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still carried a tall and slightly muscular frame.
    After Gunnar had worked all day at Press ’N Curl, Eboni would pick him up from the salon, go park on a dead-end road, and they’d kiss until her lips went numb.
    Eboni distinctly remembered how well he’d used his hands, those large, skilled hands that had massaged her into fits of ecstasy more than she cared to admit. Thinking about it now tightened her nipples. She turned the heat down in the car when her flesh became overheated.
    “Can we talk about the elephant in the car?” Gunnar shifted his body to direct his full attention to her.
    His sudden inquiry almost had her driving through a red light. Eboni slammed on her brake and took a deep breath before turning to Gunnar. Could he read her thoughts and know that she’d been thinking about them, about their hot, sordid past?
    “The business,” he said before she could ask him how he could walk away from their solid relationship. “I got the impression at the hospital that you weren’t completely happy to have me run the salon.”
    The light changed to green. Eboni slammed her foot down on the accelerator, snapping both of their heads back in the sudden motion.
    “You’re not running the salon. I am. You’re doing what Queen Elizabeth normally does.” She gritted her teeth and tried to maintain her composure.
    “Which is?”
    “She oversees the supplies. She hires. She fires. She promotes the place so that we can get more clients. She’s an owner.” She glared at him. “I’m the manager. I’m there. I know everything about the salon. You would just be a distraction.”
    Gunnar paused before answering. “Are we still talking about the salon?”
    Eboni pulled into the driveway of Elizabeth’s home. “What’s past is past, right? Can’t change it. You’ve moved on just like I have.” She put her car in park and turned it off. “You have moved on, haven’t you?”
    When Gunnar didn’t answer, she turned to him. She found an expression she hadn’t expected to see in the big man. Remorse. Had he found someone else?
    No. Elizabeth would have said something if that had happened.
    Gunnar cast his gaze downward. “I work. That’s all I do.” He exited the car and grabbed his bag.
    A strange wave of relief consumed her as she got out of her car. As Eboni headed up the steps of Elizabeth’s two-story brown-and-white gingerbread-like house, she didn’t expect Gunnar to follow her. She thought he would have taken Queen’s car in the garage and gone off to whatever hotel room he chose to occupy.
    “What are you doing?” she asked at the front door before unlocking it.
    “Going into my mother’s home. Why? What are you doing?”
    “Packing a bag for her and getting some sleep.” She held the front doorknob behind her back as she faced him. “You aren’t staying here, right?”
    He furrowed his eyebrows and that expression intensified his hypnotic blue eyes. “Of course I am. Why would you want to stay here? Don’t you have a place of your own?”
    Eboni cocked her head. “Your mother asked me to stay here.”
    “Before she knew I would be coming home. Now that I’m here, you don’t have to stay.”
    She shook her head. “No. I’m a woman of my word.” Eboni turned her back on Gunnar to unlock the door. “You might be more comfortable in a hotel.” She put her back to the door again like a guard protecting Queen’s palace.
    “I would be more comfortable in my childhood home.” Gunnar reached behind her and grabbed the knob. The position put him right against Eboni’s body.
    She felt the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed heavily. His stare bored down on her until she felt like she would crumble.
    “I’ll open the door for you.”
    The rumble that emanated from his chest vibrated her body. The tremor hardened her nipples even more. She took in a deep breath and caught his masculine scent, a woodsy aroma with an undertone of sandalwood.
    Eboni put her hand to his chest in