Borrowing a Bachelor

She hesitated, then nodded. “A bourbon and Coke, please.”

He made two of them and handed one to her when she came out. “Cheers.”

“Thanks.” She took a deep gulp. “How’s your nose?”

“Fine. How are your mosquito bites?” He grinned.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Fine.”

“Nikki, where did you ever get the idea that you’re fat?” he asked abruptly.

She tugged at the robe around her body and hugged herself with her free arm. She took another long swallow of her drink. “Oh, you know.” She shrugged.

“No, I don’t know. You have a smokin’ body.”

“I was a really chubby kid,” she blurted. “They used to call me—” She took another swallow of the bourbon and Coke, effectively finishing it off. “Never mind.”

Adam took the cup from her and went to the minibar to make her another. “What did they call you?”

She picked up a guide to local attractions and thumbed through it without seeming to see anything inside.

He didn’t know why he cared, but he did. “Nikki?”

“Chubba Bubba,” she said, snapping the magazine closed. She shrugged again. “Stupid, huh? Really dumb that I still think about it now, at age twenty-four. But I guess it’s still a sore spot.”

“It’s not stupid,” Adam said. He gave her the second drink. “Kids can be incredibly mean.”

“You have no idea,” she said, taking another big gulp.

He almost advised her to take it easy, but he’d already offended her once and was unwilling to repeat the offense. “Oh, I do have a good idea. I got picked on a lot in junior high.”

“Really? Why?”

He shrugged. “I was a small, nerdy kid with glasses and braces and a bad case of acne.”

Surprise crossed her face. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“But you’re gorgeous,” she blurted. Then blushed. Then gulped more of her drink.

It was his turn to blush. He felt color searing his face. He’d filled out, gone to a dermatologist and lost the braces by his sophomore year in high school. “Uh, thanks, I guess.” He covered his discomfort by burying his nose in his own drink.

“I embarrassed you,” Nikki said. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, I laughed at your backside,” Adam said. “So I guess we’re even, huh?”

She dimpled and leaned forward to set down her cup on the cocktail table. Her robe gaped open as she did so, and his gaze fell straight to her spectacular breasts—what his buddy Devon would call her “luscious golden Winnebagos.” The idiot.

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was temporary insanity. Or maybe—

“I’d never, ever make fun of your front side,” Adam croaked, as she noticed where his gaze was fixated.

She instantly put her hands up to tug the edges of the robe together.

“Please don’t,” he asked softly.

She froze.

He tried a smile. “They’re so beautiful. Like the rest of you.”

She swallowed, hesitating. Then, blushing furiously again, she tugged the lapels of the robe open. And then, to his stunned disbelief, she removed the pasties on her nipples and let her breasts spill out to greet him.

The air went out of him so fast that his lungs almost collapsed. His mouth gaped open like a grouper’s.

D cups. Perfect, high and round and cherry-capped. Fair? No, this was incredibly unfair. Because Adam wanted to touch them in the worst way. His palms itched, he wanted them so badly. He was afraid he was going to start panting like a dog. He was crazy; he shouldn’t have brought her here. He needed to be studying for the exam on Monday. Where was his legendary hard-won focus?

“Are you okay?” Nikki asked. “Because you have a very peculiar expression on your face.”

He groaned. His woody was back with a vengeance.

“Adam?”

“Look,” he said. “Nikki, don’t take this the wrong way…but the expression on my face is lust, pure and simple. The fact is, sweetheart, that I’d like to fu—uh, screw you into next Friday.”

5

NIKKI CHOKED. “OH!” she said once she could manage the words. A tingle spread down her spine and intensified between her legs.

“Er,” Adam responded sheepishly, looking as if he couldn’t quite believe the words had come out of his mouth. “Sorry. That was probably a little uncensored.”

“Yeah…but I liked it.” She smiled at him.

“Did you?” He stared at her intently and then upended his drink as she nodded.

Adam set down the cup, ditto the ice pack, and got to his feet. He wiped his hands on his jeans as he crossed the carpet to where she sat; her nerves grew taut and the tingle between her legs intensified. She stopped breathing as he came to a stop in front of her.

“May I?”

Clearly, he wanted to kiss her. Nikki tilted back her head to look up at him and examined that chiseled, beautiful mouth of his. It was firm and masculine, but also sensual. His lips weren’t full, but she liked the lines of them, the way they curved, the way they smiled. She imagined how those curves would fit to her own lips, fantasized about how they would feel against hers.

He bent his head, gazed into her eyes. Would he put a finger under her chin to tilt her head back? Would he take her whole face into his hands? She waited in anticipation.

But she was wrong. Adam didn’t kiss her. She gasped as instead his fingers grazed her breasts. His hands were cold from the drink and the ice, but since the rest of her was inexplicably hot, the sensation was erotic.

He lifted her breasts and held them as if they were precious, then rubbed his thumbs slowly over the nipples.

She forgot all about kissing. A moan escaped her and she pushed them farther into his hands, a wordless request for more.