Two Is a Lonely Number Read online

  “I’d be better if you’d stop manhandling me.”

  “You didn’t mind my manhandling before.” He leaned close enough for her to smell his woodsy aftershave.

  “I was drunk then.”

  “Bull.”

  Okay, so maybe she never allowed herself to actually get drunk, but no way was she ready to admit to ever wanting him.

  “If you’ll excuse me…” She raised her eyebrows when he didn’t budge. She held her breath, waiting for him to make the next move.

  Karly noticed that her groupies no longer surrounded her. They had all fled—even little Miss Molly.

  She’d kill them all.

  She could blame pregnancy hormones in her defense, right?

  “The only reason I came tonight was because I hoped to see you.”

  Karly looked over her shoulder, sure he was talking to someone else. But no, they were trapped in the narrow corridor together. Alone. And he continued to stand too close for comfort.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Karly shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You brought a date, but you were hoping to see me?”

  “I’ve tried to call you. Apparently I have the wrong number.” His voice held an accusation, and his eyes dared her to deny her wrongdoing.

  Ohhhh.

  Yes. Now she remembered. Okay, so maybe she had been a little tipsier than she usually got, and maybe she had used her classic trick of giving him her number but with one or two digits reversed.

  No wonder he hadn’t called.

  “Now that I have you, I’m afraid I have to insist on taking you out.”

  She stared at him, hoping to shame him.

  No luck.

  “You’re here with another woman.”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really?” Her voice quivered in its high pitch.

  His hands fell to her hips. She tensed, irrationally afraid that he’d feel the budding life growing inside her.

  “Come on, Karly. I’ve missed you.”

  “Wow. Just wow.” She lifted a hand as if to smack him, but rested it gently against his cheek. She’d kill him with her sweetness. “We have sex once, then I never hear from you. No biggie—I had no expectations. Now you’re here with another woman, completely disrespecting her by propositioning me, and you think I’ll go out with you?”

  Karly pinched Ben’s ear.

  “You’re a creep.”

  He rubbed his ear and smiled. “Actually, Karly, if I remember correctly—and I’m sure I do—it was more like four times.”

  The sound she made in response came from somewhere deep in her gut. Probably the baby. Yes, the sweet little spawn of the devil inside her groaned in disapproval of the baby daddy.

  “You are a sick man.”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy every second of it. My sickness, I mean.”

  She’d be paying for that enjoyment for the rest of her life. Or the next eighteen years, anyway.

  Heat rushed through her—internally as well as externally.

  She wanted to fan herself, but couldn’t find the strength.

  She leaned against the wall for support.

  His arms immediately darted out to hold her upright.

  “Jesus, Karly. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  “No.” She managed to stand upright again, shrugging out of his semi-embrace. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She pretended to misunderstand, to distract him with feminine vanity. It didn’t work. He studied her face.

  “Something’s going on with you.” Ben leaned closer. “You’re different.”

  “How the hell would you know? We don’t even know each other.”

  She ducked under his arm, ready to make her getaway, but he stopped her from escaping. He leaned her back against the wall, placing his hands on the wall beside her head.

  “I know you. You know me. We’re the same.”

  She relaxed her shoulders and looked into his eyes. His green eyes sparkled like a sparkler on the Fourth of July, shooting waves of desire through her.

  Waves of nausea, too.

  She almost felt sorry for him. She’d have to ruin his world with her news sooner or later. Right now, his stars were perfectly aligned. He knew who he was, what he cared about. He was free to go from conquest to conquest with practically no consequence.

  As soon as she told him about the baby, he’d no longer feel that freedom.

  She knew all too well what a bitter pill the news was to swallow.

  She couldn’t tell him.

  But she had to. It wasn’t her place to make decisions for him. She knew she’d keep the kid, but that didn’t mean he had to be part of it. If he wanted to opt out completely, she’d give him that option.

  She had grown up without a dad. Lots of people grew up without dads.

  A giant ball formed in her throat. She had never planned to have a fatherless child.

  “Actually, Ben, we should get together. To talk.”

  His smile nearly consumed his face, almost making her want to smile back.

  “Coffee? Tomorrow?” As the words left her mouth, she wondered if coffee was on the no-no list for pregnant women.

  She had so much to learn.

  “Tequila. Tonight.”

  His low, husky voice flowed through her, stoking her libido and numbing her to the world. His presence must have chased away the nausea. For the first time in many days, she felt like a woman and not some dumbass who had missed her period.

  “I’m on the wagon,” she said, licking her dry lips, imagining his tongue running over them instead.

  “We don’t need alcohol. Just some time alone.”

  Hell, they didn’t even need time alone. The festivities were in full uproar, music playing, people cheering. And she was ready to raise her skirt, lower her pantyhose, and let him do things to her that he could do best.

  She shuddered at the thought.

  Focus. Think. Behave appropriately.

  She was going to be somebody’s mother. She had to learn to control her dirty impulses.

