GOING FOR FOUR by Erin Nicholas

GOING FOR FOUR by Erin Nicholas

Counting on Love, Book 4

It's either true love…or the biggest mistake they've ever made.

Hot firefighter Cody Madsen has stayed away from Olivia Dixon for almost two years-technically. Even though he talks to her every day and sees her every weekend. But there's no kissing, touching, or telling her how he really feels. Because they're just friends. Anything more than that would mean crossing the line that Olivia's older brother has firmly drawn between them.

Olivia wants what her three sisters have-true love. She could almost believe she's found it with Cody, if it weren't for the fact that he's her older brother's best friend and her brother won't have it. And he's never steered her wrong before. Her head is telling her to trust her brother, but her heart won't let go of Cody.

Her solution? A dating site where she and Cody can each find their "Perfect Pick" once and for all.

But when the site yields some unexpected results, their real feelings come front and center. And they have to decide if it's worth the risk to cross the line from friendship to love after all.

Warning: Contains a starry-eyed romantic, a wannabe knight in shining armor, and chocolate chip cookies. A lot of chocolate chip cookies.

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Excerpt:

Copyright © 2014 Erin Nicholas
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication

Cody Madsen had never seen Olivia Dixon naked. Until today.

And there was a very good reason for that.

Two, in fact.

She was his best friend. And her brother would kill him.

But damn, the sight was breathtaking.

Breathtaking enough that his entire system short-circuited and all he could think was Every day for the rest of my life.

“Cody! Oh my god! What are you doing here?”

She’d obviously just stepped from the bathroom. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, the scent of her favorite shower gel and lotion were strong in the air and, most significantly, she was as naked as the day she was born.

Which had to be why his brain and mouth would not connect.

Olivia crossed an arm over her breasts—her glorious, perky, perfect breasts—and put a hand over her even-more-private part—the mouthwatering, holy crap, light blond hair that was trimmed into a perfect V pointing the way home—and said louder, “What are you doing?”

But it wasn’t until another voice hit his ears that Cody was able to pull himself out of the Olivia-is-even-hotter-than-I-thought daze.

“Cody! I’m heading to the fuse box!”

Olivia’s eyebrows arched. “Is that Conner?”

It was. And Cody’s first spoken word on the matter was, “Crap.”

He grabbed her upper arms, backed her into the bathroom and kicked the door shut.

That proved to be the biggest mistake of all. Her skin was silky and warm and he should never have touched her.

“What’s Conner doing here?”

Cody was an idiot. When he’d first seen that she was naked, he should have turned around and gotten the hell out of here. Instead, what had he done? He’d touched her. Then he’d put himself in a closed room with her.

A tiny closed room.

“There’s a good reason we instituted the conservative-clothing-at-all-times rule,” he said gruffly.

She still had her arm and hand covering the most important parts, but that didn’t matter one iota. He was never going to be able to forget what he’d seen.

“That rule is for when we’re together,” she said.

“We’re together now.” Wow, were they. Her scent was imprinted on his brain. Now, standing submerged in a cloud of it between her and the bottles on the shelf behind her, he found himself taking deeper and deeper breaths—and growing harder and harder.

The naked-breasts-and-other-parts thing wasn’t helping.

“I didn’t know we were going to be together now,” she returned. “What are you—and Conner—doing here?”

“Fixing the outlet in the kitchen that’s not working.” He breathed deeply and concentrated on keeping his eyes on hers. “I texted you.”

“My battery died.”

“Why are you naked?”

“I took a shower.”

“You’re not in the shower now. Do I need to buy you a robe?”

“I don’t need a robe when I’m in my house, presumably alone.”

“You always walk around the house naked when you’re alone?”

“Yes.”

He had nothing after that. He pressed his lips together and resolutely continued to focus on things above her shoulders. Like the two empty towel racks. “Where are your other towels?”

“In the dryer.”

He pulled the towel from her head, handing it to her. “God. Cover up.”

