“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Nothing. You?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
Her heart filled with love and longing. She’d only just met him and already she mourned the eventual loss she’d face. Maybe falling into bed with him hadn’t been such a good idea.
As he wrapped an arm across her belly, she swallowed back all the questions she wanted to ask him. He hadn’t promised her anything more than a night of pleasure, so she really had no hold over him. She sighed and prayed she wouldn’t lose her heart to him.
* * *
Jack tossed and turned well into the night. Guilt ate at his soul. Sasha wasn’t a one-night stand kind of woman. She was wife material and he wasn’t looking for a commitment. In fact, the very thought of being tied down to another person sent him into heart palpitations.
He slipped out of bed and padded into the en suite. After splashing cold water onto his face, he stared at his reflection. What was he doing? He’d never met someone as sweet, kind, and loving as Sasha. And she was sexy as hell too. The perfect package for someone who wanted a white picket fence and a den full of fur-ball babies. She deserved a man who could settle down and enjoy a sedentary lifestyle. They were opposites in every way that counted, but damn if she wasn’t a sultry goddess in bed.
As he brushed his hands across the stubble on his cheeks, he heard a sound from the bedroom. He reluctantly headed back into the room. Sasha stretched like a cat. Her curvaceous hips rolled to one side as she turned to face him. A thin length of sheet covered her waist, leaving her exposed. With each step, he battled the temptation to climb into bed with her and make love to her again.
“Hey, sexy,” she said.
“Hey.”
“Come back to bed.” She ran her hand across the empty space in the bed beside her.
Instead of accepting her invitation, he sat on the edge of the bed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“It sure seems like something’s wrong,” she said. “Come cuddle with me.”
Against his better judgment, he listen to his bear’s growled demands and crawled into bed with her. After she’d settled her back against him, she wrapped his arms around her chest. Spooning with her ripped a hole in his resolve. God, what he wouldn’t give to be able to shut his brain off for five minutes.
“Talk to me,” she murmured.
“I’m not a forever guy.”
“A what?”
“A guy who wants to live in the same house with the same woman year after year,” he said.
She tensed in his arms.
“I’m a one-night stand, wham-bam, thank you ma’am, kind of guy.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said.
“You hardly know me,” he said.
“True, but I know enough to know that you’ve got a heart. The kind of guy you think you are wouldn’t be here right now. He would have already snuck out of the room.”
“Maybe I was about to do that when you woke up.”
“No,” she said. “You were coming back to bed. Besides, this is your room. If anyone should be fleeing, it should be me.”
He smiled and pressed his face into her hair. What a woman. Maybe one day he’d get old and lose his wanderlust. If that ever happened, he could see himself with someone like her.
“Wonder how I knew you weren’t leaving?” she asked.
“I’m mildly curious,” he said.
“You were still naked.”
“Maybe I was coming back to get my clothes.”
“Nope. You would have scooped them up and hightailed it out of here before I had a chance to wake up.”
“It sounds like you have some experience with the love it and leave it type,” he said.
“When I was younger, I wasn’t very good at reading men,” she said. “I’d meet guys who knew how to say exactly the right things to get me into bed, and then I’d wake up wondering where they’d run off to the next morning.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“I learned something else too,” she said.
“Oh?”
“I learned that sometimes it’s okay to spend a short amount of time with someone. Sometimes that’s all you’ll have, and that’s fine as long as you know when going into it.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond.
“We only have one week together, right?” she asked as she rolled to face him.
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t we just enjoy it for what it is and not worry about forever.”
He searched her face for any signs of disappointment or regret, but found none. Maybe she was a practical woman who knew exactly what she wanted. That was one hell of a refreshing change.