Jill Shalvis - Time Out

And hence the danger. The sleeping portion of the night had given her a sense of intimacy-a fake intimacy. It’d brought contentment, warmth, affection. She didn’t want to feel those things for him, but just like when she’d been a love-struck teenager, it’d happened. Only this time she’d known better.

This could be fixed, she hurried to assure herself. She just needed a time-out. Now.

He stirred when she slipped out of bed, opening his eyes. “Rainey.” His voice was low and rough from sleep, and he was lying in her sheets like he belonged there, long sinewy limbs at rest, eyes warm and getting warmer, heating all her parts equally.

“You need to stop giving me orgasms,” she said.

“Aw, you don’t mean that. Come here, I’ll show you.”

She actually took a step toward him before stopping short. “Oh my God. I think I’m actually addicted to you-”

This sentence ended with her letting out a startled scream because suddenly she was airborne. Mark had risen from the bed and tossed her to the mattress. He followed her down, crawling up her body. They were both naked, and at the contact, she arched up and moaned.

His smile was pure trouble.

“Oh, no,” she said, scooting backwards. “I’m going to work.”

He grabbed her ankles and tugged.

She landed flat on her back, legs spread wide, held open by him. “I’m not playing,” she said, having to try real hard not to be turned on. “We’re having another car wash today, and I have a staff meeting about the formal dinner and auction next Saturday. Busy day,” she said, breathless from just the way he was looking at her. “And besides, you wanted a day to day, right? Well it’s a new day and I have plans. Gotta go.”

“I think I’m missing something,” he said, slipping his hand into her hair, tugging lightly until she looked into his eyes. “What’s the real problem here?”

“The problem is that I have thirty minutes to get into work! Let go.” She attempted to leave the bed, but he merely tightened his grip, pulling her to him until their faces were so close that she could feel his warm breath on her lips. She could see the heat in his eyes, and also a curiosity. Probably the man had never been kicked out of a woman’s bed before. “It’s nothing personal,” she said.

“Bullshit.”

She sighed. “Okay, you’re right. It’s personal. It’s just that…remember when I said I had to instigate or I’d get screwed up?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it happened anyway. I’m screwed up.”

“What are you screwed up about?”

The fact that I’ve fallen in love with you… She fought to get free and rolled off the bed. “I have to go, Mark. Don’t make this harder than it is.”

“I’m not making this anything,” he said, sitting up, watching her from inscrutable eyes. “That’s all you. If things veer off the path of your plan in any way, you panic, like now. Things happen, Rainey. You know that.”

“Hey, you’re the one with the plan,” she said. “The plan that can’t go more than a day in advance. I’m not even sure why, except that it leaves you open in case something better comes along.”

“Is that what you think?” He caught her before she could grab her clothes-damn he was fast-and pulled her back to his chest. “Rainey, there’s no one else. Not while we’re…”

“Having all the sex?” She crossed her arms, doing her best to ignore that her butt was pressed into his groin. But then he stirred. Hardened. “Are you kidding me? Now?”

With a sigh, he let her go. “I can’t help it. You’re naked. And hot. I’m hard-wired to react.”

They both looked at his erection. A little part of her wanted to push him back down to the bed and jump him.

Okay, a big part of her.

“I’m seriously late,” she said. “We can finish this tonight.”

“Can’t. I’m flying to New York after the car wash, doing some press. I’ll be gone three or four days.”

“Oh,” she said, hopefully hiding her disappointment.

“I’ll see you when I get back,” he murmured, watching her body with avid attention as she gathered some clothes.

“Can you make plans that far out?”

“Ha ha.” He pulled out his phone and opened his calendar file, flipping through the days with his thumb. “Shit. Five days. I’ll be back Saturday, just in time for the auction and the big games on Sunday.”

“That’s almost a whole week,” she said. “I might find another non-fixer upper by then. Gotta leave my options open.” She went into the bathroom, carefully avoiding the mirror and her rosy oversexed complexion as she got into the shower. When she went back into the bedroom to dress, she didn’t look at Mark’s oversexed self either, still naked and sprawled out on her bed, working on his phone. She grabbed her purse and turned to the door, only to be forced back around by Mark’s firm hands on her arms.

“Lunch,” he said. “Today.”

