She woke up slowly—first recognizing that she was unusually warm and cozy, then feeling a big, solid body beside her, then realizing that the skin of her cheek was clinging hotly to someone else’s skin, and finally hearing the slow breathing of the man beside her.

Greg. It was Greg beside her. She’d slept with him all night and was still snuggled up against his side.

He was still asleep. Victoria had never seen him asleep before so she opened her eyes and lifted her head.

His face looked younger with his features relaxed from sleep and the shadow of the dark growth of the beginnings of a beard was more obvious than usual. He needed to shave. And his dark eyelashes looked oddly fragile against the skin under his eyes.

She was just about to peek under the sheet to see if he had a morning hard-on when he opened his eyes and caught her.

“Good morning,” she said, covering quickly by pretending she was tucking the sheet more securely around his chest.

“Hi.” He gave her a perplexed smile. “What were you doing?”

“Nothing,” she lied. Looking desperately for a distraction, she asked, “What time is it anyway?”

When she saw the time, her focus shifted dramatically.

“Shit!” She jumped out of bed, conscious that she was naked except for her little satin panties. Her body wasn’t bad—curvier than she would have preferred but certainly nothing to sneer at. But she wasn’t used to parading around without any clothes on. Ignoring the flicker of self-consciousness, she said, “I’m late. I have to teach a class at eight o’clock.”

Greg looked lazily over at the clock. “Wow. Is it already seven-forty? I must have slept like the dead.”

“Me too.” Frantically trying to rehearse the time remaining, Victoria realized she’d have no time for a shower. It would take almost fifteen minutes to get over to the university, which left her five minutes to get dressed. “Damn it. We should have set the alarm.”

“Sorry about that. What class do you have to teach at eight?”

Victoria flung back the sheet, grabbing at her bra when she found it. “A library class,” she explained impatiently, clumsily trying to fasten the hooks on her bra. “On how to use the library.”

Greg looked genuinely curious. “You mean they don’t know?”

She’d found her blouse on the floor and was buttoning it as quickly as she could. “Most freshmen are clueless. They don’t even know how to find books—much less periodicals and academic journals and—” She broke off as she stepped into her straight skirt and zipped it up.

She still had her stockings on, so she wouldn’t have to mess with those. She ran over to the mirror and gave a shocked squeak at what she saw. “Help! Why didn’t you tell me I looked so horrible?” Her mascara had smudged a little, one of her cheeks was bright red from being pressed up against Greg all night, and her hair was a disaster.

“I thought you looked pretty good.”

She snorted, almost choking as she splashed water onto her face. “That’s either an outrageous lie or else a sign of some perverse impulse men have to see their women looking well-fucked and exhausted.”

She bit her lip as she dried her face, glad she was out of sight of the bed. She hadn’t meant to say “their women” as if she were implying she was his woman.

She checked her face again, not having the time to spare to beat herself up for such a minor slip. One side of her face was still redder than the other, but that would hopefully fade in a few minutes. Her face was scrubbed clean, but it was better than before.

She scrambled over to her purse, which she’d dropped on the floor in their frantic stumble toward the bed last night. As she grabbed a comb, Greg said, “Nothing perverse about it.”

“What?” She glanced over at him distractedly as she tugged the comb through her tangled hair.

“Enjoying the sight of my woman well-fucked,” he explained.

Her mouth dropped open ,and she stared at him, almost diverted from her urgent rush to get dressed.

He looked rather well-fucked himself—lazy and content, stretched out on the bed, with rumpled dark hair and that delicious five-o’clock-shadow. Victoria had to fight the urge to crawl back in bed with him.

“What?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion. Clearly he didn’t place any of the significance that she had on the “his woman” thing.

“Nothing,” she bit out, taking her long blonde hair and knotting it up in a sloppy chignon. She took her wire-framed glasses out of the case in her purse and put them on. Then studied herself in the mirror as she pulled on the jacket to her suit. “How do I look?”

“Like a librarian,” Greg said with a smile. “Like a librarian who has just been tumbled in the back room.”

She scowled at him.

“And you should probably put on your shoes,” he added.

***

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