eyes. Most of the houses in the area were single story, with privacy fences built around them. It just so happened Cooper’s was just a little bit taller than most to allow for a taller attic. Just tall enough, the window positioned just right to look down into her pool area.

For some unknown reason, there were few of the houses built on the same line in the little Southern Texas town. Just so happened, his was built just right.

He grinned at his luck. Then he frowned as he readjusted his jeans and moved to the door of the long attic and down the spiral, metal stairs that led down to the kitchen. Damn if Miss Fox hadn’t just given him the release of the year or something.

The thought of her—disappointed. Wet. Pierced.

Fuck. Pierced. Sarah Fox. The woman he assumed was a staid little virgin. At least, that was the rumor. Virgin? With those piercings? Not likely.

Satisfied was another thing entirely, and as much as he would have liked to, helping Miss Sarah find her release wasn’t going to become his aim in life.

Ethan Cooper was the bad boy, and he knew it. He owned the local bar, a sometimes biker hangout and generally ill-reputed establishment. And he liked it that way.

He was ill-reputable. The local troublemaker turned bar owner after returning from the Army where he’d served more than eight years. A bullet to his knee had put him out of the Rangers, but it hadn’t put him out of life. A few scars and heavy pins in a reconstructed knee weren’t enough to kill that untamed, sometimes dark core inside his soul.

The Army had honed it. The Rangers had sharpened it. Life itself may have darkened it further. But it was still there. He was still dangerous. He was still dark. He was still footloose and fancy-free. And he intended to stay that way.

Sarah threw the towel on her bed, pouted, and stomped to the shower. She washed the tanning oil from her body beneath the spray and sighed in exasperation at the need that still throbbed between her thighs.

Twenty-four years old. She was twenty-four years old and still a virgin. And as though everyone in this little town she had moved to knew it, she was still known as Miss Sarah. And she was tired of it.

She washed quickly, dried her hair vigorously before combing through the tangles and leaving the long, loose ringlets hanging to the middle of her back before moving back to the bedroom and breathing out roughly.

She’d tried everything to make herself fit in here, in this...