Page 37 of You Complicate Me

“Don’t sound so surprised. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy two burly dudes beating the crap out of each other. And it takes more skill and stamina than football and baseball combined.”

“True enough. Music?”

“Anything but country.”

He held up his hand for a high-five, and she slapped her palm to his. Nick smiled. “See?” he asked. “We were destined to spend this week together. We’re practically soul mates.”

Her heart seized. It really wasn’t fair for someone like him to say that to a semi-bitter divorcée such as herself. It did unspeakable things to her ovaries.

He sighed. “Don’t overthink it, Grace.”

“What?”

“I can practically hear the gears in that giant brain of yours locking up,” he said. “I’m not going to push you into anything you’re not ready for. Just enjoy the moment.”

She snorted.

“Okay,” he conceded. “Maybe not this exact moment. But when you’re better, just…go with the flow a little. Let things happen on their own.”

The words sounded foreign to her. She was a born planner, a strategist. She could come up with a plan for how to plan more efficiently, for God’s sake. Enjoying the moment was not something she had much experience with.

But then again, she had even less experience with guys like Nick and the way he made her feel. “Fair enough,” she finally whispered.

He pressed his warm lips lightly against her temple. She shivered in response. “Get some sleep, angel. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

She sure hoped so. Because right now, she was starting to feel like maybe the food poisoning wasn’t such a terrible price to pay for the privilege of falling asleep in Nick O’Connor’s arms.

And damned if that didn’t make her feel like a heroine in one of the old Hallmark Channel movies she used to mock with Gage.

Grace Montgomery: pathetic is thy name.

Chapter Seventeen

Nick had lost all feeling in his arm and one leg hours ago, and he had a crick in his neck that he would surely be feeling for days, but he could honestly say, he’d slept better than he had in…well, ever he supposed.

For the first time since his discharge from the Marines, Nick slept the kind of sleep he assumed normal people—people who hadn’t almost been turned into chum by an IED—slept every night. Blissful, sound, dreamless sleep.

He supposed it could be because he was starting to move past the trauma, starting to heal both physically and mentally. But in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but think his peaceful sleep had nothing to do with healing and everything to do with the soft, warm woman lying so trustingly in his arms.

Grace was sprawled on top of him with her head on his chest and her tousled hair splayed over his shoulder and throat. One of her arms was flung over his stomach, and her knee was tucked up snugly against his groin.

Even after the night she’d had, her hair still smelled faintly of limes and coconuts—a scent he realized he would associate with Grace from this point forward. And like Pavlov’s freakin’ dog, the scent would probably always make his mouth water, like it was now.

Grace let out a snuffling little snore and tucked her hand into the waistband of his pants. He groaned, torn between amusement and arousal. Seemed Grace was a bit of a slutty sleeper.

Too bad for him that sluttiness didn’t carry forward into her waking hours.

When Grace roused and yanked her hand out of his pants, muttering a horrified curse under her breath, Nick pretended to be just waking up himself to spare her the embarrassment of being caught molesting him two mornings in a row.

Grace eased off him, then groaned and flopped over on her stomach next to him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly. “Any better?”

She turned her face toward him, but didn’t lift her head off the bed. “Well, I don’t think I’m going to die anymore.”

He grinned as he took in her wildly tousled—and completely vertical in random spots—hair and the thick mascara smudges under her eyes. Even though her skin was unnaturally pale and she looked like she’d been wrestling with a cougar half the night, she was gorgeous.

“It’s nice of you to pretend you were asleep while I was molesting you,” she added.

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