Nights With Him
NIGHTS WITH HIM
Book #4 in the Seductive Nights series
Lauren Blakely
Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Blakely
LaurenBlakely.com
Cover Design by © Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations
PHOTO COPYRIGHT © Scott Hoover
Ebook formatting by Jesse Gordon
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright
Also by Lauren Blakely
One Night with Her – prequel to Nights With Him
One Night with Her Index
Nights With Him
Nights With Him Index
Excerpt of Playing With Her Heart
Acknowledgments
Contact
ALSO BY LAUREN BLAKELY
The Caught Up in Love Series
(Each book in this series follows a different couple so each book can be read separately, or enjoyed as a series since characters crossover)
Caught Up in Her (A short prequel novella to Caught Up in Us)
Caught Up In Us
Pretending He’s Mine
Trophy Husband
Playing With Her Heart
Far Too Tempting (A spin-off, this book also ties into Stars in Their Eyes, since the hero is the brother of the Stars in Their Eyes hero)
Wrapped Up in Love
(A Caught Up in Love new adult spin-off series)
A Starstruck Kiss (A short prequel to introduce readers to the series and the start of William and Jess’s love story)
Stars in Their Eyes (A full-length novel about William and Jess)
21 Kisses (A full-length new adult novel about Anaka’s cousin, Kennedy, releases February 2015)
Stealing Her Love (A full-length novel starring Anaka and her love interest Jason, releases in summer 2015)
Untitled Novella (December 2015, a new adult novella starring 21 Kisses characters)
The No Regrets Series
(These books should be read in order)
The Thrill of It
The Start of Us
Every Second With You
The Seductive Nights Series
(The first four books follow Julia and Clay and should be read in order)
First Night
Night After Night
After This Night
One More Night
One Night With Her (A short prequel novella about Michelle and Jack, this story is also included in the ebook of Nights With Him)
Nights With Him (A standalone novel about Michelle Milo and her lover Jack Sullivan)
Sweet, Sinful Nights (Brent’s book, March 2015)
The Fighting Fire Series
Burn For Me (Smith and Jamie)
Melt for Him (Megan and Becker)
This book is dedicated to
Violet, Kim, Tanya, Gale, Kelley and CC.
Without them, this story would not exist. And, as
always, this book is for my friend Cynthia.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Readers: I am so very thrilled to share Jack and Michelle’s love story with you. If you’ve already downloaded and read the free prequel, ONE NIGHT WITH HER, about the night they meet, then skip ahead to NIGHTS WITH HIM to see what happens next! Otherwise, you can read their love story straight through starting with One Night With Her in this ebook. Also, please note: Page Six is a fictional news outlet.
ONE NIGHT WITH HER
A prequel novella to Nights With Him
One Night With Her Index
About
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
ABOUT
ONE NIGHT WITH HER
First names only for one night of pleasure...
He’s only at the hotel to close a business deal. Then he sees her, and his agenda for the evening shifts—woo her, win her, and make sure she never forgets who gave her the most exquisite pleasure she’s ever had. Jack Sullivan, sex toy mogul, a billionaire, and one of New York City’s most eligible bachelors is captivated by the brilliant and beautiful Michelle Milo.
From her witty mouth to her sinful body, she’s his perfect fantasy. But there’s more at play than the undeniable chemistry; they both might be exactly what the other needs.
As soon as he has her between the sheets, he knows one night with her will never be enough.
The trouble is, he’s about to run into her tomorrow…in the last place he expects.
CHAPTER ONE
ONE NIGHT WITH HER
First Impressions
Pleasure, beyond her wildest fantasies.
“That’s a helluva promise to make. Because some people have pretty wild fantasies,” Jack said as he rattled off the tagline attached to the tall purple device that boasted twelve different settings designed to serve up “exquisite stimulation.”
“That’s exactly why we’re making that promise,” Casey replied as she hopped up on the edge of his desk and crossed her legs, absently kicking a high-heeled foot back and forth like a pendulum. “Because this bad boy can de-li-ver. Stories, I can tell you,” she said, and Jack quickly held up a hand as a stop sign.
“I’ll have to trust you on that.”
She rolled her stormy blue eyes, the same shade as his. “Don’t go all squeamish on me.”
“Has nothing to do with squeamishness,” he said, shaking his head. “You can just keep this on the list of things I never want to hear—stories about my little sister and our newest product.”
“You don’t have to trust me when it comes to The Wild One,” she said, grasping the toy and cradling the newest vibrator in her hand, stroking it lovingly. “Trust our product testing group, otherwise known as The Happiest Ladies in the World.”
