Page 15 of The Bachelor

“Yes?” The look on his face pleased her more than it should. He appeared to be locked in a battle with his desire. As though he wanted to do the right thing by walking away, but it was difficult. It gave her confidence. As did the hardness of his cock brushing against her leg. There was no mistaking that he wanted her.

If he left right now, the kiss would still be enough. It would soothe her battered ego.

But he didn’t walk away. “I don’t want you to do anything you regret.”

“I don’t plan to.” She didn’t. She was finished regretting what she had or hadn’t done. The night felt endless, the world she grew up in a million miles away. She felt equally fragile and strong. She was ready to feel everything she had ever missed, everything she had ever craved and talked herself out of.

“Fuck.” His grip in her hair tightened. “I’m taking you in to the front desk for check-in and I’m giving you that time to change your mind.”

She sucked in a breath. He looked tortured, wild. Like he wanted nothing more than to fuck her. This was not a man who would go upstairs and cuddle her, plant a few kisses on her. If she let him upstairs, it would lead to sex. Full on.

She thought about it.

If she wanted to just make out, they should stay outside and leave it here.

Was that what she wanted?

The answer to that was a resounding hell no. She didn’t want a kiss and cuddle. She didn’t want to hit the brakes. She wanted everything with Shane. Now.

She was going to give him the green light. She wanted this. She wanted him, all of him. Inside of her. Showing her everything she’d missed out on all these years.

“I’m not going to change my mind. I want you to come upstairs with me.”

He stepped back, his hands stroking down over her shoulders, before settling on her waist. Then he effortlessly picked her up and dropped her feet down onto the street and their bodies were close, pressed together in any number of places before he shifted back. “When you look at me like that, I don’t want to comfort you, do you understand that?”

She did. She also understood what she was encouraging, agreeing to. “I don’t want comforting. You ain’t my mama.”

The tears could be cried on the phone with her mother and her best friend from back home, later. Not right now. Tonight she just wanted to be a woman that a man like Shane wanted.

He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “You got that right.” He took her hand in his and added, “Unless you find orgasms comforting. Because I’m about to give you more than one.”

There it was. No beating around the bush. Avery felt her eyes get wide. “I suppose they could be under the right circumstances. I’m looking forward to finding out.”

He smiled, and it was a panty-melting, doubt-shattering, wicked, bad-boy smirk. “Then be prepared to be really comforted.”

Avery didn’t even think about hesitating. This was going to be a night that she would be talking about in the nursing home in seventy years. The night she found out her hometown boyfriend cheated and she was saved by a sexy stranger named Shane.

At the very least, it was the perfect material for a country song, and she was a songwriter. This could be her personal platinum.

So she repeated the words she’d spoken earlier, only now she said them with intent. “Then show me where to hop on and what to hold.”

His head tilted and he gave a soft laugh. “Girl, you’re fucking killing me. Now let’s walk before I do things to you on this bike that are illegal.”

SEVEN

Shane didn’t consider himself a man who did stupid things. He was always in control so that he didn’t make dumb-ass choices. He knew he wasn’t cut out for a relationship, so he chose women who weren’t looking for that either. So honestly, he couldn’t explain what in the hell he thought he was doing as he marched Avery across the lobby of the Union Station Hotel. It was a former railroad station that had been converted into a hotel and under normal circumstances he might have paused to appreciate the beautiful architecture, but now he was just dragging the poor girl over to the front desk.

His attraction for her was jumbled and unfamiliar. It was the need to see her safe, the desire to make her smile, the tug of his own hot burning arousal. It was a lot of things that as far as he was concerned didn’t belong together, but were. Which made it dangerous. But unless Avery told him to buzz the fuck off, he wasn’t going anywhere. He had to see this through to the end, figure out what it was, why he was feeling such an unbidden pull towards her. He always confronted his confusion head-on. He owned his feelings. Was honest with himself, if not necessarily the people in his life. Not that he was a liar—he was nothing like Ben. But he didn’t reveal all the interior details of his head.

So he wasn’t going to share with Avery that he felt drawn to her in a way that he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Maybe it was because she made him think of the girl back in high school. Maybe it was because Avery seemed so alone. Well, that might explain wanting to help her, but it didn’t explain the need to bury himself inside her, though he supposed he could chalk that up to ordinary lust. It had been a few months since he’d been with a woman. Maybe it was just his dick protesting the hiatus. Forcing him to address the base need.

But he knew it was more than that. It was just her. There was something about Avery.

Whatever it all was it had him hauling Avery to the front desk and parking her right in front of the desk clerk. “We’re checking in,” he said firmly.

Avery cleared her throat and said, “Avery O’Leery, please. I have a reservation.”

He mentally filed away her last name.

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