THE BACHELOR'S BED

by Jill Shalvis

  He hadn't had a friend since, not a real one.

  There had been no emotional attachments for him. He'd wanted nothing to worry about. Nothing to hurt over.

  And now Lani was looking at him with those sweet, caring eyes, the ones that told him she was quickly becoming much more than a temporary situation in his life.

  It scared him. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

  "I would never hurt you, Colin," she whispered. "I'd be careful with your heart."

  "Don't," he said hoarsely, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "I can't do this."

  Something flickered in her expression. Hurt, and even more devastating, disappointment. But she nodded and turned from him.

  She reached for the lock, then hesitated, staring at the closed door for a long moment. "You'll have to try sometime, you know," she said softly to the wood. "You can't hide forever."

  Watch me, he thought, hardening both his mind and his heart before he followed her out.

  * * *

  Lani came to Colin's house that night, her car loaded with ammunition.

  Ammunition to make the house a home.

  She had four more plants, two lovely watercolors painted by a local artist who was a casual friend of hers, and a framed picture of Colin she'd got from one of the recent newspaper articles written on him.

  Her heart was armed, too, with compassion and patience. She hoped it would be enough.

  Colin wasn't home. No surprise. Most likely he was still at his office, attempting to hide from what was happening between them.

  She knew she was doing it again, pretending that this wasn't pretend. She could get seriously hurt that way and she knew it, but somehow she couldn't seem to help herself.

  She couldn't explain it, this strange elation she felt, but for the first time in twenty-odd years, she was prepared to give her heart away. Hell, she was prepared to toss it away, hard and long, straight at Colin.

  She couldn't wait until he was willing to catch it, but she didn't fool herself, she had lots of work ahead of her. Colin was no more ready to accept what was happening between them than she'd been only days before.

  She had come to a rather startling realization. She wanted a real relationship. Not the superficial ones of her past, where she could, and did, walk away before any attachments occurred. She'd been doing that nearly all her life.

  It was far too late to walk away from Colin.

  How he would panic at her thoughts. He'd hate that she was thinking of a future beyond the pretense. What had happened in his marriage to make him so leery?

  How could Lani convince him that it was okay to have loved and lost, but that he had to try again? Convince him that without love his heart would wither and die? That she knew this firsthand, and that together they could help one another?

  While the house was quiet, she spread out the plants and the pictures, attacking the living room first. The other rooms would follow, gradually, and she could hardly imagine how wonderful the house would be when it was homey and warm.

  But for now, she'd start with this room. It was crying out for attention. The floors were bare wood, beautiful but … well, bare. The walls were a sophisticated, cool cream, and also far too stark. The brick fireplace was empty, too, and she had just the picture to hang over it.

  Standing on a stepladder, she climbed high, hammer in hand. A dreamy smile crossed her face. It would be so lovely in the winter, she thought, with a fire blazing. Pretty pictures on the walls, some thick rugs tossed here and there. She and Colin, together, enjoying it.

  Her dreamy smile grew into a full-fledged grin. She couldn't wait.

  Since the stepladder wasn't quite tall enough, she got up on the very tippy top of it, where a bright orange sticker warned her against doing that very thing.

  She stretched with all her might, the hammer precariously balanced in one hand, a nail in the other. She was still grinning, ridiculously happy, anticipating the long, hot night ahead in Colin's arms.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  At the unexpected, angry voice—Colin's voice—Lani jerked.

  And fell.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  It all happened too fast. One moment Colin was staring at Lani and her hammer, the next she was far too still, in a terrifyingly crumpled heap on the floor.

  Colin hit his knees on the stone hearth beside her, his hands cupping her face. "Lani!" Oh, God, she didn't move. "Lani!"

  His heart was in his throat. She was lying too quietly. Quickly, he ran his hands over her body, but he didn't find anything broken.

  Then he discovered the already huge bump on the back of her head, and let out one concise oath. "Lani? Come on, baby. Open your eyes."

  She did, slowly, blinking in confusion and Colin took his first breath since he'd watched her tumble off the ladder.

  "Don't get up," he demanded when she tried to sit. He held her down. "Don't move yet."

  But she shifted, and at the movement her skin went green and pasty. "Nope, you're absolutely right," she said weakly, wincing. "No moving." And she closed her eyes.

  Panic scampered up his spine. "Lani!"

  "Shh." She groaned. "Please, don't … don't talk. My head is going to explode."

  "Okay, that's it. Come on." As gently as he could, he scooped her into his arms.

  Her head lolled against his chest and she moaned softly, lifting her hands to hold it still. "Put me down." Her voice was a thready murmur and Colin clenched his teeth at her obvious pain.

  "We're going to the hospital. I think you have a concussion."

  She blinked at him, clearly disoriented, and his alarm escalated.

  "No hospital."

  "You hit your head too damn hard on the stone hearth. We're going to get it checked out."

  "No." But the protest was feeble, and her color was even worse now, her skin so light it was nearly transparent. "I'm … okay," she whispered. "Really."

  Like hell. "Better safe than sorry. I want to make sure." He strode to the door, the warm, hurting bundle in his arms breaking his heart.

