Where am I? Lucy wondered, a slight flare of panic beginning to rise as she struggled up in the unfamiliar bed.

Then as the most vicious headache she’d ever experienced hit her, along with a healthy dose of nausea, she fell back on the mattress.

“Oh, nee. Slecht!” she moaned, reverting back to the language of her birth. She brought her knees up underneath a heavy quilt that had been draped across her. She clutched her head in between shaking hands, closed her eyes and tried to make the room stop spinning. “Slecht! Wat heb ik gedaan…?”

She frowned. Was she wearing…? One hand still on her throbbing head she snaked the other one to the edge of the blanket, lifted and squinted. Yes, she was wearing what looked like men’s sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. Lifting the collar of the shirt, she peered down the front. Her eyes flared at the sight of her naked breasts. No bra! And she could already tell she wasn’t wearing any panties. She moaned and began muttering again.

A deep, masculine chuckle drew her attention and she brought her head up in a sharp arc that nearly made her vomit. When the vicious pain behind her eyeballs subsided enough, she was able to make out Mack Hudson standing in the doorway of… where was she anyway? Lucy clutched the blanket against her chest and scooted up the bed until her back met a headboard.

“Can’t even face the day in English?” he asked, amusement lacing his voice while his gaze crawled over her disheveled hair and face. She didn’t know how it was possible, given that she must have a decided green tint about her complexion and she was pretty sure her hair was plastered to one side of her head, but the gleam in his eye told her he was thinking decidedly sinful thoughts.

“Uuuummm…” Lucy’s voice trailed off and she picked at the comforter for a moment while her pain-hazed brain tried to kick her butt into gear. “So, did I actually offer to, uh…”

Mack shifted against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his biceps bulging in front of him. He lifted an eyebrow and just watched her, clearly not willing to help her out of a horrifically embarrassing situation. But she needed to know how bad it was. Like if she needed to get a new identity and move to a new continent immediately or if another state would do it.

“Uh, offer to um, to…” she trailed off again.

“Practice the art of blowjobs on me because you’d never given one before and wanted to try it out?” he supplied helpfully.

So, she hadn’t imagined that conversation. She stared hard at the bed, bringing her knees closer to her chest. She licked her lips. “And did I… did I… try to…?”

“Attack me while I was driving and nearly kill us both by causing me to swerve toward the ditch?” he asked, his voice casual, but with more of a steely quality to it now. “Yep, you did do that.”

“Oh dear,” she whispered, her headache completely forgotten as she sunk into a pit of utter humiliation. “And did we… did I…?”

“Nope,” he drawled the word, giving her a chance to sigh in relief, until he continued speaking. “Not for lack of trying on your part.”

She moaned in despair and sank back into the pillows, covering her eyes with her hands. She wondered how hard it would be to move to Antarctica. Her lips trembled, and she actually had to make a conscious effort not to cry. She really thought maybe she could have had something with Mack if they could get past a few of their differences. Now… now, she was going to finish this godawful hangover and then go find a cliff to end her humiliation in the only way she could imagine in that moment. She was so caught up in her lack of dignity that she didn’t hear Mack approach the bed until he was tugging her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face.

She peeked up at him, blinking a few times until his gorgeous face was back in focus. The intensity of his blue eyes was arresting in itself. Combine that with the look of concentrated lust on his face and Mack stole her breath and heart in one sweeping move. She was helpless in the face of such a man.

“Baby, I said no last night because when you suck my dick I’m going to want the whole package right after. And when I finally fuck you, I want you to feel every part of me touching every part of you,” he told her, his voice even deeper than usual if that was possible. “I don’t want you to forget me in an alcohol-induced haze.”

Holy. Cow.

He dropped her wrists and turned to stride away from the bed. “I’ll be right back with something to take the edge off your hangover.”

He gave her just enough time to dash into the washroom to relieve her screaming bladder and discover that yes, her hair was exactly as bad as she thought. She also used some of his mouth wash to rinse the dead farm animal taste out of her mouth and rolled a tiny amount of his deodorant under her armpits before rushing back to the bedroom and diving under the covers. Her smile came a little more natural when he returned to the bedroom with what looked like a water bottle in one hand and some Tylenol and a banana in the other.

She watched, her eyebrows slowly rising in amusement as he handed her a big bottle of water and shook a few tablets into his palm. She took the bottle from him and took a healthy drink, wrinkling her nose before sticking her hand out for the pills. He dropped them into her palm and sat on the edge of the bed next to her. She braced herself against the dip in the mattress, when his big body forced her to fall against him.

“I don’t think I can stomach the banana,” she protested when he held it out to her.