She wrapped the towel around her body, her wet hair falling past her shoulders, big blue eyes staring at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You look…weird.”

“This is, apparently, how I look when I’m trying with every fiber of my being not to kiss you.”

She made a soft choking noise and her hand grasped the towel tighter against her breasts.

“I’ve never seen that look before.”

“Yeah, I saw a few things for the first time today too.”

And she grinned.

That was one of the things he loved most about his “friend” Olivia. She had a fantastic sense of humor.

“What I mean is,” she said, “I thought there have been times in the past when you’ve had to try not to kiss me. And I’ve never seen that face before.”

There sure as hell had been times he’d had to resist grabbing her and pushing her up against the nearest wall. Or the nearest desk. Or the nearest copy machine, car door, refrigerator…

He cleared his throat. “Those times I was trying to resist kissing your lips.”

“But wh—”

She broke off as understanding dawned. And her cheeks got pink.

“God,” she finally breathed. “The not-talking-about-sex rule we have is a good one too.”

So were the other three rules they’d established nineteen months, two weeks and three days ago.

First and foremost was no kissing.

Second was conservative clothing only when they were together. He didn’t go shirtless, even when he was cleaning out her rain gutters in ninety-eight-degree weather. She didn’t wear fitted tank tops or short skirts. He didn’t wear fitted tank tops either—she’d added that to the list after the last time they’d gone to a baseball game together. If swimsuits were required, he wore baggy trunks that reached almost to his knees, and she had a two-piece with bottoms that looked like shorts and a top that covered her stomach and chest completely.

Third was no talking about sex—with anyone specifically or the overall topic in general. No innuendos either.

Fourth was no getting drunk together—they’d made that mistake once and would have made all kinds of horrible choices if Olivia’s sisters hadn’t come home early.

Fifth was no avoiding each other. That wasn’t acceptable. They were friends. They enjoyed being together. They had an entire group of friends in common.

It didn’t matter that they were more attracted to each other than they ever had been to anyone else. They weren’t going to let it keep them from being friends, and they weren’t going to let it make things awkward between them.

In fact, their friendship was one of the barriers they’d put up in hopes of fighting their attraction. They’d become even better friends, entirely on purpose, after the one and only time they’d kissed.

Nineteen months, two weeks and three days ago.

The thing was, the friends-only deal worked. It had started off as “let’s go to a movie” or “want to grab a burger” here and there, but once they’d started talking and laughing together, it had grown. When they’d discovered a mutual love for baking and had started baking together—even when he sometimes wished baking together was a euphemism for other things—their friendship had evolved into something real. There was something very innocent and fun and, of course, sweet about baking together. And in the process of mixing up cookies, muffins, brownies and new inventions here and there, they’d talked and shared and bonded.

Now they both protected the friendship staunchly. He’d never survive if he lost having Olivia in his life, and if that meant never kissing her again, so be it.

Or so he typically thought.

When she wasn’t naked in front of him.

“You’re still making that face,” Olivia said, her voice soft and a little breathless.

He was sure that he was. “You’re still standing here in a towel.”

“I can’t fix that until you move out of the way of the door,” she said with a smile.

He nodded. “It would make sense for me to move then.”

She swallowed. “If you want me to get dressed, anyway.”

“Right.”

He didn’t move out of the way.

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BEST OF THREE by Erin Nicholas

BEST OF THREE by Erin Nicholas

Counting on Love, Book 3...

Sometimes it takes a couple of tries before you get love right. 
 
Emma Dixon is known for getting in over her head—and having a great time doing it. She’s aware her shenanigans rub Nate Sullivan the wrong way, but getting a rise out of the cocky surgeon is one of her favorite pastimes. Truth be told, exasperated looks aren’t the only things she wants from the guy.

Nate has no intention of taking another trip down the falling-in-love road. Women are carefully compartmentalized—to his bedroom. Women who don’t mind his take-charge tendencies. Women very different from sassy, sexy, independent Emma.

