Wild Nights

by Jaci Burton

  “I’m coming,” she whispered, tightening her legs around him.

  He gripped her ass and pulled harder, trying to crawl deeper inside her as she catapulted into her orgasm, her eyes widening. She screamed, her mouth wide open as she let loose the most beautiful cries he’d ever heard. He couldn’t hold back then as an orgasm ripped from his spine and carried him along with her, emptying him from the inside out with shuddering, groaning pulses that poured out in waves of pounding pleasure.

  He lifted the top half of his body off her, certain she couldn’t breathe. She’d closed her eyes and lay there, panting. When she swept her lids open and smiled at him, he felt such relief he couldn’t fathom it.

  He held her for a while, stroking her, unable to get enough of the silken feel of her skin against his hands or the unique scent of her. He closed his eyes and breathed her in while they lay there together. She stayed quiet and seemed content to let him explore her arms, her ribcage, the soft swell of her hip and thigh. Her breathing was deep and even and he was going to enjoy savoring this while he could.

  Finally he rolled off and stepped into the bathroom, turning on the light and dragging his hand through his hair as he looked at himself in the mirror. He shook his head, pondering the change in him.

  Different. It had been different with Grace. And that’s all he wanted to think about right now. Anything else would have to wait.

  He finished up and shut the light off, then crawled back into bed, pulling her toward him so her back was against his chest. Her deep, rhythmic breathing told him she was utterly relaxed. He ran his hand along her arm, her hip, then back up her ribs to cup her breast. He traced her nipple with his thumb, smiling when it hardened.

  “Surely you couldn’t possibly have any energy left,” she said.

  “You’d be surprised.” He could fuck her all night. Being inside her had felt perfect. And it had energized him. Sex was rarely exhausting.

  “You’ve done all the work. You should be tired.”

  He laughed. “Are you tired?”

  She flipped over to face him and slid her hand around his rapidly hardening cock. “Is that a challenge?”

  “It might be.”

  With a gentle push, he was on his back and she was on top of him, straddling him. Now there was a beautiful sight. Small, upturned breasts glowing in the light filtering in from the windows, her body bathed in the pink afterglow of their lovemaking, her lips puffy from his kisses and her hair messy and tousled from his hands in it.

  He was fully hard now and she rocked against his erection with a devilish smile.

  “I hope you can go without sleep then, Mike, because I never back down from a challenge.”

  * * *

  At six a.m. Grace rolled over with a groan and cursed the red lights on her clock, wishing she could turn back time about nine or ten hours. Because that’s when her bad decision-making had begun.

  And it hadn’t ended, because Mike was still in her bed. She flipped over and stared at his sleeping form, as alien to her as if she’d found a little green man from Mars sleeping next to her this morning.

  She shook her head and crept out of bed, slipping into the bathroom as quietly as she could. She needed a shower and some time alone to think. Flipping on the faucet, she stepped inside the stall and let the steamy hot water pour over her head.

  What had she done? Where had her mind gone, besides totally insane?

  Men did not spend the night with her. Ever. Even men she knew. There was sex, and then they were gone. Grace slept alone, every single night. She always had.

  Last night was the first time she’d slept with a man at her side, in her bed. She’d woken this morning snuggled against Mike, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

  The worst thing about it was, it had felt like waking in heaven. She’d felt safe and protected.

  And she’d never been so terrified. She’d been so careful with her life, keeping barriers between her professional life and personal one. When she occasionally chose men for sex play, she rarely brought them upstairs to her private quarters, and never, ever let someone into her bedroom.

  Not to mention waking up in a man’s arms.

  Last night she’d broken every single one of her personal no-nos.

  So why now and why with Mike Nottingham? What made him so different, so special, that she’d done every single thing she swore she’d never do?

  She grabbed her shampoo and washed her hair, trying to reason it out while she scrubbed. Something happened that had never happened before—she’d lost control. She was always in charge of the night, of the situation, of the sex—everything. And last night Mike had taken over, and she had let him. Worse, she’d enjoyed letting him.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she rinsed shampoo from her hair, then applied conditioner and let it sit while she soaped her body and shaved her legs, pondering her dilemma. The problem with Mike was he was so different from the other men she knew. The ballsy braggarts, the ones who claimed they could take her to heaven and back and fuck her like she’d never been fucked before…those guys she could deal with because she was used to them. Someone like Mike—quiet, unassuming, but who really did take her to heaven and back by giving her the best sex of her life—and not by fucking her brains out, but by honest to God great lovemaking—he scared the beejeebers out of her.

