LAURA

When my son asks if I’ll rent the spare bedroom to his new friend from work, I figure, why not? The house is too quiet since my twenty-five-year-old baby moved out. I never thought I’d miss the sounds of video games, but apparently, I do.

But that’s not the background noise I get when Hudson moves in. Turns out, my son’s coworker isn’t a likeminded gaming geek. Hudson doesn’t play video games. He works out. A lot.

Now my house is filled with the masculine grunting of a very fit, very handsome, younger man who owns shirts, but isn’t inclined to wear them. Ditto for pants. Everywhere I turn in my tiny house, Hudson is there. Flexing. Smoldering.

I can’t resist looking at him. Or using him for inspiration while I write my current romance novel. Fantasizing about him when I’m lying in my bed.

He’s my tenant. My son’s coworker. A man fifteen years younger than me. Hudson is fodder for my mind, but that’s all he can be…until the night he puts every fantasy I’ve had to shame.

HUDSON

House hunting is a slow process, and hotel living sucks, so I jump at the opportunity to temporarily rent a room from my coworker’s mother. I’m told the place is clean, and the woman is easy to get along with. Perfect.

What the guy across the office doesn’t tell me? That his mom is ten-out-of-ten hot. Single. And sexual, if the sounds seeping through the paper-thin wall separating our bedrooms are any indication.

I’m not a pushy guy, but a man has his limits. Being perpetually hard around her, hearing her moan every night—it’s more than I can take. So I make a move. A big one. And it pays off, in the best ways possible.

Our chemistry is red hot. We connect outside the bedroom, too. I’m only supposed to be here temporarily, but every minute I spend with Laura makes me determined never to leave.