But his usual strategy of arguing with Emma to keep from kissing her goes out the window when his son falls in love with her friend’s daughter. Emma sees a normal teenage romance. Nate sees his plans for the boy’s future ruined.

As Nate tries to derail the relationship, Emma runs interference, putting herself directly in the path of the chemistry that grows stronger every time they butt heads. And that could very well lead to the best surprise of all.

Warning: Contains a guy who knows exactly who he is and what he wants and a girl who’s going to change his mind about, well, everything. Plus inappropriate use of chocolate cake (of course, that depends on your definition of inappropriate).

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Copyright © 2013 Erin Nicholas
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication


“So, why don’t you ever ask me to take my clothes off?”

Nate Sullivan didn’t miss a beat. He didn’t act surprised, or amused or—most of all—interested. “Because X-rays can see through clothes.” He also didn’t lift his head from whatever he was putting into her medical record on the handheld computer.

Emma Dixon sighed. Nate was the one man in the world who looked at her with only exasperation. When he looked at her at all. She hated that she was attracted to him. “But it seems that you’re passing up a great opportunity.”

“Well, seeing women naked is why I went into medicine in the first place,” he said, dragging the pad of his index finger over the screen. “But then shattered bones won my heart and that’s the only thing I want to look at all day long now.”

And that bugged the crap out of her, Emma could admit. Not that she believed Nate didn’t like looking at naked women, but that he didn’t want to see her without her clothes. She wasn’t sure what to do with that. Men always wanted to see her without her clothes on.

“I know you’re not gay. You have Michael, after all,” she said, referring to Nate’s eighteen-year-old son. “Do you have trouble getting it up?”

Nate didn’t even blink as he continued tapping on the screen. He also didn’t look up.

Okay, that was low. Childish even. He just brought out the worst in her. She became this sad attention-seeking-low-self-esteem-over-compensating hormonal teenage girl that she hated when she was around him. She wanted to get a reaction from him. Always. Any time they were together.

“I even wore my pretty bra, in case you wanted to see me in one of those skimpy gowns,” she said, in spite of knowing she would not be proud of whatever came out of her mouth at that point.

Finally, he looked up and handed her a piece of paper. “Here’s a refill on the pain meds and no sex for six more weeks.” He completely ignored all of her attempts to rile him.
Bastard.

Emma looked at the prescription in her hand, then frowned at her surgeon. “You actually wrote that on the prescription?”

“Makes it official. This way, if you do it anyway and then come back in here complaining about how bad your hip hurts, I can officially say ‘told you so’.”

Emma resisted the urge to growl at him. Barely. “Seriously? It’s already been twelve weeks.”

He raised an eyebrow, in that very irritating you’re-acting-like-a-four-year-old way he had. She swore he only gave that look to her.
“Six more weeks.”

Nate Sullivan was cocky. Full of himself. Had a god complex. The whole nine yards. And he was completely and utterly immune to her charms. That made him more unique than the fact that he could put anyone back together again, no matter the trauma. It was thanks to him that she was now in one piece after the car accident and that she was walking again.
Unfortunately.

Knowing that she owed the guy who could make her crazy in under two minutes, made her…crazy.

“My physical therapist says that it’s ridiculous to still have a sex limitation after this long,” she said, folding the script and putting it in her pocket. She would fricking follow the damned thing because she would rather chew glass than hear “I told you so” from Dr. Sullivan.

“Does he?” Nate didn’t seem concerned. He was sliding her X-rays back into their envelope.
“He says that I won’t know what I can do until I try it.”

“You sure he was talking about sex and not jogging?”

“You said no jogging yet either.”

“Right.”

“He says that part of his job is to help me try the things that might be a challenge at first. You know, the whole physical therapy thing. He says I can try the new things out with him.”
That got Nate to look up. “Jogging, right?”