  Placing her hand on his chest—and working harder than she had ever worked in her life to control the desire to rip his shirt off when she felt his pecs flex under her fingertips—she did the opposite of what she wanted to do. She pushed him away.

  Remembering who she was, she straightened her dress, smiled, and told him to call her in the morning.

  “Hold on—you haven’t given me your real number yet.”

  “Guess you’ll have to find it.”

  And then she walked away, smiling sweetly as she passed the blonde who glared at her from the bar.

  Chapter Two

  “You’re a hard woman to track down.”

  Karly, barely clothed in a tiny tank top and tight exercise pants of some kind, started choking on her muffin before she could reply.

  “You don’t have to get all choked up about it,” Ben said, reaching awkwardly around her to pat her hard on the back.

  Should he get her water? Do the Heimlich maneuver?

  Damn she smelled good.

  When she finally managed to stop choking, she tossed her shoulders back with such vigor he nearly got slammed in the chest with the nipples that poked through her shirt.

  Not that he would have minded.

  Her eyes narrowed when his eyes drifted back to her face.

  “You shouldn’t hit someone on the back when they’re choking. You could make it worse.”

  “That’s what they always do in the movies.”

  The dry look she gave him made him feel like an insecure teenager. What the hell?

  “What are you doing here? Besides trying to kill me?”

  He stepped through the door without waiting for an invitation.

  “You invited me, remember?”

  “Funny, I don’t recall extending an invitation for you to show up at my door.”

  “Coffee. Conversation.” He leaned closer,
watching the light glisten on her freshly moistened lips. “Remember now?”

  Watching her irritation grow, he knew that conversation was the last thing he wanted from her. But he’d bide his time and wait until she was good and ready for him to make his move. Better yet, he’d wait until she was begging him for more of the famous Ben Knight treatment.

  “You were supposed to call,” she accused, jutting out her chin and stiffening her lips.

  “Surprisingly, I couldn’t find your number. Ava is a hard nut to crack.”

  Karly smiled, clearly proud of herself for winning that round.

  “So how’d you find my address?” She crossed her arms over her chest, forcing her cleavage to swell over the top of her skimpy shirt.

  “I didn’t.”

  “And yet here you are…”

  “You find me charming, don’t you?” He quirked his eyebrows and gave his best lady-killer grin.

  “I find you annoying.”

  Karly walked away from him, leaving the door wide open, along with his mouth. She could resist the eyebrow and the grin?

  Clearly she was under the influence of some kind of drug.

  “Annoying? That’s not how you described me when you were having that triple or—”

  She flung around faster than the winning car on a racetrack, holding her hand up in warning.

  “Don’t even say it.”

  “What, Karly?” Back in the game. Oh yeah. She was flustered. He stepped toward her again, more sure of himself. The way he always was. The way he should be. She was a woman. He knew how to play that particular instrument. “You don’t want me to talk about your orgasms? The waves of pleasure you experienced at my hand? Are you afraid to want it again?”

  She responded by rushing across the room to a doorway and heaving her sexy heart out.

  His powers of seduction forced her to throw up?

  He checked his head for a fever. Something was definitely off.

  Ben tossed his keys onto her coffee table as he rushed over to comfort her, trying not to gag at the sound of her doing the same.

  “Still sick from something you ate?”

  She responded by continuing to heave into the toilet. He knelt beside her, cringing at the smell, and brushed her hair away from her face.

  She looked terrible.

  “Come on, I’ll get you to bed.”

  She laughed.

  “I don’t think going near a bed with you is going to help the situation.”

  “Come on, Karly. Even I’m not such a swine that I’d try to take advantage of a woman in your condition. Let me help you.”

  He pulled on her arm. She refused to budge.

  “Thanks, but you’ve done enough.”

  Why did she sound so angry with him? He didn’t take her out to dinner, so if she had food poisoning, it wasn’t thanks to him. And he hadn’t had a stomach bug in years, so he couldn’t take the blame for that, either.

  “This must be a bad bug for you to still be sick.”

  “Must be,” she responded half-heartedly.

  “I think you should go to urgent care.”

  “I think you should stop. Just stop.”

  She hopped up as if nothing had been wrong, splashed water on her face, rinsed her mouth out with mouthwash, and retrieved her muffin from the table where she had dropped it in her mad dash to the bathroom.

  “You’re going to eat that?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” She smiled as she took a big bite. He cringed as crumbs flew everywhere.

  Though the idea of eating right after vomiting turned his stomach, he suddenly wanted a taste of muffin when “everywhere” included her sexy-as-hell cleavage.

  “Anyway, you were telling me how you found my address.”

  He shrugged, awash in an unfamiliar tide of embarrassment.

  Yes, there was something terrible going around. He had it bad. She was able to repel his advances? He was feeling embarrassed?

  Whatever it was, he’d be calling around for a vaccination.

  “Who gave it to you? Cole? I’ll pull his fingernails off.”

  “No one gave it to me. I drove around until I found your car.”

  She laughed, then hiccupped.

  “Sorry—been having hic-hiccups a lot lately.”

  Vomit. Hiccups. Not wanting him.