“Trust me,” he said gruffly. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to cure a hangover in a hurry. Just have a few more sips. Give yourself a couple minutes, then try a few bites.”

She nodded, baffled by how kind he was being. Mack Hudson had never struck her as even remotely gentle. And she knew he was at least mildly annoyed about her wild evening on the town. “Am I at your place?” she asked timidly, tucking a section of the hair that she had frantically finger-combed behind an ear.

He nodded. “Didn’t think it would be a good idea leaving you alone since you’ve never been drunk in your life and I didn’t want to spend the night in that rat-infested dump you call an apartment. No choice but to bring you back here.”

“Oh,” she said, frowning a little. So, his gallantry wasn’t entirely because he wanted her in his space, he just hadn’t known what else to do with her. “My apartment isn’t rat infested! I’ve only seen a few ants.” She defended her cute little place, taking a few more gulps of water. Maybe if she got better quickly he’d drive her home so she could sleep off the rest of this hideous hangover and then go find a cliff to jump off.

“Cats’ll eat ants, farm girl,” he said, piercing her with his ice blue eyes.

“Dogs’ll eat cats,” she countered. “I could cut out the middle-man and just get a puppy.”

He flashed her a slow grin, reached over and tapped the bottle. “Drink more.”

She obeyed his quietly spoken command. The liquid and pills did seem to be working together to make her feel miraculously better. She dropped the empty bottle into her lap and swept her eyelashes up, studying him intently. “How did you know where I was last night, Mack?”

“Your bodyguard told your sister who called me. Apparently, everyone has a soft spot for the Amish princess; no one wanted to get you in trouble with the Boss, so they called me instead,” he grumbled. “Don’t know why they thought I’d go easy on your ass.”

The breath caught in her throat as he lifted the water bottle from her lap and set it on the table next to his bed. He silently handed her the banana and she tried to take it from him. He held onto it for just a moment before letting go. The moment was filled with an intense awareness that neither could deny, yet it was also… somehow, very comfortable. Sitting on his bed, surrounded by his scent and his things, the light streaming through a window, it felt oddly perfect.

“What are you going to do to my ass?” she whispered peeling the banana and bringing it to her lips. His eyes darkened and dropped to her mouth. Suddenly the air between them became charged to an almost unbearable degree. Lucy didn’t know what to do except wrap her lips around the tip of the banana and take a bite.

He groaned and stiffened, leaned so close to her that if he tilted a few more inches he could have taken a bite too. She continued to eat the banana, watching him while he watched her, his arms braced on either side of her hips, his eyes hot on her mouth with every bite she took. He was right, the fruit did make her feel better. Though a little flushed.

Finally, when she thought he had forgotten the question she asked him, he said, “There’s a lot I’d like to do with that ass of yours, starting with a spanking for flashing it around in that short skirt last night.”

She froze mid-chew, her brown eyes widening.

“But I’m not going to. You’re in the city to have some new experiences and partying at a club at the age of twenty-one is a pretty good one to have. Besides, with a bodyguard dogging your tail and a trigger-happy sister I’d say you’re pretty safe.”

A soft smile curved her lips. Mack understood what she’d been up to. “Thanks,” she murmured.

“Besides, if I put my hand on your ass I wouldn’t be able to stop there, and I don’t think you’re quite ready for the kind of loving I want from you.”

Her mouth fell open. “Y-you want?” she asked breathlessly. Damn, this man knew how to suck all the air out of a room.

He took the banana peel from her hand and tossed it next to the empty water container on the night table then turned back to her, gripped her hips over top of the blanket and tugged, pulling her steadily down the bed until she was laying down while he crouched over top of her. He hovered over her, his big body covering hers without actually touching much of her. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, leaving them flat on the bed on either side of her prone body.

“I want,” he said huskily, his voice deep with purpose.

They lay like that for several heartbeats, just being together. She knew in her heart that he wasn’t going to take things further. Yet. But he was warning her that he wanted to. He was breaking down the invisible barrier growing between them and their desire for each other. He was done ignoring the attraction that blazed up between them every time they looked, touched or spoke to each other.

“I want you so bad it doesn’t make any fucking sense, Lucy,” he growled, searching her face while he spoke. “Tried forgetting you. Tried telling myself all the logical things. I’m too old for you, you’re too innocent, too sweet. I’m too jaded, too hard for someone like you. But the truth is, I don’t care about any of that. Don’t even care that the Russians’ll probably put a bullet in me the minute I make my intentions clear. I want you and I’m done denying us what we both want.”

Lucy licked her lips. “What do we want, Mack?” she asked, her question a feathery whisper across his chin where he hovered over her.