She leaned back, bracing her hands on the exam table behind her. God, there was something about him in that long lab coat and tie. She never saw him like that. He played football on the same amateur team as her brother, the Omaha Hawks, and he hung out with the guys afterward down at their favorite bar, Trudy’s, so she always saw him in uniform or jeans. And he looked very fine in both. But once he’d become her doctor—not that she’d had any say in that, having been unconscious and all at the time—she’d seen him dressed up and in charge. And damned if it didn’t make her tingle every time.

“Do you really think I need to wait six more weeks?”
“To jog?”

She allowed a long pause before saying, “Sure. Jogging.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I think you need to wait six more weeks to…jog.”

She had no desire to jog. She hadn’t been a big fan of it before her accident and, frankly, the idea of landing on her hip and pelvis like that made her shudder. It didn’t hurt much anymore but it seemed she always expected it to.

Nate started to turn away, then stopped. She followed his gaze to what had caught his attention. Her cane.
“What’s that?”

“You walk around here like a know-it-all but you’ve never seen one of those?” she asked, her stomach knotting. She knew what he was going to say. It was the same thing her therapist had been saying for four weeks. She didn’t need the cane anymore.

And when they broke their pelvises, they could toss the cane after eight weeks if they wanted to. This was her recovery.

Instead of grilling or lecturing her, however, Nate pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket, dialed and lifted it to his ear, all the while watching her. “This is Dr. Sullivan. I need to talk to Bruce.”
Her physical therapist. Great.

He didn’t even bother to greet Bruce. “Why is Emma Dixon still walking with a cane?”

He paused to listen, then said, “Get her off of it,” and hung up. He pocketed the phone and turned away, adding something to her medical record.
“Seriously? You don’t want to talk to me about it?”

“Bruce told me what I needed to know, and I told him what he needed to know,” Nate said without looking up.
She felt the knot of tension tighten. “What did he say?”
“You know better than anyone what he said, Emma.”

She felt her tummy flip at his use of her name. It was so stupid, but he rarely called her Emma, and never called her Em like everyone else did, so when he used her name, it always startled her. “He told you that he tried to get me off of it, but I won’t do it, right?”
“Right.”

“I don’t want to get rid of it yet. Why isn’t that okay?”

“Because it’s ridiculous. You can’t expect to make progress if you aren’t willing to try.”

“It’s okay for me to not have sex for six more weeks, but I can’t keep the cane?”
“Right.”

“Why?”

“Because in my professional opinion, that’s what needs to happen.”

God, he was frustrating. He was so damned bossy. She’d seen him yell and get riled up on the football field, but most of the rest of the time he seemed—stuck up. Conservative. Uptight. Something. She loved to try to rile him simply because it was so interesting to see him get worked up. She seemed to be the only one who could really get him going. He’d argue with her, when he’d shrug at everyone else who disagreed with him. She always loved sparring with him.

But she hadn’t imagined such a dominant, I’m-the-boss side of him.
And she certainly hadn’t imagined liking it.

“I’m not ready to get by without the cane yet,” she said. She could be equally stubborn. Ask any of her siblings.
“But you are ready for sex?”

Something about the way he said it, or was looking at her, or something, made her need to take a deep breath. “Maybe.”

“Is there someone that you’re dying to get back in bed with?”
No.

But that was neither here nor there. Nor was it any of his business anyway. She didn’t have anyone she wanted to sleep with, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be ordered not to sleep with anyone by her annoying, I-know-better-than-everyone-else-in-the-world doctor.

She didn’t care if he did know better than everyone else in the world about her injury and its repair.

It was so strange, looking at him now, to think that he’d seen parts of her body that no one ever had and, god-willing, no one else ever would. That he’d had his hands inside her, putting her back together, was strangely intimate.
Or stupid.

It was definitely that.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked. Did Nate truly care who she was sleeping with? Surely not.

“I would not be pleased to know that one of the physical therapists I refer to the most is having an inappropriate relationship with one of his patients.”
Oh.

She frowned. “I’m not sleeping with Bruce.”

Nate seemed satisfied with that simple answer. Which also irritated her. If he cared, he didn’t care much.

“No sleeping with anyone for six weeks. At least,” Nate said.

