Free The Bachelor's Bed by Jill Shalvis

favorite.
    To get her thoughts together, Lani moved around the room, touching those things now, unable to sit still.
    Jennie had gone quiet, but now she had a question. “What exactly do you mean, pretend? ”
    â€œColin needs to finish a very important projecthe’s working on, but he’s being hounded. He thought a fiancée would help.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter with him that he can’t get a real fiancée? Is he ugly?”
    Lani thought of Colin’s piercing eyes, of the lean rugged body that had left her breathless. “No,” she managed to say. “Definitely not ugly.”
    â€œIs he mean?”
    No one could hold her the way Colin had last night and be mean. “No.”
    â€œUh-huh.” Jenny’s brilliant green eyes sparkled. “I get it. You just want to live in sin without people bothering you. That’s okay, honey, I understand a healthy sexual drive. I lived through the sixties, remember?”
    â€œIt’s not like that—”
    â€œHormones aren’t easy to deny,” Jennie went on blissfully. “Why in my day, we didn’t even try. We just married young so it was all legal.”
    â€œIt has nothing to do with hormones,” Lani said weakly, grabbing for the jug of cider when the older woman reached for it. “You’ve been reading too many of those romances, Aunt Jennie.”
    â€œThey give a woman a better sex life.” At Lani’s startled laugh, Jennie smiled and nodded. “I read that somewhere.”
    â€œCan we get back to my engagement?”
    â€œSure. What you’re trying to tell me is that you’re not really marrying him.” Aunt Jennie studied a boxof open cigars on the low table in front of her couch before choosing one. She didn’t dare light it, not with Lani within reach, so she just clamped her teeth around it.
    â€œWhat do you think of the whole thing?” Lani asked.
    â€œWell, I think it’s a damn shame, honey. Make him earn it. Don’t give it to him for free.”
    â€œHe has nothing to earn,” Lani insisted, blushing in spite of herself.
    â€œOf course he does. I hope he’s going to at least cook, or do the grocery shopping.”
    â€œNo, you don’t understand. It’s for show. All of it.”
    Jennie’s jaw went slack and the cigar tumbled out into her lap, making Lani thankful Jennie’s doctor had given her strict orders not to light up. She was a danger to society.
    â€œ All for show?” she repeated in disbelief.
    â€œWell…yes.” Mostly.
    â€œYou mean you’re not…?”
    â€œNo.”
    Her great-aunt sadly shook her head. “Oh, honey. I taught you better than that.”
    Â 
    L ANI DIDN’T KNOW what she expected that night. Certainly that she and Colin would spend a considerable amount of time talking, gathering facts and coming up with a common story.
    Colin was a planner, she knew that much. She knew how important it would be to him to have this all analyzed and prepared for his mother and aunts.
    But she was alone, pacing Colin’s large, eerily empty house. The house itself was beautiful; old, airy and full of character. The inside should have been a delight. But though Colin had been there a number of years, he had hardly furnished it. Most of the glorious rooms remained practically empty.
    Lani wondered why. Her sneakers squeaked on the wood floor of the wide hallway as she paced.
    She knew so little about him.
    Why was he so private? What secrets did his dark, mysterious eyes hold? Did he ever share himself? What made him so leery of physical affection?
    He might like to think that his cool, aloof front would keep people at bay, but not Lani. Oh, no. It only made her all the more curious.
    Lani thought of last night and smiled. He certainly wasn’t leery of passion, he’d been hot, earthy and completely uninhibited. That he’d made her feel those things, too,