  Because she could care about a guy like him. A genuine, honest, sexy, dominant, alpha, hardworking, gorgeous, real man. There didn’t seem to be anything phony about him. He was what he was, he made her feel magical, and just thinking about him made her toes curl, her nipples tighten and her pussy quiver.

  God almighty, she had to get him out of her house in a hurry. Too much was at stake. Wild Nights was her baby, her life, everything she’d worked her ass off for. No man was going to insinuate his way 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.
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  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 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 meals together, 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 go?”

  “Good.” Mike downed his whiskey in two short gulps and signaled the waitress for another.

  “Good. That’s all you’re going to tell me? Details, man,” Den said, laughing. “I need more than that.”

  Mike stared into his empty glass. “Nothing much to tell, really.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Mike looked up. “Didn’t what?”

  “Last night. At the club. You fucked Grace, didn’t you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Don’t give me that coy shit. That’s something a woman would say. Tell me.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Christ, Mike, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

  What the fuck was wrong with him? He and Denver had shared more than just talk about women. They’d shared women. And Mike never cared before whether he kissed and told. So why was he being so close-lipped about Grace?

  He laid his head in his hands. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.”

  “PMS?” Den offered.

  Mike snorted. “Funny.”

  “She got to you, didn’t she?”

  He thought about denial. He was the poster boy for denial, he was so good at it. But maybe it was time to stop running from emotions. Maybe that’s why he was so dissatisfied with his life. “Yeah, she got to me.”

  “Did you fuck her?”

  “No. I made love to her.”

  “Jesus Christ. It’s even worse than I thought.”

  He smiled and raised his head, looked at Den. “She’s something special.”

  “She’s just another pussy, Mike.”

  Had he ever been that much of an asshole? Yeah, he had. He’d never cared before. Women had meant nothing to him but a good fuck. He couldn’t be mad at Den for acting like Den—hell, for saying the same thing he might have said yesterday. One night with Grace and suddenly he’d developed a conscience. Why?

  “She just felt different to me.”

  Den shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. They all feel the same to me.”

  “I can’t explain it.”

  “And how does Grace feel about all this?”

  Mike allowed a half smile as the waitress brought their drinks. He stared at the amber liquid. “She pretty much tossed me out on my ass as soon as daylight
hit.”

  Den let out a loud laugh. “Payback is hell, isn’t it, buddy?”

  Mike nodded, then arched his brow. “Fuck you. Your day will come.”

  Den downed his drink, then slammed it on the table and signaled the waitress. He winked at Mike. “To end up like you? Mooning over a woman like a lovesick cow? I think I’d rather hang up my dick.”

  Mike snorted. “Famous last words.”

  Leaning back and grabbing a handful of peanuts, Den asked, “So now that she’s given you the boot, what’s the plan?” He popped the peanuts into his mouth.

  “I’ll go back tomorrow, feel her out.”

  “Want me to come?”

  Mike shrugged. “That’s up to you.”

  “I’ve been going to Wild Nights for a couple years now. I know Grace pretty well. Maybe I can help.”

  Reinforcements couldn’t hurt. Then again, maybe it would. At this point he really didn’t know how this was going to play out, but he was willing to use any means necessary to get another chance to explore his relationship with Grace.

  Relationship. A foreign, typically unwelcome word in his vocabulary. He almost laughed out loud.

  Goddamn, his perspective sure had changed a lot in the past twenty-four hours.

  * * *

  There was no doubt about it. Grace was pissed. The emotion shocked her so much she almost laughed out loud. But since she was knee-deep in clients at the moment, that wasn’t a good idea.

  She had no right to be upset. She’d gotten exactly what she wanted. Though she hadn’t come right out and said the words, she’d pretty much delivered Mike an A-number-one, obvious-as-hell brush-off this morning. She’d turned down his offers of breakfast, lunch and dinner, and all but shoved him into the elevator with her foot on his ass.

  Could she have been more rude? The cold chill of fear had turned her into an icy bitch, and her normal manners had flown right out the window. She’d been abrupt and ill-mannered and she’d spent the entire day feeling awful about how she’d treated him. He’d shown her a wonderful time last night and he hadn’t deserved her behavior.