When he finally shifted his weight beneath her, she thought he was only getting more comfortable. And then she realized that he was looking at his watch.
She groaned. “Don’t start that again.”
“I have to go.” His voice was a husky growl that sounded so sexy she was tempted to attack him again.
Except that she didn’t at all like what he had said.
Startled, she lifted her head. “What do you mean, you have to go? Why?”
“It’s getting late.”
She ran her fingertips over his whisker-roughened jaw. “Spend the night with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?” she persisted, beginning to frown. Why was he suddenly acting so distant? Surely he wasn’t having regrets about making love to her. She knew he’d been as well satisfied as she had…hadn’t he? “Reed?”
He brushed a strand of hair away from her anxious eyes. “Celia, I have to go,” he said gently. “There are some things I have to do.”
“Don’t try to tell me you have more calls to make. Not at this hour.”
“I can’t explain right now. I don’t have time. I promise I’ll tell you everything you want to know—and probably a few things you don’t want to know—tomorrow.” He slid from beneath her and reached for his clothes.
Propped on one elbow, Celia watched him in growing dismay. “I can’t believe you’re leaving like this. Reed, why won’t you talk to me now? What do you have to do that’s so important?”
He looked at her as he stepped into his dark jeans. His eyes were troubled. “I don’t want to go,” he assured her, and he sounded so sincere she had to believe him. “There’s nothing I want more than to sleep with you in my arms tonight. I promise I’ll make this up to you, Celia—but I have to go now.”
She didn’t understand. What would a tax accountant on vacation have to do at this hour? What could be so important? “Reed?” Her voice came out small, vulnerable.
He paused in buttoning his black shirt. “Yes?”
“Are you sorry that we—you know?”
Almost before she knew he had moved, he was sitting on the bed beside her, his arms locked tightly around her, his face buried in her hair. “No,” he said roughly. “I’m not sorry. And you’d better not be, either, damn it. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Celia Carson. And I’m going to prove it to you.”
“Then stay with me tonight,” she whispered, suddenly unaccountably worried—but not knowing why.
“I can’t.” He kissed her once, then again. Hard. “I’ll explain tomorrow, when there’s time. I promise.”
He paused only a moment in her bedroom doorway, looking back at her as though to memorize the sight of her lying there with her hair tangled, her body covered only by a thin white sheet. And then he groaned. “Tomorrow,” he repeated, whether to her or to himself, she wasn’t sure.
And then he was gone.
Celia lay for a long time just staring at the empty doorway where Reed had stood. What on earth…?
This was turning out to be one hell of an “adventure,” she thought with a sigh. The men she’d been interested in had spent an awful lot of time taking care of business—even the one who was supposedly on vacation!
She flopped onto her back against the pillows.
Okay, so she was no longer a virgin. Funny. She still didn’t feel like the wild and wicked woman she’d set out to become when she’d left Percy.
She felt…
Claimed.
Hog-tied and branded, Reed had called it.
That pretty well summed up the way she felt.