  This was why he kept his encounters with women brief.

  So why the hell did he feel the need to be here? And no real desire to rush out?

  “So wait. Repeat that, please. You drove around until you found my car?”

  If his idiocy made her face light up with that smile, he was tempted to be a full-time idiot.

  Hell, she already thought he was.

  “Yup. You owe me. Big.”

  Oh, the ways she could repay him. He had been surprised at how flexible and responsive to his touch she had been. How quickly she had located all of his hot spots. How eager she had been to tell him what she liked best.

  How easily she had walked away. No whining. No manipulating. No begging for a callback. No tracking him down at his work, trying to get his number from friends.

  She had responded the exact way he always had post-seduction.

  And he fucking hated it.

  “I owe you, huh?” She bit into her muffin again, sighing as she relished the taste.

  He swallowed to tamper his rapidly growing lust.

  She had just vomited, for Christ’s sake.

  “Fine.” She walked her muffin to the garbage can, brushing the crumbs from her chest as she returned to the living room.

  “Fine?” What did she agree to? Paying him back? Stripping naked? Climbing on top of him? Had that conversation happened with her or only in his own head?

  “Yeah, fine.”

  She strutted toward him like a model on a runway. A lingerie model. Centerfold material.

  He cleared his throat. Get a hold of yourself, dammit.

  Yes, she was hot. Smoldering.

  But she was a woman like any other.

  He could handle this.

  No matter how her voluptuous breasts and perky nipples worked to distract him, he could stay focused. This was his area of expertise.

  “You said I owe you. Big.”

  Her fingers toyed with his chest. He stood still. Rigid. To be honest, he was terrified that his boner would snap in half if he moved. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been so damned hard.

  Her breasts—her glorious, huge, luscious, delicious breasts—pressed against him, taunting him.

  How did she get the control?

  He shook his head to clear the fog. What the fuck did he think was happening? She wasn’t some sort of mythological seductress.

  And he wasn’t some high school nerd, desperate for his first kiss.

  He had mastered women by the tenth grade. It was about time to act like it.

  His hands swung into action, positioning themselves on her lower back and pulling her hips forward to reintroduce her to his painful erection.

  Her eyes closed for a second, then fluttered open.

  He moved to stake his claim, to seal the deal, to find any remaining crumbs on her lips, but she pivoted out of his arms and strutted away, laughing as he fumbled.

  Damn her.

  “Come on. I’ll buy the coffee.”

  He bit the inside of his cheek, hoping to draw blood. Not able to feel anything but the pulsing in his tempted-and-let-down groin.

  “Not exactly what I had in mind.” He groaned.

  “Oh, don’t be a baby.”

  Her face paled upon uttering the words, and she quickly turned away, triggering his curiosity.

  “Ahh, someone is baby shy. So you had the same reaction I did when you heard about the new bundle of joy?”

  She raised her chin and cocked her head to the side.

  “If your reaction was one of elation and pride for the new parents-to-be, then yes. Same reaction.”

  She said the words. She even looked like
she wanted to believe them.

  He didn’t have to be an expert on women to know that she was lying through her pearly white teeth.

  “Elation?” He laughed. “Sure, they think they’re happy now. But once the little crying, pooping machine is here? When their sex life becomes non-existent? Hell, can you even have sex when there’s a kid in there?”

  He shuddered. Her face paled more.

  Good. At least they were on the same page about that.

  “A baby is the last thing they should have been after. They’re still newlyweds. Hell, they haven’t even been dating that long.”

  Ben paced the room, anxious for his best friend and the impending disaster.

  Karly remained silent, probably in full agreement.

  “They think they’re happy, but I hope they can survive the first year.”

  He looked back at Karly, expecting a smile and a nod.

  Instead he was met with flaring nostrils, tight lips, and a reddening face.

  Ben ceased pacing, his heart rate speeding up at the sudden change in the energy of the room.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Ben stepped forward slowly, holding his hands in front of him as if surrendering. He hadn’t meant to offend. What the hell did he say that was open to disagreement?

  “No, of course not.”

  Karly’s words were what he wanted to hear, but her tone was clipped and irritated.

  “Please continue on about how a baby is going to bring on the world’s destruction. Perhaps we should warn the happy parents that their bundle of joy is going to not only bring on the nuclear war, but also ruin their chances of ever having a sex life again.”

  Her face was now redder than the blanket on the chair behind her. He’d laugh, but he feared for his life.

  He had to regain control of this situation.

  Who the hell was he kidding? He was never in control around Karly.

  Against his better judgment, he laughed.

  Judging by the way her eyes bulged from their sockets and the vein throbbing in her temple, he guessed she didn’t appreciate his reaction.

  Her anger only made him want her more.

  He stepped forward, inhaling the sweet strawberry scent of the muffin she had recently consumed and the flowery scent that was all Karly. Sure, she might bite his head off, but then again, she might fall back under his spell, too. He was willing to take his chances.

  “I don’t think the little rug rat will come loaded with that much power. For the second part, yes, but nuclear war?”