Nobody's Baby but Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

wasn’t quite as detached as he seemed. Beneath those jeans he seemed to be fully aroused.
    “In here, Rosebud.”
    She stumbled as he drew her through the doorway into the master bedroom, still trying to figure out how someone as inept as she had managed to excite him. She reminded herself that she was female, and he had a caveman mentality. In his drunken state, he must have decided that any woman would do. She should be grateful he was dragging her into his cave by the ribbon instead of her hair.
    He flipped a switch. Recessed lighting illuminated a king-size bed made up with blankets, but no comforter. It sat opposite a wall that held a row of windows covered with plantation shutters. There was a chest of drawers, a comfortable chair, a set of bedside tables, but very little clutter.
    He released her ribbon and turned away to shut the door. She gulped as he twisted the lock. “What are you doing?”
    “Some of my buddies have the key to this place. I’m guessin’ you’d just as soon we didn’t have any company. ’Course if I’m wrong . . .”
    “No, no. You’re not wrong.”
    “You sure? Some PSSs specialize in groups.”
    “SPPs. And those are level threes. I’m only a level one. Could we turn out the lights, please?”
    “How am I going to see you if we do that?”
    “There’s quite a bit of moonlight coming in through those shutters. I’m certain you’ll be able to see just fine. And it’ll be more mysterious that way.”
    Without waiting for permission, she made a dash for the light switch and flicked it off. The room was immediately bathed in the wide bars of moonlight slipping through the shutters.
    He walked over to the bed and turned his back to her. She watched him draw his knit polo shirt over his head. The muscles of his shoulders rippled as he tossed it aside. “You can put your clothes on that chair there.”
    Her knees trembled as she walked toward the chair he had indicated. Now that the moment of reckoning had come, she was nearly paralyzed with a fear that even narcotics couldn’t quite overcome. It had been one thing to plan this encounter in the abstract, but it was quite another to face the reality of having sex with a stranger. “Maybe you’d like to talk a bit first. Get to know each other a little better.”
    “I lost interest in talking when we walked through that bedroom door.”
    “I see.”
    His shoes hit the floor. “Rosebud?”
    “Yes?”
    “Leave the bow on.”
    She clutched the back of the chair for support.
    He turned to her and, with a flick of his fingers, opened the button on his jeans. Bars of moonlight fell across his naked chest and down over his hips. His arousal was so pronounced she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. Had she done that?
    He spoiled her view by sitting on the edge of the bed to pull off his socks. His bare feet were straight and narrow, much longer than Craig’s had been. So far everything about him was larger than Craig. She took a long, steadying breath and slipped out of her heels.
    Wearing only his unbuttoned jeans, he lay down on the bed and leaned against the pillows. She reached for the snap at the side of her jacket. He crossed his arms behind his head and watched.
    As her fingers touched the snap, ripples of panic turned her skin to gooseflesh, and she fought to reassure herself. What difference did it make if he saw her naked? It wasn’t as if she had anything unusual beneath her clothes, and she needed him so desperately. Now that she had seen him, she couldn’t imagine anyone else siring her child.
    But her hand felt as if it were paralyzed. She noticed that his zipper had crept down, revealing a narrow blade of hair bisecting a flat abdomen.
    Do it ! her brain screamed. Let him see you ! But her fingers wouldn’t move.
    He watched her, saying nothing. There was no kindness in that hard-eyed gaze. No gentleness. Nothing to reassure her.
    As she tried to shake off her paralysis, she remembered that Craig hadn’t