Love's Gamble by Theodora Taylor

sent Tomas home and arranged for the hotel room, his intentions had been honorable—sort of. Let Pru sleep off the night’s excesses, then continue the party in the morning.
    After the night they’d had, he’d doubted Pru would have much more energy than what it would take to climb into bed. He hadn’t counted on her propositioning him, or making it so hard for him to turn her down.
    But he did it. He ended the kiss before it got out of control.
    “Not tonight,” he told her, bringing his hand up from her breast and using it to cup her face instead. She was still beautiful, he couldn’t help but notice, even with her eye makeup all smudged and her long curly hair looking less than perfect.
    “Tomorrow, I’ll make you feel good, give you everything you want, I promise. Just wait until morning, sweetheart. We’ll spend the whole day in bed.”
    She smiled at him, her eyes hooded with desire. “That sounds really nice,” she said. “I wish I could.”
    “Why can’t you?” he asked. “Whatever you’ve got planned, cancel it. We’ll keep the party going, just like you said.”
    “I wish we could keep the party going forever,” she whispered. Then her smile turned sad. “But we can’t. I won’t be here tomorrow morning. If you want me, this is your last chance, your only chance.”
    Max had frowned the night before, not understanding. But instead of answering his follow-up questions, Prudence had turned over and fallen asleep without any further discussion. Leaving Max to sleep on the couch because he didn’t trust himself to occupy the same bed as Pru or her naked, nubile body.
    He’d taken a cold shower before going to sleep. Then another one after waking up from an erotic dream involving him stripping Pru out of a real wedding dress and taking her from behind before the dress had even hit the floor.
    He’d taken the second shower in the hopes of calming himself down a bit before he woke Pru up to fulfill the promise he’d made her the previous night. He didn’t want their first time together to be over in a few blazing minutes.
    But when he came out of the shower, it hadn’t been necessary to rouse his sleeping bride, because she was already awake. With her long hair in a tangle of curls, and naked, she looked every bit as enticing as she had the night before.
    She stared at him in his towel, her dark brown eyes lighting with appreciation, which had given him momentary hope that what Pru had said last night hadn’t been a case of drunken gibberish.
    But then a look of horror had overtaken her face as she covered her breasts with the duvet and demanded to know what had happened last night. Her face accusing, as if he hadn’t used every weapon in his willpower arsenal to keep his hands off her.
    That was when he understood exactly what Pru had meant the night before. Wedding Night Pru, the woman who’d met every challenge he’d put to her, the woman who had posed and laughed and talked and danced with him all night, the woman who had kissed him as he’d never been kissed before—she was gone.
    Gone and replaced with the tight-faced would-be detective currently clutching the duvet as if he’d done something indefensible to her.
    “Don’t worry, sweetheart. If we had hooked up last night, you’d have no doubt about what had happened, because you would be feeling it this morning. All over your body.”
    His words hit their mark, and even though Pru’s face was too dark to show a blush, he got to enjoy the show of her looking away from him, obviously flustered.
    But his enjoyment was brought up short when she said, “I have to go. I have to get home.”
    “Why?” he asked. “Your brother’s at camp. What else do you have to do today?”
    She turned on him, her eyes sharp. “How did you know my brother was at camp?” she asked.
    He gave her a lazy shrug and took a seat on the suite’s dark gray couch. “I guess the same way you knew to look for me at the club in New Orleans.