Setup: Tom and Lexie are at a Mexican restaurant in Corvallis, Oregon. Lexie hasn't spoken to Tom in three days, and she's anxious to break the silence between them, but she refuses to be the one to lose their silent battle of the wills. So she challenges him to a hot-sauce eating contest. Here, the heat is starting to get the best of her . . . and she's finding herself far more attracted to Tom than she bargained for.

The paint-stripper sauce was incendiary. As soon as it touched her tongue, Lexie broke out in a sweat, sucking air into her lungs and squirming in her seat while she chewed, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of squealing Omigod omigod omigod, even though she wanted to. She did bounce up and down in the booth a little bit, but only because she'd have passed out otherwise. Chew, chew, chew. Jeezy Pete, this was the world's largest chip, how many more times was she going to have to chew the freaking thing before she could swallow it? Breathe in, breathe out, chew some more, and . . . there. She got it down. With both hands flat on the table and her eyelids squeezed shut, she focused on breathing and counted to twenty.

When she opened her eyes again, Tom caught her expression and burst out laughing. It was a low, rumbling laugh, as dead sexy as the rest of him. Yum. In a remarkably kind gesture under the circumstances, he passed his beer across the table to her. Lexie grabbed at it gratefully and knocked it back, a smile on her face as her mouth wrapped around the lip of the bottle where his tongue had recently been. She killed the beer, shot the paint-stripping sauce, and waited for Tom to take his turn. Her chest was heaving, her skin flushed, but she'd eaten the chip without saying a word, so she was still a contender.

Tom signaled the waitress, who brought them another round along with their burritos. They ignored the food, both knowing the unwritten rules of this challenge forbade recreational eating until the contest had come to an end. Solemn as a gravedigger, Tom sauced up his chip and ate it. She waited. At first, nothing. Seriously? Nothing? He wasn't going to react at all? But then she looked closer and recognized what was happening. Tom had turned to stone. His jaw was moving, his nostrils definitely flaring this time, but every other part of him had gone rigid, his biceps drawn taut and his fingers clamped tight around the edge of the table. He was in agony.

And forgive her for being a sadist, but it was sexy as all get-out. While Tom fought to keep his reaction on a tight leash, sweat beading at his temples, all she could think about was how much fun she'd be having if she were the one doing the torturing, how fantastic it would feel to push this man right past the bounds of his self-control. This was what Tom would look like right before he came. Yum.

He swallowed, and this time he did reach for his beer, drinking about half of it in one go. Then he flicked the paint-stripper sauce onto the table to join its fallen compatriots, leaving two men standing.