Seduced in September (Spring River Valley Book 9) Read Online Free

would wake him up. A note might seem like she was expecting something.
    She rummaged in her purse and came up with a pen and a receipt from Quick Mart for the pack of gum she’d bought the other day. Good enough. Crouching by his cluttered coffee table, she scrawled her phone number on the back of the receipt. What else could she say? Call me seemed implied by the presence of her number, but she didn’t want to command him to do so. They would run into each other at the hospital—at least once a week she caught a glimpse of him and Tanner when they brought someone into the ER by ambulance. She planned to nod and smile but not to throw herself over the counter in front of her desk and profess her undying devotion. They could be polite, friendly even, but they never needed to mention this little indiscretion to each other ever again.
    Some misguided sense of duty, or maybe it was a bit of recklessness left over from last night, had her sneaking back into the bedroom on tiptoes, ignoring her pinched heels and aching arches. Her pulse quickened when she laid eyes on him again. He was gorgeous. Dark brown hair tousled, his features smooth in sleep, a shadow of stubble on his jaw…only a very strong woman could walk away from that. Or a complete fool.
    Someone had once told Lily that the courage to say no was nothing more than the fear of saying yes. So if it was courage that guided her to place the makeshift note on her vacated pillow just beyond the spot where his gentle breathing might blow it away, it was certainly fear that had her backing out of the room, step by cautious step, until she made her way back to the living room. There, she released the breath she’d been holding.
    With the precision of a brain surgeon, she turned the knob and pulled the front door open, slipped outside, and shut it behind her, barely disturbing the cool morning air.
    An emotion that should have been relief but felt more like regret overcame her. They’d promised each other—and Lily had promised herself—that last night was nothing more than two people blowing off steam and celebrating the last weekend of summer. Neither of them needed or wanted anything more.
    At least that’s what she had to make herself believe.
     

Chapter Five
     
     
    The natives were restless, or so Quinn surmised based on the insistent drumbeat that woke him from a dead sleep.
    He groaned and pulled the nearest pillow over his head to drown out the sound that had to be his upstairs neighbors practicing percussion. Boom, boom, boom. The pillow did nothing to muffle the sound. In fact, it only got louder when he attempted to plug his ears.
    Realization hit him in slow motion. The pounding wasn’t his neighbor’s base drum; it was his brain banging on the inside of his skull which had somehow become too small to contain it. Like a sponge, it had apparently soaked up all the alcohol he’d downed last night and was now seeking escape through his ear drums.
    His next sound might have been a whimper, except he remembered he wasn’t alone. He could still smell her lilac perfume and imagine the silky feel of her golden hair brushing his chest as she leaned down to kiss him.
    As much as it hurt to move even the smallest muscle, a slow smile spread over his lips. Oh, it had been a good night. A very good night. In fact, it had been exactly the kind of night he’d promised himself he was going to have.
    Even though the damnable sunlight was streaming in around the window shade, he decided there was a slim chance the “night” wasn’t quite over. Maybe his head hurt, but the rest of him was fine, and if she was up for it…
    “Hey? You awake?” The words scraped his throat. How could drinks that went down so smooth leave it feeling so raw?
    With extreme caution—each movement reminded him that his head wasn’t quite screwed on all the way—he rolled over in bed and discovered he was alone.
    If he concentrated hard enough, he found he could temporarily ignore the