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

hurt, and he didn’t stop to examine why.
    “No trampoline,” he assured her, moving toward the bed. He’d bet she didn’t know that he could see the way she dug her toes into the carpet at her feet, as if she was ordering herself to stay still while he approached. He liked that a whole lot more than a good man should. He stopped when he was maybe a foot away from her, and kept his gaze trained on hers as he reached down, unwrapped the towel from his hips, and let it drop to floor beneath him. “But I sleep naked. That’s cool, right?”
    *
    It was sometime after midnight when Michaela finally gave up the charade and shifted over onto her back to glare up at the ceiling from the depths of her now much too hot cocoon of blankets.
    She hadn’t slept at all. Not in the damned car and not in this torture device of a bed, and certainly not after Jesse had displayed his entire naked body like that, so close to where she’d been sitting that she could have easily simply tipped forward and—
    Michaela cut off that train of thought. Harshly.
    That was what she’d spent the past few hours doing. Playing whack-a-mole with the host of terrible ideas and beguiling fantasies that coursed through her in an endless stream, one picking up where the other had left off, all of them featuring Jesse Grey and that mouthwateringly perfect body of his, without flaw, she now knew, from the top of his eternally mussed-up head of hair to his big, bare feet.
    And all the acres and acres of pure masculine perfection in between.
    She had obviously turned into a pillar of salt as his towel hit the floor, and to her eternal shame, she was fairly certain her mouth had dropped open at the sight. So that she’d been gaping at Jesse—at all of Jesse—like a slack-jawed yokel who had never seen a man’s penis before.
    You never have, a smitten little voice inside of her had whispered, as if in a church. A terrible shrine to the beauty that was Jesse Grey’s naked body, which was something she could never unsee. You never really have, until now.
    She didn’t know what she’d expected then. Jesse to stand there until she applauded or laughed or, far more likely, threw herself at all that male perfection? Or perhaps she’d thought he’d take his bachelor auction experience to the next level and put on a little show for her—a little bump and grind, maybe, until she found a few dollar bills to toss his way? Or make some kind of unambiguous move on her—not that sudden and unnecessary nudity was in any way subtle—so she could deal with that out in the open, once and for all?
    ‘ Deal with that’ meaning decline, of course, she’d snapped at herself, more than once, and sharper each time. You’re not touching this man. No way in hell.
    Why not? She had thrown right back at herself. Also more than once, and gaining in internal volume with each rendition. Are you in an open relationship or not? If you are, the whole point is that you can touch this man or any man as much as you want, whenever you want.
    She’d cut that nonsense off, too, because it didn’t bear thinking about.
    And naturally, Jesse had done none of those things.
    Michaela had sat there on the edge of the bed, frozen into place while her entire body burst into a tower of flame, which she’d been certain he could see right there on her burning cheeks. But even if he had, Jesse had ignored her.
    Completely.
    As if nudity was so normal—his nudity in front of other people, that was, and for all she knew that was his favorite party trick—that it hardly impressed itself on him at all. And certainly caused him no shame.
    He’d gone over to his duffel bag and rummaged around in it, as if unaware he was giving her an eyeful as he leaned down and fished out what looked like a leather toiletry bag. He’d vanished back into the bathroom for a while and when he’d come back out, had slapped off the light and the fan, leaving only Michaela’s heightened awareness of him humming