She tipped her head, watching him, hating him for looking so good in a tie, hating herself for liking him in a tie. She didn’t go for guys in ties generally. She liked blue-collar guys, guys who worked with their hands. Her attention dropped to Nate’s hands and she had to swallow hard. He worked with his hands. He’d had his hands all over her. He’d worked for hours to make sure she was okay. Her life had been in his hands.
And she’d been unconscious for the whole thing.

And that disappointed her.

Which she freaking hated.

She’d been in a car accident. She’d been bloody and broken. He’d cut her open, for god’s sake. There wasn’t one damned thing about it that was sexy or hot. She needed to get a grip.

This was all a product of Nate being the one guy she couldn’t seduce. He could resist her. More, he could make her feel stupid and silly. She hated that more than anything else.

She slid off the table and slipped her sandals back on her feet. “I’m tired of that topic and I have my paper for more drugs, so I’m gonna head out.”

She pulled the hem of her top down—the top that Nate definitely did not want her to take off—and ran a hand through her hair. But as she twisted the doorknob, Nate again used her name.
“Emma.”

Schooling her features before she turned, she gave him a bored look. “What?”
“Behave.”

She hadn’t behaved since she was six. “See that’s where this doctor-patient thing stops working,” she told him, pulling the door open. “You can control my medication and you can bully my physical therapist. You can even keep me from all of my favorite workouts. But nobody has the power to make me behave.”
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IT TAKES TWO by Erin Nicholas

IT TAKES TWO by Erin Nicholas

Counting on Love, Book 2

How do you fall out of love with a man who's all in?

Isabelle Dixon never should have said yes to that first date, but she couldn't resist Shane Kelley's larger-than-life personality. Except now Shane seems determined to make their no-strings fling into something more.

If she thought dating Shane was hard work, breaking up is proving to be much harder. Especially since she's planning on making some major life changes that don't include staying out all night, Jell-O shots, and a sex toy shop punch card. She needs a restful cabin getaway-alone-to gather her thoughts. And the strength to finally end things for good.

Shane has always prided himself on being the good-time guy. Exactly Isabelle's type…or so he thought. Yet ever since he suggested her moving in, she's been pulling back. Thing is, Shane does everything with gusto-including falling in love.

He's not about to let her get away that easily. Even if it means chasing her heart down a crazy road to prove that no matter what life throws at them, they make a damned good team.

Warning: Contains a strange road trip with several weird tourist stops, some hot sex in a car wash, and two people who are just crazy enough to be perfect for one another.

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Copyright © 2013 Erin Nicholas
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication


“You know…” Her gaze went to his lips and she felt the very familiar hot flush of desire. The things he could do with those lips should come with a warning label. “I had specifically planned on not kissing you in here tonight.”

“Is that right?” His hands curled into her hips and his attention focused on her mouth as well. “Why is that?”
“Because it never ends with kissing.”

Even the kissing was enough to make her willing and able to keep the part of her life away from him that she was afraid would turn him off. And the other stuff that the kissing led to… Well, she had no problem understanding why she’d kept up the act.

And if the sex was enough to inspire her façade, then everything else he was and did was enough to convince her she could keep it up long term.
Until she was away from him again.

He was like a drug. When they were together it all felt good and right and doable. When they were apart, she’d remember that this was never going to work long term.
“Do you want it to?”

Her gaze flickered back to his. What were they talking about? Oh, yeah, the kissing thing. “We never just kiss,” she said. “The first night we went out we had sex.”

His voice was a little gruff when he said, “I remember.” He pulled her even closer. “I also remember that you initiated the entire thing.”

She couldn’t deny it. The entire night had felt like foreplay. Which was a little crazy and a lot dangerous. They’d been at Trudy’s. Like they had been dozens of times before. They hadn’t even been there together. He’d asked her, for the third time, if she’d go out with him. She’d said no. Then he’d gotten up on the karaoke stage with Ryan and Cody and sung “Just a Gigolo” by David Lee Roth. There was something about him—the confidence, the big grin, the way he not only had a great time wherever he was but made sure everyone around him had a great time, something—that drew her in. She’d fought it to that point but after he left the stage, she’d asked him to dance. From there she was a goner.
“I remember too,” she admitted.