“Can’t.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Can’t. I have a meeting. And won’t. I need a little space, Mark.”

He stared at her as if it hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t want him.

“Tell me you’ve been turned down before,” she said.

“Sure. In fifth grade Serena Gutierrez said she’d go out with me, but then I found out she’d also said yes to five other guys. She broke my heart.”

Hands on hips, she narrowed her eyes. “Something past puberty.”

“I was dumped right before my high school prom and had to go stag.”

“Yes, and you ended up with three dates once you got there,” she reminded him. “Three girls who were also solo.”

“Oh yeah,” he said with a fond smile.

Whirling, she headed down the hallway to the front door.

“Okay, okay,” he said on a laugh, following her. “I’ve been dumped plenty. I work twenty-four/seven, and I travel all the time. I don’t have a lot left to give to a relationship. Women don’t tend to like that.”

“Hence the day-to-day thing?”

“Don’t fix what isn’t broke,” he said.

Right. She nodded, throat tight. “Good idea.” Too bad it was too late. She was already broke. “Goodbye, Mark,” she said softly, and walked out the door.

MARK STARED AT the closed door and felt cold to the bone. That hadn’t felt like an “I’ll see you in five days’’ goodbye. That had felt like a goodbye goodbye.

Which meant he’d messed up. It’d been a while since he’d done that, and even longer since he’d faced a problem that he had no idea how to fix.

Needing to try, he yanked the door open and stepped onto the porch, just in time to see Rainey’s taillights vanish down the road.

“Damn,” he muttered, and shoved his fingers through his hair. He was the biggest dumbass on the planet.

A female gasp interrupted his musings, and had him turning to face a woman standing on the next porch over. She was in her forties, looking completely shell-shocked as she stared at him.

“You’re…naked.”

Shit. Yes, he was. Bare-assed naked, giving her the full Monty. With as much dignity as he could, he turned to go back inside, but the door had shut behind him.

And locked.

Mark once again faced the woman, who let out a low, inarticulate sound at the sight of him. “I’m going to need to borrow your phone,” he said.

MARK WAS SITTING out front of Rainey’s town house with the neighbor’s towel around his hips when Rick drove up and honked.

“Shut up,” Mark muttered as he walked to the car.

“Watch the towel, man, these are leather seats.”

Mark flipped him off.

“Aw,” Rick said with a tsk. “Rough day already?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Ever.”

“I bet.” Rick drove off with lots of grinning and the occasional snicker, which Mark ignored.

They went to the motel so Mark could get clothes, and then to the construction site, where he spent the next few hours compartmentalizing. Swinging a hammer, wielding his phone for Mammoth business, and…thinking about Rainey dumping his sorry ass.

Don’t go there…

Late afternoon he left the construction site and headed to the rec center for the car wash. Casey and James helped staff members set up but there was a lot of chaos, and for that Mark was glad because it gave him something to do other than think too hard. His softball team straggled in one by one, dropped off by parents or riding in with friends who had a license, and for a minute, Mark’s spirits rose. The girls would annoy him in no time flat, taking his attention away from himself.

They weren’t in their uniforms today. Nope, they’d come dressed as they pleased, which was hardly dressed at all. Bikinis, low-riding shorts, tight yoga pants…the combination made his head spin. “Okay, no,” he said. “Go add layers. Lots of them.”

When he turned around, Rick was standing there, holding two sodas. “You do realize that they’re not your million-dollar guys, being paid to be bossed by you, right?”

“You brought me here to clean up their act and make players out of them.”

“No, I brought you here so your players could clean up their act.”

Oh, yeah. Right. “Well, we’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

Rick shook his head and offered him one of the sodas. “You look like hell, man. So how did you end up the one dumped? And has that ever even happened before?”

“What part of I don’t want to talk about it don’t you get?” He let out a breath when Rainey came out of the building wearing denim shorts and a tee, and…

Mark’s ball cap.

She was finally wearing his ball cap. Ignoring the pain in his chest, he looked her over as indifferently as he could manage. A ponytail stuck out the back of the hat, her beat-up sneakers were sans socks, and she looked every bit as young as his softball team. Across the parking lot, their gazes met. Hers was wary, uncertain, vulnerable, and… hell.