For 100 Days (100 1)

“Nick, please say something.”

He blinks, then glances away from me, staring at the rain-sluiced windshield. “Has anything you’ve told me the past hundred days been true?”

“Yes.” The word cracks in my throat, thick with emotion. I’m desperate to make him understand, to make him believe me now. “Everything I’ve said about us, about the way you make me feel . . . about what I feel for you . . . Nick, it’s all been true. Every word. Except I didn’t tell you everything.”

His gaze locks on me, hard with suspicion. It twists my heart to see the edge of rawness in his eyes when he’s looking at me now.

I lick my lips. “I should have told you something else before now. Nick, I’m falling in love with you.”

I’ve caught him off guard completely. I see the telling flicker of surprise in his expression. But then it’s gone, replaced with something steely, something stronger than denial.

I smile nervously. “Is this the part where you cut me loose because I’ve been fool enough to get too close to you?”

“Is that what you think I’ll do?”

“I don’t know. Other women—”

“Never compare yourself to other women.” His reply is clipped, firm. “I’ve never compared you to anyone. This is about us. There’s no room for anyone else.”

I nod, swallowing thickly. “Then where do we go from here? Tell me what I can do to make this right between us again.”

I watch him contemplate, a tendon pulsing in the side of his cheek. When he looks at me, his blue gaze is steady, unyielding. “One hundred nights.”

“What?”

“One hundred nights in my bed.” He leans toward me, those arresting eyes refusing to let me go. “You’ve had a hundred days on your terms, Ms. Ross, now I want the same on mine.”

My breath catches, and while part of me fears the kind of control he’s about to demand, there’s another part of me that can think of nothing I want more. “What are your terms, Mr. Baine?”

“For the next one hundred nights, I want you open to me—anywhere I want, whatever I ask of you. No limits, no barriers, no hiding any part of yourself from me. And, Avery, I will demand more from you than I ever have.”

“That’s it?” I shake my head, hope and elation streaking through me like licks of fire. “That’s all you’ll require of me?”

He leans forward and cups my face in his strong hands. “That’s a good beginning.”

“Yes,” I agree, as he pulls me into a sensual kiss. “That is a good beginning.”

~ ~ ~

Nick arranges to have my rental car picked up from the prison lot and we decide to stay overnight in Pennsylvania rather than make the long drive back to the city. Besides, I’ve just entered into an agreement with a formidable negotiator, and both of us are eager to get started hammering out the fine points as quickly as possible.

The nearest hotel is a cheap chain a few miles away, and Nick runs to check us in while I wait in the car. I can’t take my eyes off him as he strolls into the hotel and walks up to the desk. Will I ever tire of looking at him? Will he always make my pulse quicken and my body melt with desire?

I suspect so, and I intend to spend the next three and a half months testing the theory.

I’m enjoying watching the young reception clerk flirt with my man when my cell phone rings with a local call.

Thinking it’s Stadler or the prison calling with an update on my mom, I swipe the screen and answer. “Hello?”

“Hello, Avery.”

The male voice is thin, but sharp as the edge of a blade. I can’t place it immediately, yet my body’s reaction is visceral, as if I’ve just taken a face full of frigid water.

“Shame about your mother, huh? ‘Course, all things considered, that fall coulda been worse. A helluva lot worse.”

“Who is this?”

An airless chuckle grates across my ear. “Oh, come on, now. I think you know. But I’m guessing your rich boyfriend in there doesn’t.”