  His fault, dammit.

  "No doctor," she protested. "I told you … I'm fine."

  "Let's prove it."

  "Your mom and aunts … they think I'm cooking dinner while they're getting … manicures."

  He could tell talking was difficult, and her words were slurred, making him walk even faster while trying to keep her cradled against him. "They can fend for themselves." He had her in the foyer now but the summer evening had chilled.

  "They can't cook, Colin."

  She was worried about his family when she should be concentrating on herself. It wasn't a stretch to express his fear for her in anger. "Look, if they can learn to clean toilets, they can cook." Hoisting her closer, he grabbed his denim jacket from the closet with one hand and tried to toss it over her, but she jerked in his arms.

  "Down!"

  "You're going to the hosp—"

  "Colin—" She looked horrified and had gone pea-green. "I'm not fine anymore."

  He'd never felt like this—so full of fear over another human being. "I know, sweetheart, I'm just going to—"

  "Down," she cried, shoving at him until he practically dropped her.

  The hand she held frantically across her mouth finally clued him in and as she stumbled past him into the kitchen, he went after her, wrapping a securing arm around her waist as she leaned into the kitchen sink and threw up.

  "Go away," she told him halfway through, when he was trying to hold back her hair and wipe her forehead and support her all at the same time.

  He didn't, but stayed right with her, fretting, panicking, wondering if an ambulance would be faster. When she was done, she sank to the floor and glared at him.

  He braced himself for recriminations. He deserved it, whatever she said to him. He hunkered down beside her, the better to see into her hurting eyes.

  "How could you call me sweetheart when I'm too sick
to enjoy it?" she demanded, smacking him lightly on the chest.

  He stared at her. "I did not call you that."

  "Yes you did." She leaned against the cupboard and shivered. "I heard it."

  "I— You're mistaken."

  "No." Energy drained, she sighed wearily, a sound that pulled at some elementary core of him.

  He pulled her close to him. "Any better at all?"

  "Some." But she closed her eyes. Her body still shook, small tremors of shock that made him feel ill.

  "How many fingers?" he pressed, holding up two. "Too many." Miserable, she looked at the mess she'd made. "I just cleaned this kitchen." Then, still in his arms, she fainted.

  * * *

  The good news was that Lani's concussion wasn't serious.

  The bad news was that they kept her overnight in the hospital.

  Or maybe that was the good news in disguise, Colin thought grimly, as he showered the next morning. He'd spent a long, miserable night in a chair beside Lani's hospital bed watching her breathe.

  Under different circumstances, she would have been in his arms, beneath him, writhing, sighing … coming.

  Damn. He needed sleep.

  It was really ironic, he decided, yanking a towel around his hips and studying his dark expression in the steamed mirror of his bathroom. Ironic that he hadn't been sure sleeping with Lani was the smart thing to do, and yet now that he'd decided differently, he couldn't manage to arrange it. He was getting a little tired of the constant erection he had going.

  Like some lust-struck teen, he was mooning over a woman who had put her life on hold just to help him out. Her smile lit up his day and made him smile helplessly back. One affectionate touch from her could make his heart soar.

  Truth was, he thought about her all the time when he was supposed to be concentrating on his project.

  She made him laugh, made him think, made him want to please her, and in return he'd given her nothing but heartache and trouble.

  He'd yelled at her, dammit. She'd been trying to warm up his house with her world, and he'd yelled at her.

  She was going to be okay.

  Gripping the edge of the sink, he bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. She was going to be fine, she could come home this morning. The doctor had said so, both hers and the one he'd hired for a second opinion.

  He closed his weary eyes, but then he had to relive in slow motion the sight of Lani falling, her huge eyes wide in terror, before her head cracked against the stone hearth.

  In that first moment of horror for Colin, when she lay still, pale and unresponsive, he'd thought that if anything happened to her, he would die.

  Then her eyes had flickered open.

  He didn't want to go through anything like that ever again. Lani didn't remember the fall, but the doctor had assured them both that was normal.

  Normal.

  His Lani wasn't a normal woman, she was bright and sunny and almost painfully easy to love.

  Love.

  That had been his first, instinctive thought, and it was enough to have his blood pressure rocketing. He didn't love her, he couldn't love her. Couldn't love anyone.

  He repeated this to himself as he raced through dressing. Then he broke three national speed records to get back to the hospital before Lani awoke and found herself alone.

  But he didn't love her.

  * * *

  Lani wasn't sleeping and she wasn't alone. She had both Lola and Bessie by her side telling her stories of Colin as a child.

  They were wonderful, warm women, and hearing about Colin was heartwarming, but Lani could neither smile nor laugh. Her head throbbed. She was queasy, dizzy and tired.

  And she wanted Colin.

  Can't always have what you want, she told herself firmly, and forced her attention back to Colin's aunts. They were talking about the time Colin had taken apart the engine on his father's brand new BMW Sedan.

  Colin had been twelve at the time.

  She knew how smart he was and how precocious a child he must have been. She also knew how much his family loved him and wanted him to be happy.