“Do they walk around all blissed out, mouths open, eyes glazed?” Jack teased, hanging his jaw open in demonstration. Not mockingly, of course. He was a big fan of that deliciously sated look a woman wore after an orgasm. Usually multiple Os. At least, as far as he was concerned.
Casey snapped her fingers. “Allow me to quote some feedback from one of our testers. ‘The Wild One is like a direct line to a pleasure palace I didn’t even know existed inside of me.’ Now that I think about it, we should rename this one The Wizard, because this is the closest anyone will ever come to real magic here.” She stopped, took a beat. “Get it? Come?”
He nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I do get it. Wasn’t a hard one to wrap my head around,” he said, tapping his temple.
“See? You’ve got the hang of the puns too. Hard one,” she repeated.
“Been running this business with you for five years now, Casey. I’m well acquainted with your style. And with the magic we’re peddling.”
“Abracadabra,” she said, miming waving a magic wand. “Joy delivered.”
That’s what the company they ran was called—Joy Delivered—and Jack had a meeting in an hour with one of the city’s top purveyors of pleasure products, Eden. The classy shop on the Upper East Side, conveniently located above a private BDSM club Eden also ran, had been actively promoting another device, the Dancing Dolphin. That triple speed, nearly noiseless, terrifically thrilling pocket vibrator had developed a cult following among legions of erotic book club readers, who praised it as the perfect companion while they read one-handed, often about BDSM storylines, as it turned out. The dom-sub lifestyle wasn’t Jack’s personal cup of tea, but he was glad for whatever floated someone’s boat enough to open the bedside drawer and grab a toy.
Yeah, business was good thanks to the erotica craze that had swept not just the country, but also the world, and had made it more acceptable to bring another party into the bedroom, even if the third party required batteries. Nothing wrong with self-love or with calling in backup between the sheets, Jack reasoned.
“Are you going to take this with you to your meeting tonight with Henry and Marquita?” Casey handed him The Wild One, but Jack quickly shook his head.
“They’ve already seen it. We’re just finalizing the paperwork for the new shipment. We’re beyond the giggle-at-the-dildo stage of conversation.”
“But it’s still nice to see the pleasure tools. Especially since they’re going to that sexuality conference at The Pierson, right?”
“Right. He said he’d be attending some sessions in the afternoon. And yet, call me crazy,” he said, stopping to scratch his chin, “I think I might prefer not to display a nine-inch fake schlong on the table at The Pierson Hotel. It’s a classy joint.”
“And all their guests are probably slipping plastic purple friends under those twelve-hundred thread count sheets at that classy joint. That’s why you hear so many high-pitched screams at The Pierson,” Casey said, rising from the desk, and slapping a palm on it to accentuate her punch line. With her other hand, she tossed him the newest toy, her blond hair swishing around her face from the throw. “Take it, Jack. Maybe he wants to bring a present home to his wife.”
“Not one that’s been manhandled already.”
“That’s what the toy cleaner is for,” she said, reaching for a bottle of anti-bacterial cleaner from the edge of his desk and tossing it next. He caught it easily, snatching it out of the air.
“By the way, send Marquita my love. Tell her and Henry I say hi.”
Casey sauntered out of his office and Jack grinned, tsking her playfully under his breath. No way in hell was he bringing this device along, and it had nothing to do with being embarrassed, and everything to do with keeping it simple. He wasn’t a bag man; he didn’t want to tote his laptop to a meeting, along with a toy in the side pocket. A wallet, phone and keys were all he needed, so he left the rest behind as he stood up, pushed a hand roughly through his dark hair, and then jammed his phone into the pocket of his pants. He grabbed the cranberry-colored tie slung over the back of his chair and looped it around his neck, tying a neat knot. Best to look sharp for the team at Eden. New York was still very much a suit-and-tie town, and so Jack wore the requisite uniform.
He was about to step out of his office when Casey popped back in, the look in her eyes now intense and serious. “Don’t forget your appointment tomorrow at two.”
He held out his hands wide, and grumbled, “I know.”
She pointed at him and pursed her lips as she leaned in the doorway. “It’s important.”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Oh, ha, ha, ha. But you need it,” she said, and she was right. Jack hadn’t been the same since he’d lost his fiancée a year ago, and he needed to get his head screwed on right. Correction. His heart. He needed to get that annoying organ fixed.
If it were even possible.
That was the question.
But tonight, his mind was on business, plain and simple, so he headed off to The Pierson to finalize the deal.
* * *
Michelle Milo had sex on the brain.
Dirty, sweaty, slick sex. Limo sex. Office sex. Swanky-nightclub-bathroom sex.
Unfortunately, none of these were positive images, because they had nothing to do with her sex life, but instead her client’s philandering husband.
And she was dying to shout, leave him.
