Wild Nights by Jaci Burton Page A

see a woman again.
    Grace was giving him the brush-off. Clearly doing her level best to let him down easy.
    Didn’t it just figure? He’d found a woman he enjoyed and really wanted to see again. A woman he could actually see himself with—whether on a permanent basis, it was too early to tell, but he wanted to see her beyond just sex. He wanted to date her, to have mealstogether, take in the sights, go to the movies, just spend time with her. He wanted to see where things went.
    And she didn’t want to give him the goddamn time of day.
    “I’d better get out of here, then, and let you start your day.” He walked toward her, brushed her cheeks with a soft kiss, and grasped her arms to pull her close. “Thank you for last night,” he whispered in her ear.
    Her gaze darted up to his, her eyes so beautiful she took his breath away. The wariness in them intrigued him.
    “You’re welcome. I enjoyed it.”
    He wanted to stay, to kiss those incredibly kissable lips of hers. He wanted to convince her, to make her change her mind. But he didn’t. He wasn’t stupid. He turned away and walked to the elevator, pressed the button and, without a word, let himself out the door.
    He wasn’t about to give up though. Mike had glimpsed something in Grace’s eyes—fear. Something about him scared her, and maybe that was a bad thing. But maybe that was a good thing, because he hadn’t actually done anything to frighten her. If her fear was because she felt something between them, then that was definitely a good thing.
    Still, it rankled that she’d hustled him out the door. He was always the one who ended things with a woman. Okay, he had a little finesse. He didn’t intentionally set out to hurt a woman’s feelings, and typically he let them know from the start that he had no desire for a relationship beyond one night or two, that he wasn’t a settling down kind of guy. And if they didn’t buy into it, if a woman thought she would change him or could prolong the attachment longer than he was interested in, then they got dumped in a hurry and he did it in a cold and heartless way. Because he was honest and there was no sense dragging out the inevitable.
    Is that what Grace was doing? Cutting things off clean and quick so she didn’t hurt his feelings? Making sure she didn’t lead him on?
    It felt shitty. Hell of a time for a rousing case of gut-wrenching empathy for all the women he’d done the same thing to.
    Nevertheless, he knew the difference between someone who wasn’t interested and someone who was.
    Grace was interested. There was fire between them. Fire enough to give it one more shot, anyway. He wasn’t a dumbass and he sure as hell wasn’t a stalker. If she balked again and showed him the door, if she sent out clear signals that there was no chemistry between them, then he’d grab a clue and hightail it out of there.
    But until then, he wasn’t about to give up. Not when there was something he wanted.
    And what he wanted was Grace.
    So he needed a plan. And that meant he wasn’t going to go back to the club tonight. He didn’t want Grace to feel pressured. He’d wait until tomorrow night.
    Mike returned to his hotel and made a few business calls, did some paperwork, then called Denver. He spent the afternoon and into the night hanging out with Denver at one of the casinos, losing more money at gambling than he really wanted to. But he wasn’t focused, his thoughts centered more on Grace than on the cards in front of him.
    “You’re usually better at this,” Den said when Mike lost yet another hand at blackjack. “In fact, you’re typically pretty damn good. Right now you suck donkey dick.”
    Mike pushed back from the table and Den followed him to the bar. “Not my lucky day, I guess.” He hoped his run of bad luck didn’t continue, and he didn’t mean at cards.
    When the waitress brought them drinks, Den took a long swallow and squinted. “You went to Wild Nights last night. How did that