Wild Nights by Jaci Burton

into her heart and screw everything up. No man was going to make her start thinking about how lonely she’d been all these years and how nice it was not to wake up alone. No man was going to make her rethink her priorities. Oh no. She so wasn’t going there. She’d been fine on her own since she was eighteen, and she’d continue to be okay without Mike Nottingham.
    She finished rinsing and shut the shower off, grabbed a towel and stepped out, furiously drying herself as if she could somehow erase every trace of his touch from her body.
    Okay, so maybe she’d blown all of this out of proportion. Mike was a great fuck and he wasn’t the first or the last of those. He was nothing, really. And she felt nothing out of the ordinary for him. The fact that he was still here meant nothing. A momentary lapse in judgment. A quirk. An anomaly.
    Until the bathroom door opened and he stepped in. All six foot something of him, naked, erect and looking sleepy, his thick, dark hair messy, with a goofy smile on his face and his deep blue eyes staring down at her in a sexy-as-hell manner that made her throat dry up.
    “Mornin’,” he said. “Hope I’m not in your way.”
    “Not at all,” she managed, squeaking by him to finish drying off in her bedroom. Avoidance was good, since she wasn’t prepared for her reaction to him.
    Okay, so maybe she was affected just a bit.
    Or a lot. Like one look at him and her heart was pounding, her pulse was racing and everything feminine in her body was screaming
Let’s repeat last night all over again.
    Yeah, he had to go. Right now.

SIX
    Mike took a quick shower, figuring Grace wouldn’t mind. While in there, he noticed all the little doodads she used to make herself clean and pretty. Lotions and scrubby things and the like. The whole room smelled like her. Her soap, her shampoo, everything about her scent lingered in the expansive tile and glass stall. It made him want to hurry back to her, to bury his nose in her hair, inhale the woman, press his lips to her warm flesh and taste her again. His cock rose and swelled, thick with anticipation.
    He rinsed and dried off, then padded into her bedroom to find her already dressed. He masked his disappointment with a smile.
    So much for morning sex. He wished he’d gotten up before she had. He’d have liked to pull her under him first thing this morning. He’d woken up hard and aching, needing to be inside her again. As if the five times they’d done it last night—damn near all night, in fact—hadn’t been enough.
    And here he was, wandering around with an erection again. He wondered if he’d be forever hard around her.
    She was wearing jeans and a red turtleneck sweater, her hair still damp. She looked fresh and very young without her makeup on. His cock twitched and her gaze drifted from his face to between his legs.
    “Sorry, can’t seem to help that around you.”
    “It’s quite all right. I’d hardly find your erection insulting.”
    Her tight smile was anything but genuine. Something was wrong. He pulled on his jeans and tried to wrestle his unruly dick under control. “Would you like to go out for breakfast?”
    She looked like he’d just asked her to witness open brain surgery. In fact, he was certain there was a green tinge to her face. She actually looked nauseous. “Uh, I can’t. I have appointments. But thanks for asking.”
    He pulled on his shirt and sat on the bed to put on his shoes. “How about lunch?”
    “I’m pretty busy the whole day.”
    She was a really bad liar. “Too bad. Dinner before the club opens tonight?”
    “Oh, I couldn’t possibly. I have to, um, go over supply and liquor orders with the managers before opening tonight. We’re woefully behind on inventory and I don’t want to run out.”
    Uh-huh. He sat up and stared at her. So, this was what getting dumped felt like. A strange and new sensation to be on the receiving end, since he was typically the one with all the excuses why he couldn’t