Chapter Seven
By the time Nick came back about twenty minutes later, Grace had devoured her apple pie, which was beyond fabulous, scrubbed the remnants of make-up from her face, tied her hair up in a messy knot, and was pawing through her bag looking for a nightshirt.
He shut the door behind him, still looking tense, but at least his color had returned.
Grace had no idea what had happened to him, but for a moment, he’d looked like he was going to pass out. If anyone had the right to pass out, it was her. She was the one who had to sleep in a room with sex personified and keep her hands to herself.
Nick pointed at her sternly. “OK, if that night manager gets within fifty feet of you, scream and I’ll come running.”
She knew she wasn’t imagining the guy’s creep factor. “Hopefully it won’t come to that. That is the whole point of staying in this room together.”
“Yeah, well, at least I now know you aren’t prone to exaggeration.”
“Did you talk to him?” she asked, still digging through her bag.
He shoved a hand through his hair. “Once he asked me if I was ‘tappin’ that hot ass’ of yours, the conversation was pretty much over.”
“Wow. Complimentary and degrading all at the same time. That’s talent.” She pulled out her pajama pants, but still couldn’t find her shirt. “What did you say to him?”
“Before or after I told him I’d rip his intestines out through his nose if he even thought about you again?”
The intensity of his tone caused a little flutter in her stomach, but she ignored it. “Aw, that’s so sweet.”
His brow furrowed as he watched her systematically destroy the fabulous packing job she’d done in LA. “What are you looking for?”
She threw her hands up in frustration. “I can’t find a shirt to sleep in. I don’t understand. It was on my list and checked off and everything.” She looked back down at her list, where there was clearly a checkmark by nightshirt.
Nick tilted his head to one side like a confused retriever. “You have a checklist? For your luggage?”
Great. Like it wasn’t bad enough he’d seen her drunk and had to carry her off a plane, now he thought she had OCD. “It helps me make sure I have everything I need before I travel.”
He raised that damn annoying brow at her, then glanced at her ransacked luggage. “How’s that working?”
She pursed her lips. “It usually works very well, Dr. Phil. Thanks for asking.”
He shook his head, smiling, even though he clearly had no idea who Dr. Phil was. Then he grabbed something from his own duffel bag and tossed it to her. “Here. It will be huge on you, but it should be good enough to sleep in.”
Grace caught it and unfolded it. It was a V-neck, heather-gray T-shirt that looked like it had been washed hundreds of times. It was so soft and smelled so heavenly—like Tide laundry detergent and Nick—that she barely resisted the urge to rub it against her cheek and sniff it for a while. Yeah, he was never getting this shirt back. “Thanks,” she murmured.
He excused himself to take a shower. Grace waited until she heard the shower curtain flip back before changing into Nick’s T-shirt and her SpongeBob flannel pajama bottoms. She imagined the only way to send a clearer no-sex message would be to wear a sandwich board that said, “No one is getting lucky tonight, pal.”
Which was an entirely different message than the one her body wanted to send.
She sighed. It was going to be a long night.
***
An hour later, Grace tossed from one side of the bed to the other, somehow managing to wrap the blankets around her tightly enough to cut off the circulation in her legs.
Groaning, she sat up and untangled herself. God, what the hell was the matter with her? It was past midnight, she’d had the longest day of her life, and she couldn’t fall asleep.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force her brain to shut down for the night. A million thoughts raced through her head, each one vying for top billing.
First and foremost on her to-do list, she thought as she gave the pillow a good, solid punch, was buying a new nightshirt. Not that Nick’s shirt wasn’t incredibly comfortable. It just smelled too damn good for her peace of mind.
And then, of course, she had memories of his body against hers as he leaned into her at the restaurant.
God, what had she been thinking? She should have pushed him away. Better yet, she never should have agreed to travel with him in the first place. If she’d just kept a respectable, safe distance she could have gone on pretending she didn’t want a man in her life. That she could go on not having sex.
Brad had been a decent husband—at least until he dumped her for Chesty Cheeto—but their sex life had been less than stellar. He’d always been a wham-bam-roll-over-and-fall-asleep kind of guy. She, on the other hand required quite a bit of warm-up. She tried to talk to Brad about it on a few occasions, and his response was less than satisfying.
“You just need to get out of your head and learn how to relax,” he’d said, irritated that she’d even suggested he might benefit from spending some additional time getting to know her clitoris (or even figuring out where it was, for that matter).
After that, she just gave up. Bought a fantastic vibrator with five speeds, which she used once a week. Other than that, her girl parts just went on hiatus. She hadn’t even thought of sex with someone other than her little battery-operated friend in months.
Until Nick O’Connor.
She groaned out loud and punched the pillow again.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” the object of her sexual frustration grumbled from his position in the chair next to the bed.
Of all the obnoxious… “I’m so sorry if my insomnia is disturbing your beauty sleep.”
He leaned forward. The soft, muted light from the lava lamp caressed his perfect features and tousled hair. Good grief, he looked like a living, breathing wet dream.
“Not much beauty sleep to be had in this chair.”
Thank God, she thought. If he got any more beautiful, she’d burst into spontaneous orgasms every time he walked into the room.
“Are you hungry or something?” he asked, concern evident in his voice.
That’s when it occurred to her that she was arguably the most selfish woman in the world. Here he was, spending the night practically folded in half in an uncomfortable chair, for her, a near-stranger.
Grace cleared her throat and sat up. “It occurs to me that I never thanked you.”
His dark brows lifted. “For what? For not arresting you? For driving you to River Oak? For spending the night in this chair to protect you from Cletus the potential serial killer?”
“Ugh. Okay, I get it. I’m a horrendous bitch.”
“I wouldn’t say horrendous.”
Even with the only light in the room being supplied by a lava lamp, she could see the teasing twinkle in his eyes. “Thank you, Nick,” she whispered.
He blinked slowly and gave her a sleepy smile that would’ve brought her to her knees had she been standing. She felt as though they’d crossed an invisible border in their relationship.
Which almost explained the offer she then extended.