Excerpt of Those Nights in Montreal by Beverley Kendall

"You're awake." Scratchy with sleep and deep enough to start my heart fluttering, it's the voice that's haunted my dreams. And tortured plenty of my waking moments too.

Scott.

A part of me relaxes at the same time an unmistakable tension enters my body. I slept with Scott for almost a year so I'm quite familiar with that tension. Headache and the heartbreak of the past are forgotten in that moment. Heat pools between my thighs and the dull throbbing is now centered there.

He could always do this to me if I let him get close enough. Make my body ache, make me want him like he's a drug and I'm addicted. As if sensing the war my body is fighting with my mind, his hand drifts lower until it's splayed over my lower stomach, his finger dancing just above the top of my lace–edged thong.

At the light touch of his fingers just there, I'm returned to reality.

Whoa. What the hell is he doing in my bed?

It's not easy—I haven't had sex in over a year—but I forsake the pleasurable warmth of his touch, roll abruptly away and almost end up on the floor. His hand hooks around my waist before I can fall. With a semblance of my sanity and balance regained, I scramble to a kneeling position before clumsily sliding off the edge of the bed. Now I'm standing in one of my long white t–shirts that I don't remember putting on.

Scott on the other hand is wearing a wife–beater that showcases his muscled chest and arms. He also has his customary morning erection. My sex contracts as I hastily avert my eyes from the sight of it tenting his navy boxer briefs. "What are you doing in my bed?" If I thought his voice was scratchy, mine sounds and feels like a well–used Brillo Pad courtesy of second–hand smoke and alcohol.

Watching me intently, he throws off the comforter that had been covering his lean, muscled thighs and swings his legs until his feet are planted on the floor. My toes curl into the carpet. Not a self–conscious bone in that gorgeous body. God, I hate him. I hate that he still has the power to make me—make me feel this.

Quivery. On edge. Horny.

Shh. I didn't say that.