For The Love Of Nick

seen them, and took a slow, deep breath.

“It’s really a shame he drives me so insane,” she told herself. As she could get really, really attached to him.

NICK HAD NEVER BEEN issued a challenge he hadn’t faced head-on, and that slammed bathroom door was a challenge if he ever saw one.

Given that, and also that Danielle had just turned on the shower-he sure hated to miss any fun-he reached for the door handle.

Not locked, good sign. He peered around the door to see a still fully dressed Danielle trying to coax a yawning Sadie into the shower.

“Come on,” she huffed and puffed as she shoved Sadie from behind. “You’re a mess. You’ve got to…Ugh!” Giving up, she walked around and tried pulling Sadie instead, backing into the spray, closing her eyes as the water hit her full on.

Sadie merely grunted and applied opposite pressure, until with a little screech, Danielle’s hands slipped free and she stumbled back against the shower wall.

Sadie escaped.

Still under the spray, Danielle closed her eyes and shook her head.

Grinning, Nick toed off his shoes, and fully dressed, stepped into the shower with Danielle. “Hey, you can wash me. From head to toe, if you’d like.” Following up on that promise, he slipped his arms around her and pressed close, thankful that the water currently hitting him in the face was at least nice and warm.

“You’re crazy,” she said, sounding baffled and grumpy, but she warmed his heart by slipping her arms around his neck. “Completely crazy.”

“Yeah.” He bent his head and nibbled at her neck. “You taste good.” His hands got busy, too, dropping her soaking clothes from her body, eager to be hot, wet flesh to hot, wet flesh.

“Nick.” She let out a little sound when he cupped her perfectly curved butt in his hands, gliding her over the unmistakable bulge straining his pants. A sound that suggested she was slightly less grumpy now. “We can’t.”

His mouth ran over her throat to her bare shoulder, which he gently bit, making her clutch him tight. He liked the way she gripped him, as if she didn’t want to ever let go.

“We can’t do this in front of Sadie.”

“You mean the dog who only a little while ago was doing the same thing?” Nick gestured to the mat on the bathroom floor, where Sadie had passed out on her back, mouth open, eyes closed, snoring away. “Don’t think she really cares at the moment. She’s exhausted.” His hands slid up her body and cupped her breasts, his thumbs rasping over her nipples. “Let’s get exhausted, too.”

Her misty gray eyes filled with dreaminess and arousal, and she leaned into him, making Nick’s heart surge right up into his throat. He wanted that expression on her face permanently, the one that said he was the center of her universe. To make it so, he reined in on the need ripping through him, slowed them both down, dragging out the passion, the hunger, the desperate need until they were panting with it. Only then, when she’d come apart for him, over and over, did he slip into her body and take them both to heaven.

MUCH LATER, Nick ordered them room service. While they waited, Danielle opened her laptop.

Nick hadn’t bothered with clothes, and while she waited for her Internet connection, she marveled at how utterly unselfconscious and comfortable in his own skin he looked, studying the room service menu, absently pushing aside a bag of doggie treats on the table.

The bag crinkled, and from a dead sleep on the floor, Sadie came to full attention.

Nick looked at Sadie. Sadie looked at Nick-the two creatures in Danielle’s life who’d not yet come to terms.

Nick fingered the snacks.

Sadie stood. Cocked her head. Stared at the treats.

Nick pulled one out, looked it over.

Sadie whined and moved closer.

“So.” Nick raised a brow at the dog. “You like me now.”

Sadie licked her chops, eyes glued to the treat.

Rolling his eyes, Nick tossed it to her. “You’re so easy, dog.”

Sadie inhaled the treat, licked her chops and whined again.

And unbelievably, Nick reached back into the bag and tossed her another one.

Danielle felt her insides go still, then sort of melt. Ted had been charming to all dogs. People, too, for that matter. But she suddenly realized it was a fake sort of charming, the kind that never quite reached his eyes. Added to that was the disconcerting fact that he’d cared so deeply what others thought, especially about him.

There was nothing fake about Nick. He was confident, appealing and quite possibly the most easygoing, laid- back man she’d ever met. He didn’t care what others thought, of him or anyone else.

Why was that such a turn-on?

She was so busy thinking about this, thinking and staring at Nick’s magnificent body as he leaned over the table studying the menu and his selection, that she nearly missed it.

Her Web site had been set up with a bulletin board, so that she could arrange for dog-handling jobs online. She also answered questions and offered advice, and posted the shows she’d be attending.

Among her messages was an anonymous one, and it took her breath.

You can run, but you can’t hide.

11

HAPPILY SATED BY SEX, Nick cruised the room service menu, contemplating how good life felt at the moment. “I could eat everything on here,” he said, and when Danielle didn’t respond, he looked over his shoulder.

She sat, pale as a ghost, staring at her computer screen.

“Danielle?” He moved toward her. “What’s the matter?”

When she only shook her head, he sank to her side and turned her computer so he could read the screen. What he read made his insides cold. “Ted?”

“He thinks I’m running.” She closed her eyes. “I am running. Damn it.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I hate this. I hate being on the run, being scared. I’m going to turn this around, Nick. Somehow.”

“You will. We will. It’s too big to do alone.”

“Maybe I can just repay him for whatever he feels she’s worth.”

Nick knew enough about Ted to know that this problem wasn’t going to be resolved that easily. “I don’t think money is what he wants.”

“You’re just saying that because you know I don’t have any.” She grimaced, then touched his arm. “I’m going to pay you back, Nick, for all you’ve done. I’ll-”

“Now you’re going to make me mad,” he said mildly. “Look, let’s just see what Donald says. If it works out like you hope-”

“It will.”

“If it works out,” he repeated, “we’ll go from there.”

“There’s that we again,” she said, her eyes filling with that wariness he was getting damn tired of.

Get used to it, he wanted to respond, but as he didn’t fully understand the “we” thing himself, he kept quiet.

THEY PULLED UP to Donald’s new office, then parked and sat for a moment, studying it.

“Well,” Danielle said with false cheer, reaching for the door handle, not wanting Nick to see her nerves, but knowing they were all over her face. “Here I go.”