The Prince's Holiday Baby. Brenda Harlen

winced. “Okay, it did sound like a line.”

      “You think?” What was even worse than the obvious script was how much she still wanted to give in to the desire thrumming between them.

      “What I think is that, for the first time in a long time, I’ve met an interesting woman and I’m not ready to say goodbye to her yet.”

      He sounded sincere, but if she’d learned nothing else from her failed relationships, she’d learned that she didn’t have a clue when it came to understanding the motivations of men. “Do you mean that?”

      “Yes, I do.”

      His voice was sure, his gaze steady, and despite the doubts and insecurities that swirled inside her, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet, either.

      “I’m not working tomorrow,” she finally said. “If you wanted to meet me back here around ten, maybe we could spend the day together.”

      “I’d really like that,” he said. “But I won’t be here tomorrow.”

      Disappointment weighed heavily in her belly. “You won’t?”

      “My plane’s scheduled to leave at 8:00 a.m.”

      “You’re going back to Tesoro del Mar?”

      He nodded, and though she regretted that it was true, she knew his leaving wasn’t any reason to throw caution to the wind and do something completely crazy.

      “I guess this is goodbye then,” she said.

      “I guess it is,” he agreed.

      Then he tipped her chin up with his finger and brushed his lips against hers. It was a gentle kiss this time, as fleeting as their time together had been.

      “Goodbye, Molly.”

      “Goodbye.” She watched him cross the room. She watched as he flipped the lock and pushed on the door, and she felt all of her reason and common sense sweep through the open portal and into the night.

      “Wait.” The word sprang from her lips without conscious thought.

      He turned back. Waiting.

      She could let him go—and always wonder what might have been. Or she could be wildly spontaneous and spend the night with a man whose kiss had singed her right down to her toes.

      She’d always believed it was better to regret something she’d done than something she’d left undone, and while it was possible she’d wake up with regrets in the morning, she knew she would regret it more if she let him walk away.

      Eric sensed the battle waging inside Molly and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep his hand clamped around the handle of the door to keep from reaching for her again. If they were going to spend the night together—as he very much wanted them to do—it would need to be her decision. And he knew it wasn’t one she would make lightly.

      She’d admitted that she didn’t date much, and he knew a woman as beautiful and warm and friendly as Molly didn’t sleep alone unless it was what she wanted. So what made him think that she would break her self-imposed rules to spend the night with him?

       Chemistry.

      It had crackled between them from the first moment their eyes had locked across the bar and had been building and deepening ever since. The sizzling kiss they’d shared was further proof of it.

      His body was still humming from the after-effects of that kiss, or maybe it was almost three years of self-imposed celibacy that had everything inside him churned up. Whatever the reason, he knew what he wanted. He was just waiting for Molly to reach the same conclusion.

      She looked at him now, her eyes locked with his, and she said only one more word.

      “Stay.”

      He flipped the lock on the door and moved back to her.

      She met him halfway—her arms lifting to circle his neck, her body pressing against his, her mouth opening for his kiss.

      His hands moved over her, hotly, hungrily. She gasped and sighed in response to his touch, and those sexy little sounds nearly snapped the last of his control. She was so eager and passionate, as hungry for him as he was for her, and it was an effort not to tear away her clothes where they stood and bury himself inside her.

      The woman had him tied up in knots, desperate and aching with desire.

      He cupped her breasts and felt her nipples pebble in response to the brush of his thumbs. She arched against him, a silent plea for more. Even through the layers of their clothing, the erotic friction of her hips pushing against his was almost too much.

      She was sexy and sweet, giving and demanding.

      And she was his.

      The thought came from out of nowhere, the sudden drive to take and claim and possess both unfamiliar and undeniable.

      He was leaving in the morning. They both knew they wouldn’t have anything more than this one night together. But he was determined to make it a night neither of them would ever forget.

      This was crazy.

      Even as Molly led Eric up the stairs to her apartment over the bar, she knew it was outrageously insane to even consider having sex with a man she’d never laid eyes on a few hours before, who would be leaving again in another few hours and whom she would probably never see again after that.

      She didn’t care.

      Right now all she cared about was getting naked with him.

      And he wanted the same thing, if the trail of clothes they left in the hall on their way to her room was any indication. She led him unerringly through the dark to the bed, then pushed him back onto the mattress and tumbled down with him.

      She reached for the small lamp on the night table, but he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her palm, nibbled on her fingers, and sent sparks of heat zinging through her system.

      Oh, yes, there was heat. And Molly gloried in this confirmation that she wasn’t unresponsive or dispassionate, she’d just needed a man who knew how to touch her the right way. And Eric definitely knew how to touch a woman the right way.

      She wanted to touch him—was desperate to touch him—too. With limited experience to fall back on, she allowed her instincts to guide her. She ran her hands up his chest, over his shoulders, down his arms. She reveled in the feel of all those hard, tight muscles bunching and flexing in response to her eager touch. His skin was warm and smooth and taut; his body exquisitely carved and sculpted. Everywhere she touched, he was hard and strong, so completely and perfectly male. And for now—for the next few hours that remained of the night—he was hers.

      Her fingertips paused in their exploration, hovering over the puckered ridge of skin she’d discovered beneath his lowest rib.

      She felt him tense as she slowly traced the diagonal line of the scar toward his hip bone. Her fingers moved lower, finding a wider, longer scar on his upper thigh, and she instinctively knew this was the reason he hadn’t wanted the light.

      His perfect body wasn’t quite perfect after all. And yet, the physical scars on his body somehow enhanced rather than detracted from his appeal.

      “A recent injury?” she asked softly.

      “Not so recent,” he said, but offered nothing more.

      She traced her fingertips over the scars again, as if her touch could ease the strain she heard in his voice, the tension in his muscles. “What happened?”

      “A naval training exercise went wrong.”

      His simplistic explanation was a clear indication that this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. But his response had given her another valuable insight about this man. “So you’re a sailor.”

      “Was,” he corrected.

      “With