She wanted to scream it, to slash it on the wall in orange paint, to get down on her knees and beg. But Shayla needed time to come to the realization on her own, even though it seemed patently fucking obvious that she should not only leave that cad of a husband, but kick him several times in the balls too.
“I just keep thinking about The Owl. It has these low lights, almost kind of a blue light, and the bathroom is all tiled in black, and I had such great memories about our time there,” Shayla recounted, referring to a club in Los Angeles where her husband had been caught having sex with his assistant last month. “It was our place,” she said, wiping a tear that had already streaked the mascara from her eyelashes, sending a black jagged line down one porcelain cheek. “Well, back when I used to want to have sex with him.”
Michelle reached for a tissue from the box next to her, handed it to her twice-weekly client, and waited as she dabbed away the evidence of her sadness. Shayla sunk lower in the couch, framed behind her by abstract prints on the wall of the Lexington Avenue offices where Michelle ran her psychology practice. “What is it that bothers you most? Is it that he slept with another woman? Or that he slept with her someplace where you did in the past? Or is it something else?”
Shayla bit her lip and looked away, perhaps not wanting to deal with the something else possibility that had brought her here in the first place. Not that it was her fault that her husband had a dick that needed to be locked up and sent straight to jail for its one eye that wandered ALL. THE. TIME.
Shayla faced a different set of challenges, and that’s what Michelle needed to help her with. She gently prodded her client, who sat frozen like a statue, her jaw set hard, as if she needed to hold all her fears inside. “Or is it because you think it’s your fault that he isn’t faithful?” Michelle asked cautiously.
“It is my fault,” Shayla squeaked out, insistent. “I haven’t wanted to have sex ever since we had kids.”
“And you think that makes it your fault that he’s cheating on you?”
“Isn’t it?”
Michelle shook her head. “Of course it’s not. He’s responsible for his actions, and only you can decide if you want to hold him accountable for them. But we also need to keep getting at the root of the why for you. We spend a lot of time focusing on him and his actions, but we need to dive into why you don’t want to have sex with him. Because you lost interest well before he started cheating on you,” she said. That’s why Shayla was here, to focus on her own intimacy issues, since that was Michelle’s specialty—helping patients work through relationship challenges and fears of closeness. Shayla’s were compounded because her husband was an ass. But first things first. There would be time to deal with him later.
“Let’s talk about why . . .”
Forty-five minutes later, Michelle flashed a small smile at Shayla, pleased that her client was making a modicum of progress. Some days, progress was glacial, and sometimes it was cheetah fast. All that mattered was that Shayla seemed to be moving forward. Michelle said goodbye to her, then checked her schedule for tomorrow on her laptop. It would be another full day, with a new patient appointment, too. The evening ahead of her was packed as well—she had a presentation to give at a sexuality conference, sharing some of her findings with other psychotherapists on sex and love addiction. She had experience in that area, having helped guide several patients through the throes of addiction and into recovery,
and the president of the New York Chapter of the Association of Intimate Relationship Psychologists had invited her. Carla Kimberly had been a mentor to her over the years, and had referred patients to Michelle, so it was a double honor to have been asked to speak tonight.
She smoothed a hand over her pencil skirt, adjusted the collar on her crisp white blouse, and changed from flats to her black pumps. She grabbed her work phone from the clutter of papers on her desk, but the battery was almost drained.
Crap.
Having two phones, an iPad and a laptop turned into a juggling act when it came to keeping them all charged. She forwarded the work phone to her personal cell in case her service called. On the way out, she stopped in the office bathroom to brush her teeth and touch up her lipstick.
There. Now she was ready for a quickie meeting at The Pierson.
She laughed to herself. Quickie. Too bad she wasn’t having a quickie of another kind. It had been a while since she’d had one of those. She’d dated an actor for a few weeks in late spring, and she replayed some of her dates with Liam fondly. He’d been outgoing, gorgeous and quite capable with his hands, so they’d done plenty, but nothing close to a quickie.
The problem was even when she’d been pressed up against Liam, she’d been thinking of Clay. Her very good friend who also happened to be the man she’d been madly in love with for ten years. Clay, the gorgeous, sexy, smart entertainment lawyer, and best friend of her brother.
Oh, but there was one teeny, tiny little problem with that overflow of feelings she had for Clay. He didn’t love her, and hadn’t even known how she felt about him. To add insult to injury, he was happily in love with another woman. A month ago, he’d gone and married that woman in Vegas.
Yep, Michelle Milo, one of Manhattan’s most sought-after shrinks, a true specialist in intimacy and well known for helping to heal heartache, was the poster child for unrequited love. Might as well slap a big L on her forehead. God, she was an idiot, and the definition of an oxymoron—she spent her days advising others, and her nights longing for someone she couldn’t have.