Nancy Warren - Just One Night

“Sexual attraction is raw and immediate …”

“It’s about a man and a woman,” Rob said, tracing his fingers along the line of Hailey’s jaw. “The feel of her skin, the way she smells.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “The way she tastes.”

And he closed the short distance between them and put his mouth on hers.

Nothing could have prepared Hailey for the lust that punched through her system. A light, teasing kiss turned hungry and hot in a nanosecond. She made a little moaning sound in the back of her throat as she reached for him, wanting to feel the solid outline of his chest. His tongue teased and tormented her. She’d never been kissed like this. Never imagined anything close to this.

He kissed her for seven eternities, taking his time, not trying to rip off her clothes or talk her into his bed, but kissing her as though his whole existence depended on nothing but this moment.

Getting involved with Rob wasn’t on her agenda, but she knew that she’d been seriously compromised.

When he pulled slowly away from her, he grinned at her wryly.

“You can’t get that on the internet …”

Dear Reader,

I confess, I love those real estate shows on television. I love the ones where we follow a couple as they try to pick the perfect home, I love the ones where decorators turn disasters into showplaces. I even love looking at real estate listings in cities where I know I will never live.

I suspect I’m not alone, given the popularity of real estate shows on TV, the constant talk about where the market is and where it’s going. I think the fun is in the fantasy that that home could be yours. That couple squabbling over an extra bedroom versus a bigger yard could be you. So I set out to write a book where a Realtor falls in love, not only with the home she’s listed, but most inconveniently, with the guy who is selling it. And in particular with one big, beautiful four-poster bed in the master bedroom.

I hope you enjoy Hailey and Rob’s story, and get a little vicarious pleasure out of the story of how the wrong man in the wrong bed turns out to be exactly the right man in the right bed.

I love hearing from readers. Visit me on the web at www.nancywarren.net.

Happy reading,

Nancy Warren

USA TODAY bestselling author NANCY WARRENlives in the Pacific Northwest where her hobbies include skiing, hiking and snowshoeing. She’s an author of more than thirty novels and novellas for Mills & Boon and has won numerous awards. Visit her website at www.nancywarren.net.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Sally, the best stager I know!

“SICK LEAVE?” Rob Klassen yelled, unable to believe what he was hearing from the editor of World Week , the international current affairs magazine he’d worked for as a photojournalist for twelve years. “I’m not sick!”

Gary Wallanger pulled off his glasses and tossed them onto his desktop cluttered with Rob’s proof sheets documenting a skirmish in a small town near the Ras Ajdir border between Tunisia and Libya. “What do you suggest I call it? Shot-in-the-ass leave? You damned near got yourself killed. Again.”

Gary didn’t like his people getting too close to the action they were reporting on and his glare was fierce.

Rob put all his weight on his good leg, but even so, the throbbing in his left thigh was hard to ignore. “I was running away as fast as I could.”

“I saw the hospital report. You were running toward the shooter. Bad luck for you. They can tell those things from the entry and exit wounds.” In the uncomfortable silence that followed Rob heard the roar of traffic, honking cabs and sirens on the Manhattan streets far below. He hadn’t counted on Gary finding out the details he’d have rather kept to himself.

“You want to be a war hero,” his editor snapped, “join the forces. We report news. We don’t make it.”

Another beat ticked by.

“There were bullets flying everywhere. I got disoriented.”

“Bull. You were playing hero again, weren’t you?”

Rob could still picture the toddler cowering behind an oil drum. Yeah, his boss would have been happier if he’d left her scared and crying in the line of gunfire. But he was the one who had to wake up every morning and look himself in the mirror. Truth was he hadn’t thought at all. He’d merely dashed over to the girl and hauled her to safety. Getting shot hadn’t been in his plan.

Would he have acted any differently if he’d known what the outcome would be? He sure as hell hoped not.

He knew better than to tell Gary any of that. “You don’t win Pulitzers with a telephoto lens. I needed to get close enough to capture the real story.”

“Close enough to take a bullet in the leg.”

“That was unfortunate,” Rob admitted. “I can still handle a camera though. I can still walk.” He made a big show of stalking across the carpeted office, scooting around the obstacle course of stacked back issues, piled newspapers and a leaning tower of reference books. If he concentrated he could manage to stride without a limp or a wince though he could feel sweat begin to break out from the effort.

“No.” The single word stopped him in his tracks.

He turned. “I’m the best you’ve got. You have to send me back out on assignment.”

“I will. As soon as you can run a mile in six.”

“A mile in six minutes? Why so fast?”

Gary’s voice was as dry as the North African desert. “So the next time you have to run for your life you can make it.”

Rob paused for breath and grabbed a chair back for support. He and Gary had been friends for a long time and he knew the guy was making the right decision even if it did piss him off. “It was pure bad luck. If I’d dodged right instead of left …”

“You know most people would be pretty happy to be alive if they were you. And they’d be thrilled to get a paid vacation.” Gary picked up his glasses and settled himself behind his desk.

“They patched me up at the closest military hospital. It was nothing but a flesh wound.”

“The bullet nicked your femur. I do know how to read a hospital report.”

Damn .

“Go home. Rest up. The world will continue to be full of trouble when you get back.” Rob knew Gary was still aggravated by the fact that he didn’t compliment him on his photos, which they both knew to be superb. Instead of getting the praise he deserved, he was being sent home like a kid who’d screwed up.

He scowled.

Home .

He’d been on the road so much in the past few years that home was usually wherever he stashed his backpack.

If he’d ever had a home, it was in Fremont, Washington, a suburb of Seattle that prided itself on celebrating counterculture, considering itself the center of the universe and officially endorsing the right to be peculiar. Fremont seemed a fitting destination for him right now that he was feeling both self-centered and peculiar. Besides, it was the only place he could think of to go even though everything that had made the place home was now gone.

“All right. But I heal fast. I’ll be running six-minute miles in a couple weeks. Tops.”

“You’ll be under a doctor’s care and I’ll be needing the physician’s report before I can reinstate you for any assignments in the field.”

“Oh, come on, Gary. Give me a freakin’ break.”