Borrowing a Bachelor Read Online Free

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    She looked down at her current get-up and couldn’t really argue. Only the vitals were covered, and just to remind her of it a stinging insect bit her on the backside. “Ow!” Nikki exclaimed, slapping at it.
    Behind the cocktail napkins, Adam’s eyes widened slightly, and he swallowed hard, averting them.
    “I’d offer to pay for the, um, other talent and the round of drinks,” she said, “but I’m dead broke, which is why I even considered doing this.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” said Adam.
    She led the way to her car, a powder-blue Volkswagen Beetle. “Where’s the nearest E.R.? Or minor emergency center? Do you know?”
    “I’ll be fine. Really.”
    Nikki looked at him doubtfully. “What if I broke your nose?”
    “I don’t think it’s broken.”
    “But it could be. And I’ve heard of all kinds of freak things that can happen—a bone fragment could pierce something in your brain, and boom! You’d be a vegetable.” She shuddered.
    Adam laughed. The sound was reassuring but also annoying—he wasn’t taking her seriously. He was treating her like the dumb blonde she appeared to be.
    “I’m serious. Look, you’re not a doctor,” she said in reasonable tones.
    He cocked an eyebrow at her but didn’t argue.
    “So why don’t we make sure that you’re okay?” she prodded.
    “Not necessary. They’ll tell me to elevate the nose, keep an ice pack on it and take a couple of ibuprofen for the swelling. If a shard of bone had pierced my brain, I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you. So really, you can drop me at my hotel.”
    Nikki gulped. She owed him a private dance in his hotel room, and she was none too eager to pay up. Any delay was a welcome one. “I’m sorry, but I insist that we get you checked out, if only for my peace of mind.”
    Adam sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But it’s a waste of time.”
    Wasting time sounded very good to her, especially if she could do it clothed. She dug her keys out of her purse and unlocked the Beetle. She opened the driver’s-side door, tossed her things onto the seat and found her shirt. She slid on a bra—red, of course—pulled the shirt over her head and tugged it into place as Adam rounded the car and got into the passenger seat.
    He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she held her white denim miniskirt in front of her, and she could have sworn she heard a swift intake of breath as she raised her leg to step into it. She pulled it up over her hips and buttoned it at the waist.
    There. Now she felt better. She still wore the skyscraper stilettos, but every woman in Miami wore those. Nikki tossed her purse into the backseat and slid behind the wheel. “Should I take you to Jackson Memorial?” she asked.
    Adam shuddered. “No—the E.R. there will be full of gunshot wounds, auto-accident victims, ODs and God only knows what else. We’d wait all night.” After some thought, he gave her the name of a minor emergency center close by, and directed her to it.
    The building, not surprisingly, was regulation stucco with a standard red-tile roof. Adam signed in, and they waited in a shabby but comfortable sitting area done in blues and greens. The only other people there were a shrunken old man with a severe cough and a young couple. The wife rocked back and forth, clutching her stomach.
    Nikki shot her a sympathetic glance, but the woman closed her eyes and wiped perspiration from her forehead with a paper towel.
    After inspecting the faux wood tables, the utterly uninteresting plants and the dog-eared magazines perched haphazardly in a small rack, Nikki had nowhere to look but at Adam.
    “Heh,” she said idiotically.
    He raised his eyebrows at her over the wad of blood-saturated cocktail napkins. “Did you say something?”
    “No,” she supplied, even more idiotically.
    Silence fell between them again.
    Nikki fidgeted. “So…what do you do?” she blurted, to make conversation.
    “I’m a student.”
    “Of what?”
    He