In Bed with the Bachelor (Bachelor Auction Book 5) by Megan Crane Page A

himself with the damned thing for a while, then hooked it around his hips.
    Michaela Townsend was another problem, also not his. Her ridiculous life with that liar Terrence Polk was none of Jesse’s concern and that “open relationship” nonsense had nothing to do with him. Nothing. The myth of the truly open relationship was right up there with unicorns and happily ever after, as far as Jesse was concerned, but that didn’t mean he had to dive into that mess. Or stray anywhere near it.
    So he had no particular explanation for why he threw open the bathroom door and swaggered out into the room, like a cowboy in a treacherously small towel, like he was daring her to put her money where her mouth was. Jesse didn’t know what that would look like, anyway.
    Michaela had moved from her chair while he’d been banging his head against unpleasant old memories in the shower stall. She was perched on the edge of the bed now, wearing thick, wool socks, oversized pajama bottoms, and a tank top. She hadn’t removed her bra, and he found himself smiling a little. Did she really think the mere knowledge her breasts were unrestrained yet still covered might send him over the edge?
    Then again, thinking about her breasts at all dragged him a whole lot closer to the edge than he’d been before, and the fact he was standing there, naked but for his towel, suggested he’d been dancing around on that particular cliff already.
    “Getting ready for bed?” he asked. He didn’t mean that to come out the way it did. But he couldn’t regret it much when the husky rasp of it made her sit up straighter, those hazel eyes of hers widening and the hair she’d let fall around her shoulders bouncing a little bit, which would have been mesmerizing if he was allowing himself to think about her like that.
    “Yes,” she said, and then she cleared her throat, but that only called more attention to how hoarse she’d sounded in the first place. “I mean, yes, I thought I’d turn in.”
    “It’s all of seven p.m.”
    She yawned. A big, long, high-pitched, fake-ass yawn, complete with a bullshit stretch to go with it. It was the worst acting he’d ever seen in his life, and she met his gaze like she knew it and didn’t particularly care if he did.
    There was no reason on earth he should find that kind of delightful.
    “I’m extraordinarily tired,” she told him, a hint of piety in her voice.
    Jesse eyed her. “After all that napping in the car? Are you sure you don’t have a medical condition?”
    She smiled. “I didn’t ask for your input, Jesse. How or when or how much I sleep is a topic I can’t imagine should concern you at all.”
    “Yet here I am. Concerned.”
    “No need,” she shot back. “Watch TV or whatever you want. It won’t bother me.” That smile of hers widened, though he thought it was significantly edgier than it seemed. “I’m going to pull the covers up over my head and what you do on your side of the bed won’t affect me one way or the other. Unless you plan to treat it like a trampoline, I guess.”
    Until that moment, Jesse had planned to sleep on the floor. Because she might think she was in an open relationship, but he couldn’t trust himself to act all blasé and unaffected when a pretty woman was tucked up next to him. Especially in the middle of the night when, if his past exploits and regrets were any guide, he’d wake up horny and lonely and more than happy to investigate any warm body cuddled there beside him before he woke up entirely. Why take the chance? He had no desire to accidentally find himself a part of the lies she was telling herself.
    But the idea that she could tune him out and sleep right through a night in bed with him—when there were, literally, dozens of women clamoring for the chance and that wasn’t arrogance talking, it was simple fact—burned through him like a long, ill-conceived pour of really good whiskey.
    It lit him up.
    It pissed him off so deeply it very nearly