Shane lifted a hand and traced the neckline of her top, his finger sliding along the top swells of her breasts. “When you pushed me up against the side of my car in the parking lot and laid that first sexy kiss on me I was willing to beg for more on hands and knees. But I wasn’t about to suggest sex on the first date with a classy woman like Isabelle Dixon,” he said.

Classy. She’d quickly shown him her opposite side to that persona. “You didn’t have to suggest it, did you?” she asked, memories shifting through her mind like a kaleidoscope.

He chuckled. “No, I certainly didn’t. And trust me, I was very pleasantly surprised by the dirty mind and mouth behind the polished, sophisticated front you put on.”

Yep, she’d already shown him a little of her talent for switching personalities. And he’d been pleasantly surprised because it had gotten him laid. Well. Three times that night.

He lifted his hand to cup the back of her head and pulled her closer until their lips were a mere millimeter apart. She was a good six inches shorter than him, but she usually wore heels that put her at exactly the right height for things like dancing and kissing and for him to put her up against the wall, hike up her skirt and drive deep.

She wore skirts and thongs a lot when she was with Shane. For those very reasons.

“You want me to just kiss you, Iz? I can be happy with that.”

“You sure?” Her hand slid up the back of his neck and into his hair. He wore it longer than most of the cops, but he didn’t get any crap about it. She loved the way she could thread her fingers through it and grip it when he kissed her—wherever he was kissing her.
“Very sure,” he said softly. Then his mouth met hers.

They’d kissed in every way there was to kiss. Soft and sweet, hot and heavy, long and delicious, all over each other’s body. This was a combination of all of those and then some.

His mouth moved against hers, lip to lip, for a long time. He’d press, then retreat, change angles, open slightly, lick along her bottom lip, then back off and softly kiss the corners of her mouth.

Shane lifted his hands to her cheeks, cupping her face, holding her still. Then he kissed her forehead, her nose, her chin, the side of her neck, then returned to her lips.
Isabelle sighed against his mouth.

“I could do this all night,” he muttered against her lips. “So many places to put my mouth.”

“Thought we were kissing only,” she managed breathlessly.

“Well, French kissing is kissing. And trust me, honey, I can French kiss you in lots and lots of places.”

She started to respond, but then he turned up the heat. He moved one hand to the back of her head, the other to her thigh, lifting it, pulling her close and holding her there, then he opened his mouth on hers, stroking his tongue in possessively.
This time she moaned.

The deep, hot kiss went on and on. Isabelle felt her whole body respond. Wet and hot and tingly. All over. Her scalp prickled, her nipples tightened, her stomach felt warm and everything below that was…all of the above.

She gripped the front of his shirt and arched harder against him, wishing they were naked, wishing she had worn her four-inch heels instead of the two-inch tonight.
God, she needed him.

She slipped a hand between them, running her hand over the hard bulge behind his zipper.
He released her so suddenly she stepped back.

“Whoa girl. I’m tryin’ to be good here. Show you I can do some vanilla kissing.”

That was vanilla kissing? Yeah, right. “I changed my mind,” she said, reaching for him.

He held his hands up and shook his head. “No way, babe. You wanted just kissing. I’m just kissing.”

“I want more than just kissing. Come on, Shane.” She stepped close and grabbed him by the shirt again. “You never say no to me.”

“Until now.” He gripped her wrist gently, but she knew she wouldn’t get her hand free until he let her go. “I’m gonna pass this test, Iz. I’m gonna pass all your tests.” He leaned closer until they were nose to nose. “I want you to move in with me. I want to be with you. I’ll have vanilla sex and play checkers. I’ll keep my hands completely to myself and make dinner for you every night. Or—” he leaned in close again, “—I’ll rock your frickin’ world as often, as hard and as loudly as you’ll let me.” He settled back on his heels. “It’s up to you.”

