Free DREAM LOVER by Kimberley Reeves

to do, that way she’d never have to know how close he’d come to jumping her while she slept. 
     
    Rachel sat up slowly, staring at the empty doorway for several minutes while the sting of Nic’s rejection worked its way through her body.  Good Lord, the way he’d bolted out of there you’d have thought she’d proposed marriage!  And just what gave him the right to act as if he was revolted at the thought of making love to her when
he
was the one who’d woke
her
up with that hot, steamy kiss?  Okay, so he’d changed his mind, what was the big deal?  It wasn’t as if they’d been dating for a long time or had any kind of emotional attachment to each other, after all they’d only met a few days ago. 
     
    She managed to scrounge up a few more perfectly logical reasons as to why she shouldn’t be hurt but it didn’t help.  No matter what excuse she came up with for Nic’s abrupt departure, it still felt as if she’d been mule kicked in the chest and it was quite some time before the pain subsided enough to crawl out of bed.  She hadn’t even gotten to tell him about the nightmare and how it had been different this time.  After turning down her less than subtle offer to make love, Rachel wasn’t even sure she could face him again anyway. Maybe the best thing to do was just forget she’d ever met Nic Covelli.
     
    “As if I could,” she mumbled to herself.
     
    Obviously he’d been turned off by how forward she’d been, but she honestly couldn’t help herself where Nic was concerned.  Well, that was something she was just going to have to master if she decided to continue with the sleep study because he’d made it blatantly clear he’d changed his mind about getting romantically involved with her.  The only thing she could attribute the sudden change of heart to was that she hadn’t measured up to his dream version of her.  Considering her lack of experience in that department, she could hardly blame him for being disappointed.
     
    She’d planned on taking some time off before starting on the Covelli mansion, but now she wondered if staying busy wasn’t just what she needed to keep her mind off Nic.  He’d probably be glad she wasn’t going to stick around to make an uncomfortable situation even more awkward.  Yes, Rachel decided, she’d call Antonio and arrange to get the keys to the Covelli mansion, then spend the next few weeks inspecting the structure and making sketches of the place so she could draw up the new floor plans.  Two or three weeks of immersing herself in work instead of fighting the allure of Nic’s seductive brown eyes and she’d be just fine.
     
                            ***
     
    He should have left a note.  Nic cursed his own stupidity for not thinking about it before he’d closed Rachel’s door behind him and locked himself out.  He’d shrugged it off at first because he’d planned on calling her as soon as he’d had time to go home and take a quick shower.  It was while he was standing under the water, which he’d deliberately kept set on cold, that the enormity of his own ignorance hit him. 
     
    When Rachel had first opened her eyes, she’d been speaking in French again and he’d understood her just as he had back in the lab.  But after he’d kissed her, she’d switched back to English and it hadn’t even registered until now that she must have actually woken up at some point during the kiss.  Which meant she’d been fully cognizant of what she was saying when she’d invited more intimacy between them.  Nic groaned out loud.  Instead of standing here taking a cold shower he could have been snuggled up next to Rachel’s naked body, still tingling from the afterglow of hot sex.
     
    He groaned again, louder this time because he suddenly realized how calloused it must have seemed when he’d all but ran from the room as if her offer was too distasteful to even contemplate.  Nic flipped the water off and hopped out