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his soap and that shampoo in his hair. It smelled like sweet almonds.
    ‘Until you.’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘You. You’re … you. You are so … you. I just …’ He shook his head. ‘I sound like an idiot, but I just feel drawn to you, Casey. And being with you, being in you, just talking to you … it makes me nuts.’
    Someone knocked. ‘We are almost ready to begin,’ one of the other organisers called loudly.
    ‘I imagine I can hear the frown and disapproval in her voice,’ Casey snickered.
    ‘I can hear it too. Now listen. Don’t leave me hanging. Bid on me and the money I gave you can go to this good cause of yours. No worries.’
    ‘You will not need me to,’ she said again. She felt suddenly frantic to make him understand. She grabbed Nick by the shoulders and held him tight. ‘You’re a good man. You’re funny and sexy and kind. You are completely hot and um … in bed, might I just say wow. And you’re …’ She shook her head, feeling impotent in the explanation department. ‘You are also very much you. And worth a ton of bids.’
    Another brisk knock and they both shouted, ‘Coming!’
    Then he kissed her once more, his tongue gently brutish on hers. Joking, he growled in her ear, ‘God, I really wish we were coming.’
    ‘Soon,’ she said. ‘Because I wish it too.’
    Pulling her from the wall and embracing her from behind, he pressed his mouth to her ear and wrapped his arms around her tighter. When he cupped her breasts and said hotly, ‘Ooh, dirty talk,’ her nipples spiked.
    Another knock.
    ‘I. Am. Coming!’ she yelled and he laughed. Casey smoothed her hair. ‘My God, what would my dead husband think?’
    Nick went serious and said, ‘How do you feel?’
    ‘Nervous, excited … happy.’ She said the last so softly it was barely a word.
    Nick tilted her chin up and looked at her. ‘I think that last one is the one he’d care about.’
    ‘And for the record,’ she said, kissing him quickly and hustling toward the locked door. ‘He’d like you. He’d think you’re a good man.’
    She saw his throat work a little but then he smiled.
    She took a deep breath. ‘No time for that. Come on. Chop-chop. We need to sell your fine ass.’
    The serious look fled and he followed her out, shaking his head and laughing.
    At the door, Casey smiled at a very pinched-looking matron, named Marian Monroe. She nodded and winked. ‘How goes it, Mad Marian?’
    It was a secret name they all called Marian who had a bit of a dominatrix streak. They all wondered aloud, when she wasn’t around, exactly what it was going to take to prompt her to show up with a whip and nipple clamps.
    Another low chuckle from Nick, and Casey kept marching. It was time to do this thing. She was excited to earn money for the charity but equally excited to get the event over with. It had been a ton of stress and she was very ready for some quiet days by a cosy fire in some comfy clothes and some real nice wine and a very, very handsome man.
    ‘Look, you’re daydreaming domestication,’ she muttered and took her place in line for the announcing. The room was now officially packed with women who could afford to do things like bid on handsome men to benefit ill people.
    The fund raiser was underway and as was her way she was feeling calmer. Casey tended to freak out before the fact and find her Zen once the show was on.
    She looked at Nick who winked and went to find Annie who had her purse. She wouldn’t need the money but based on the look on his face – how adorable was it that he was so nervous –he wouldn’t relax until he knew she had it.
    The first presenter took the stage. Isabella Guy was the picture of calm refinement as she announced her half dozen bachelors.
    None of them are half as hot as Nick …
    Casey rolled her eyes at her own love-struck thoughts. She was so in over her head.

Chapter Nine

    SHE DID OK UNTIL it was Nick’s turn. Then her tongue sort of tangled up on itself and her brain went blank