Isabelle stared at him, her heart pounding, heat swirling through her body. “Yes,” she finally said. “Yes. That last one. Right now.”

He touched his finger to her nose. “I’m gonna do this, Iz. Pretty soon you’ll be moving your panties into the top drawer of my dresser and wondering why you ever even thought to resist.”

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SHE'S THE ONE by Erin Nicholas

SHE'S THE ONE by Erin Nicholas

Counting on Love, Book 1

... Sometimes you see love clearly. And sometimes it has to smack you in the face. 

When a stranger walks up and punches him, Ryan Kaye assumes there’s a good reason. But he’s stunned to learn it’s over a one-night stand that never happened —with his friend’s sister, straight-laced Amanda Dixon. When Ryan confronts her about the lie, Amanda apologizes, but Ryan realizes he doesn’t want her to be sorry…he wants the night they supposedly spent together.

Amanda’s not looking to add anyone to her long list of commitments, so she was only trying to let a nice guy down easy by telling him a fling with Ryan broke her heart. So what if the fling only happened in her dreams? But when Ryan Kaye tempts her with the chance to go crazy and fulfill a few fantasies, she can’t resist. Thank goodness one night isn’t enough time to fall in love…

Warning: Contains a hot paramedic who knows how to get a girl to let her hair down, a girl who thinks she prefers her hair up, some naughty laser tag, some naughty role-playing and a lot of falling in love.

 

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Samhain Publishing
© copyright Erin Nicholas, 2013

Ryan signaled Carrie, the waitress. “Two of whatever each of the ladies want,” he said, pointing to Emma, Isabelle and Olivia. He looked at the girls. “Stay here and mind your own business. Or at least mind someone’s business other than mine and Amanda’s.”

Emma grinned. “You and Amanda have business in common?”

He looked down at the woman beside him. He still held on to her elbow and he became aware that she smelled really, really good. Yes, it appeared that he and Amanda had business in common. How interesting. “Just stay here,” he finally said to Emma.

He tugged Amanda through the crowd to the corner near the back door. It wasn’t exactly private, but it would work for a few minutes. That was all he would have, he was sure, before Conner realized one of his friends had one of his sisters off in a dark corner alone.

“Yes, I talked to Tim Winters,” Ryan said when they were as alone as they were going to get. “Right after he clocked me and knocked me on my ass.”

Amanda gasped. “He hit you?”

“Yeah, because I slept with you.”

“I… Oh… Um…”

Ryan fought a smile. “But it’s weird. That really seems like something I’d remember.”

She rolled her eyes. “We all probably blend together after awhile.” She said it quietly, more of a mutter really, but he heard it.

“What’s that mean?” he demanded. He put a finger under her chin and tipped her head so she had to look at him. “Amanda, what does that mean?”

She shrugged and pulled her chin away from his touch. “It means that it’s got to be difficult keeping track of everyone in and out of your bed without making them all wear name tags.”

He grinned. He couldn’t help it. She was sassy too. He liked that. And liked even more that it didn’t show all the time. Emma was pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-get. He liked knowing that there might be layers to Amanda Dixon to discover.

“Where would they pin the name tags?” he couldn’t resist asking.

For just a moment, Amanda seemed surprised. Then she smiled. “You’ll have to get the adhesive ones, I guess.”

“Might cover up something I need to see.”

“You could try only dating women named Jennifer or something.”

He smiled. “But then Tim Winters wouldn’t believe whatever you told him about you and me.”

Amanda pressed her lips together. Then said, “I’m really sorry he hit you.”

“I’ll live. What I want to know is why he did it.”

“I thought he…told you.”

She actually blushed and Ryan wondered if he could remember the last time he’d seen a woman blush. Not off the top of his head.

“I want to hear it from you.”

She looked at the collar of his shirt instead of his eyes. “I told him I had a one-night stand with someone and had feelings for him.”

“Me.”

“Yes.”

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