How ironic, since timing had played such a pivotal role in their relationship and its demise, that she should walk through the door just when he’d been thinking about her.

Walking toward her, he cleared his throat to find his voice and spoke words he’d never thought he’d have the opportunity to say again.

“Hi, Mallory.”

“BRING YOUR KNEE up a little higher. Ooooh, yeah. Right there. Mallory…that’s perfect.”

Mallory Altman shifted on the smooth ivory satin sheets, the material cool and slick against her overheated body. She felt like an overripe peach about to burst from its too-tight skin. Certainly not the way she’d anticipated feeling this afternoon. But then, she hadn’t anticipated finding herself in Adam Clayton’s company.

Even after not seeing him for five years, the sound of his deep, husky voice still shivered tingles down her spine. Good thing she was lying down because her knees felt positively mushy. Yet she’d felt mushy since the moment she’d so unexpectedly set eyes on him. She couldn’t deny that over the past five years she’d found herself wondering if or when she might see him again. But never, not even in her wildest fantasies, had it ever occurred to her that it would happen like this.

She’d been so stunned to see him she’d barely managed to ask him what he was doing here, of all places. Left his job on Wall Street, he’d replied, much to her amazement, and was pitching in at Picture This to help out his best friend, Nick, whose wife had gone into labor that morning. There’d been little time for more conversation-she had a client to see in an hour, and he had another appointment. Once she’d changed into her lingerie for her boudoir-pictures photo shoot, everything had just moved so quickly, and talking had been the last thing on her mind.