“We want to be together,” he told her. “For as long as this thing’ll last.”

She frowned and looked down, her long lashes sweeping the tops of her cheeks. She could feel her mascara from the night before making her lashes stick together and wanted to rub them apart with her fingers. It was not ideal to have his face this close to hers when she was still wearing last night’s makeup.

“Okay,” she said, trying not to sound timid because she knew this conversation was going to be important. Still… she was enjoying the press of his body against hers. Her burgeoning hormones were a little distracting. “But that sounds like you don’t think that anything that starts between us will last.”

Her direct stare and candor seemed to spark something in him. He brushed his thumbs over her cheekbones and pressed down, almost possessively, sending skitters of feeling fluttering under her skin until she didn’t think she would ever properly catch her breath again.

“Got to be honest with you, baby,” he told her. “I haven’t been in a relationship since my ex-wife and that shit was toxic. She was toxic. I don’t know if I have it in me to be more than a black-hearted bastard.” He stared down at her, taking in the shock that she tried to hide at hearing that he’d been married. He pressed his thumbs further down her face and tilted her chin, forcing her to look up. “Any of the women I’ve been with since her would agree.”

Lucy winced a little, imagining all the women a man as good-looking as Mack would have access to. She nodded in understanding. The waitresses at the diner had warned her that a man Mack’s age and disposition would definitely have a history. Heck, he was practically a walking cliché. Or so they assured her. Folks from her community just didn’t get divorced though, let alone messy divorced as Mack seemed to have done.

“Don’t look at me like that, baby,” he growled, brushing his thumb across her cheek in a way that seemed to connect intimately with her nipples.

She licked her lips and darted a glance at him. “Like what?”

“Disappointed.”

“Ah,” she murmured. “Well, I guess I am… a little.”

“Why’s that?” he asked huskily.

“You have to understand that yes, while I’m here to have fun, I still have a fiancé waiting for me at home, Mack. He knows I’m undecided about our future together and he’s willing to wait for me, because that’s what men like him do. But if I do something in this city, something irreparable to my reputation, I can’t go back to him. I’m not willing to throw myself away on a man who can’t commit past a romp in the hay.”

His lips twitched a little and he brushed some hair off her forehead. “Damn, baby.” He reached for the edge of her shirt and tugged it gently up. “We’re having the commitment talk and I haven’t even gotten you naked yet. This is all backwards.”

She laughed and pushed at his hand. He refused to move it away, but he didn’t force it any higher either. Instead he splayed his hand across her belly. She sucked in a stuttering breath as a bunch of butterflies went crazy in her belly. He watched her lips with hungry fascination.

“And fuck if I’m not tempted a little,” he murmured, almost to himself. They stayed that way for a few more minutes in his cozy, warm bed just being alone together, touching, without the intense urgency of their first few meetings. “I really do want to keep you, Lucy.”

She licked her lips again, loving the way his ice blue eyes lit with fire and followed the movement with an almost worshipful intensity every time she did it. “Then keep me,”she told him.

“Don’t tempt me,” he growled back.

“Why?” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against him with whispery soft strokes.

He stood up, flicked the blankets off her and reached out for her hand. When she was standing in front of him he looked down at her. Way, way down. Finally, he answered. “Because, Lucy baby, if I decided to keep you, I would never let you go. And for a girl who thinks she’s looking for commitment, I don’t think you’re quite ready for all that entails.”

He didn’t even touch her. She could feel her heart stutter to a stop before kicking back into a too-fast beat. Then he took her hand in his, tugged her out of the bedroom and into the hall. In the light of day when she wasn’t hiding under the blankets it became embarrassingly obvious that she was swimming in men’s clothes.

“Umm, am I wearing your T-shirt and sweatpants?” she asked, already knowing the answer but feeling compelled to point out that someone had undressed her without permission.

Fire raced under her skin as he turned around and walked backwards down the hall. He brought the back of her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips along her knuckles then flashed her a devastating grin that she felt clear down to her toes with a handful of tingles stopping right around her vaginal region. She tried not to hyperventilate or stumble over shoes when they stopped by the front door.

“Yeah, you didn’t look at all comfortable in that short skirt and too-tight top you were wearing at the club. I had to take them off,” he admitted. “And they tore a little because, you know, delicate fabric, big hands.”

Her mouth fell open for a moment as she contemplated him, embarrassment and amusement crashing through her. She couldn’t help but laugh. “You did see me naked then!” she said accusingly.

He winked and led her out the door, slamming it shut behind them and locking it. “Then I guess our relationship is progressing nicely, wouldn’t you say, Lucy?”