  Which was why, of course, they were doing their best to entertain her. She could tell they didn't quite understand what she saw in Colin, but they were grateful and relieved that she saw something. Since loyalty was everything to Lani, it endeared them to her.

  "I'm going to be okay, you know," she told them. "You don't have to be here."

  "Oh, honey. We want to be," Bessie said.

  But both Bessie and Lola glanced for the hundredth time at the hospital door, and it made Lani smile even as tears burned her eyes. "I know what you're doing."

  They tried to look innocent. "We're just watching over you," Lola said casually.

  "You're afraid if you don't stay and guard things, namely me, that I'll leave Colin."

  Their guilty faces said it all.

  "I made a promise," she told them. "And to me, promises are sacred." They didn't have to know that the promise wasn't to love and cherish, but to lie.

  Closing her eyes didn't shake the strange sense of melancholy, not when she kept reliving that moment just before her fall. The one she'd told Colin and the doctor she couldn't remember.

  What the hell are you doing? Colin had demanded, the anger in his voice unmistakable.

  She really was an idiot. A sentimental one, but an idiot all the same. How could she have thought he'd appreciate what she'd been trying to do to the house? His house.

  Obviously he was so angry with her that he couldn't stand to see her. She'd been half out of it when he'd first brought her to the hospital and asleep by the time X rays had been finished. She'd slept fitfully all night in her darkened room, awakened every few hours by a nurse asking one silly question after another. She hadn't even bothered to open her eyes, but she hadn't heard Colin, not once.

  It was morning now and still no sight of him.

  Oh, yeah, she'd definitely blown it.

  "The doctor said you're going to be fine enough to enjoy your engagement party," Bessie said now, quietly, "but if you don't think you'll be up to it, we'll understand."

  They were so looking forward to it. And secretly, she had been, too. She may have had intimacy issues, but she was only human. A very female human at that. She had fantasies about her wedding, her real wedding, with a flowing white dress, a beautiful cake, an exotic honeymoon.

  A huge, elaborate engagement party sounded so thrilling. If only it were real. "I'll be fine."

  "Oh, good, because we're so excited. Look, I brought you something to read," Lola said, handing her a brightly colored bag. Lani pulled out a book with a red satin ribbon tied around it. "How to Sexually Please a Man So That He'll Never Leave You?"

  Bessie gasped. "Lola! That's … that's pornography!"

  "Not porn," Lola corrected with a dignified sniff. "Erotica." She exploded into giggles. "And it's very interesting reading, I'll have you know."

  Lani flipped through the illustrations. "Wow!" They were graphic and definitely designed to titillate. She tipped her head to study a particularly interesting full-page photo. "Just … wow!"

  Both sisters crowded close to see over her shoulder.

  "Thought you might find something useful in there." Lola grinned. "Look at that. He's awfully good."

  "Honestly, Lola." Bessie shook her head. "What's the sense in being a closet erotica reader if you're going to tell everyone?"

  "Hey, I didn't tell her we read the book already." Lola blushed and bit her lip. "Oops."

  Lani smiled around the pounding behind her eyes. "Thank you." She was surprised to find herself close to tears. "It means so much to me that you'd share."

  "Oh, honey." Equally touched, Bessie smiled with suspiciously bright eyes.

  Lola wasn't quite as sentimental, but she cared, too, and Lani knew it.

  Lani fell asleep soon after, holding the book close to her heart.

  * * *

  When Colin came in a short time later, his
aunts had been kicked out by the nurse. Lani was asleep, her expression tight from pain, her skin far too pale.

  Fear stabbed him, even though her doctor had just signed her release. He whispered her name softly, not wanting to disturb her if she was sleeping deeply. She didn't budge. Gently, he touched her hand, the one holding a book close to her chest.

  He took one look at the title and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "How to Sexually Please a Man?"

  Lani's eyes flew open. "Colin!" She slipped the book under her blanket and tried to look casual.

  "Interesting reading material."

  She blushed wildly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Uh-huh." He tugged at her blanket until it came free. In her hands was the incriminating evidence.

  Caught, she lifted her chin. "Your aunts gave it to me."

  He started to laugh, then realized she was serious. "You're not kidding?"

  "No."

  He opened the book, and his eyes widened at some of the wilder illustrations. He pictured Lani reading it, getting ideas, and became aroused just at the thought. Slowly, he handed the book back to her.

  Her eyes were shiny and aware and … hot. Very hot.

  "You've read it," he said, his voice gravelly with the desire that never seemed to be far beneath the surface around her.

  "A little," she admitted, dropping her gaze. "I wanted to know if it was true."

  "If what was true?"

  "If I sexually pleased you, would you never be able to leave? Or to ask me to?"

  He stared at her. "I don't think you feel good enough for this conversation. You're pale and shaky. The doctor said—"

  "Chicken."

  "All right, fine." He didn't hedge, couldn't, not while pinned by the heat in her eyes. Rising from the uncomfortable chair where he'd spent the night, he sank to her bed, put a hand on either side of her hips. "I think you know that you sexually please me, Lani. In fact, we're so hot together, I'm surprised we haven't spontaneously combusted."