Hot Winter Nights Read online

  “Is it worse than dying?” Archer asked mildly.

  Shit. Lucas went back upstairs. He needed a shower, fresh clothes, and a clear head before he faced Molly, as well as a good story because apparently he couldn’t tell her the truth. He hoped to hell that a long hot shower would clear his brain enough to come up with something believable, because something else Molly was—sharp as they came. He stalked through his bedroom, hit the switch on the wall and froze.

  The brunette was still in his bed.

  At the bright light flooding the room, she gasped and sat straight up, clutching the sheet to her chin, her hair a wild cloud around her face.

  And not a stranger’s face either.

  Molly’s face.

  Molly was in his bed and his first thought was oh shit. His second thought tumbled right on the heels of that—he was going to die today after all, slowly and painfully.

  Chapter 2

  #TheyDontKnowThatWeKnowTheyKnow

  Molly Malone didn’t have a lot of experience at the whole morning-after scenario. She wasn’t big on going out much, mostly because all she wanted to do after a long day of work was take off her work clothes, chill, and not get dressed up and go out on some date with a guy who thought that by date three he should get laid.

  Last night had been different for several reasons, one of which happened to be standing at the foot of the bed, his short, silky dark hair tousled; scowl on his very hot, unshaven face; hands on his lean hips. He wore rumpled cargoes and the same black T-shirt he’d worn last night, the one that hugged all his sinewy strength and could make a woman’s mouth water.

  But not hers. Instead she lifted her chin into his terse silence. Lucas was a man of few words. He could say more with an annoyed exhale than anyone she knew. “What?” she asked.

  “I’m . . . confused.”

  Probably not an easy admission for a guy who always knew what to do or say. But she had to admit, seeing him a little off his axis, something she’d bet the tough, hardened investigator rarely allowed anyone else to see, made her want to mess with him. Yes, sometimes she liked to live dangerously. “And you’re confused about . . . ?”

  His warm, deep brown eyes met hers, but he didn’t answer.

  “You didn’t seem confused last night,” she said with more bravado than she felt.

  He scowled. But more interestingly, he also paled. Which, considering he’d gotten his sexy bronzed skin tone from his Brazilian mother, was quite the feat.

  “Maybe you should tell me what happened last night,” he said.

  “You first. What do you remember?”

  “We were at the pub.” He frowned. “And then I woke in bed with you.”

  Oh boy. After one of Hunt’s longtime clients had shown up and had lifted his glass with “this one’s for Lucas, who saved my ass and my life,” he’d tossed back his drink, clearly expecting Lucas to do the same.

  Which he had.

  Shortly after that, Lucas’s constant sharp edge had softened, though she’d been the only one to notice. To make sure he got upstairs to his place safe and sound, she’d taken him herself. He’d been both a smartass and a pain in her ass as she’d bossed him to bed, asking if she’d been mean Nurse Ratchet in another life.

  It’d been a direct hit because she’d played the hard-ass nurse nearly all of her life to her dad. She’d had to.

  “Molly,” he said tightly now, clearly out of patience.

  Fine. He wanted to know what had happened. A recap might be fun. “Well, for starters,” she said, “you told me you had a crush on me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Okay, fine, he hadn’t. And ouch. “You’re so sure about that?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. By the time she’d gotten him here, he’d been really out of it. Having never seen him anything less than 100 percent in control of himself and everything around him, she’d been worried about him.

  And had been ever since he’d gotten shot two weeks ago on the job, the memory of which still made her heart clutch. According to Archer and Joe, Lucas had continuously denied being anything but “fine,” but there’d been shadows in his eyes last night and a new hollowness that she recognized.

  Deeply buried pain.

  Being shot had brought back some bad memories for him and no one understood that more than she.

  Still standing at the foot of the bed, hands on hips, his expression dialed to Not Happy, he blew out a breath. “Tell me what else.”

  She’d grown up in a house made of testosterone. It’d been just her dad, her brother, and herself, and she’d learned early on how to handle the male psyche. Her best strategy had always involved humor. “I don’t know if I should say. You look ready to have a mantrum.”

  He scowled. “What the hell’s a mantrum?”

  “It’s like a tantrum, only worse because a grown-ass man is having it.” She smiled.

  He did not. The muscles in his jaw ticked. “I don’t have mantrums. I want to know exactly what I said.” He paused. “And did.”

  So he really didn’t remember, which was both a disappointment and an opportunity. “You said, and I quote . . .” She lowered her voice to imitate his low base tone. “‘I’m gonna rock your world, baby.’”

  He closed his eyes and muttered something about being a dead man walking . . .

  But she couldn’t help noticing he didn’t doubt that he’d come onto her. Interesting. Maybe even . . . thrilling. Not that it changed a thing. She wasn’t interested in him, period. To be interested meant putting herself out there and being willing to fall. And to do those things, she had to be vulnerable.

  Not going to happen. Not ever again.

  Nope, at the ripe old age of nearly twenty-eight, she was done, thank you very much. Not that this stopped her from starting to feel a little bit insulted at Lucas’s attitude. “I’m not sure I see what the problem is,” she said.

  “Are you kidding me?” His voice was morning scratchy and sexy as hell, damn him. She could tell he hadn’t had any caffeine yet today.

  And neither had she. And worse, she’d not taken off her makeup the night before out of worry and stress over the man currently glaring at her, so she probably looked like a raccoon.

  A raccoon with really bad morning bed head.

  Ignoring him, she tossed back the bedding. And it was some really great bedding too. She’d need a raise from Archer before she could afford anything close to this quality.

  Lucas seemed to suddenly choke on his own tongue, prompting her to look down at herself. Not wanting to sleep in her one and only party dress, she’d . . . borrowed one of his T-shirts last night. It hit her at mid-thigh and was softer than any T-shirt she’d ever had and the truth was, he wasn’t going to get it back.

  “Is that my shirt?” he asked.

  “Yes.” The funny thing was that on the job, Lucas was the steady, unflappable, stoic one. Nothing got to him, nothing penetrated. He was “it’s all good” Lucas Knight. But he wasn’t all good now. He thought they’d slept together and though he was doing a great job at hiding it, he was freaking out.

  Craning his neck, he eyed the chair, and her dress on it. Her heels lay haphazardly on the floor, her champagne lace bra on top of them. Closing his eyes, he ran a hand over his scruffy jaw. “Just shoot me now.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t remember any of it?”

  He paused, dropped his hand and opened his eyes on hers. “Just how much of ‘it’ was there?”

  “Wow,” she said in her best pissy tone. She had no idea what she thought she was doing poking the bear like this, but his clear unhappiness at the thought of them being together felt like an insult.

  “Just, please God, tell me it was all consensual,” he said, not playing. In fact, he was more serious than she’d ever seen him.

  Well, if he was going to go all hero-like on her . . . She sighed. “Of course the evening was entirely consensual.”

  He nodded and sank to the chair holdi