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very possible reality, he’d been willing, even eager, to tune out the implications of what he was doing. They were at a preschool, for God’s sake. He must have assumed she was the mother of one of those children—yet nothing was more important than the promise of quick sex.
    At least when he did learn more, or thought he had, he’d made a run for it.
    She half-smiled, half-groaned into her hands, imagining what he must have thought of her. Not that Shannon wouldn’t have deserved some action, working two jobs and supporting little Jake all by herself, her husband a serial philanderer, national hero or no. But Bonnie was supposed to be taking care of Jake for two days, not taking over his mother’s identity. She’d have to find that guy and explain or she’d never forgive herself.
    She went over to her laptop, hands not quite steady, and tried to write down the events of the morning. Her roommates were still in bed, and she wanted to get it all down before she had to pretend nothing had happened.
    “Day One,” she wrote. “Man One. Tall. Broad-shoulders, muscles, shaggy brown hair, probably used to women throwing themselves at him. Wealthy-looking hipster, black leather, silver stud in one ear, dark jeans. Probably over thirty. Didn’t know own nephew’s name. Good, really good, with tongue—”
    Here she had to stop. Her nipples were hard again, remembering. She pressed her palms against her breasts and closed her eyes, forcing herself to notice with a clinical detachment the way her heart was pounding. 
    She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. She had to finish her degree. Even if a Master’s in Post-Modern Gender Dynamics would be useless in the job market, even detrimental, she was going to finish the damn degree and prove she wasn’t the self-indulgent, sentimental slacker her mother always said she was.
    Back to her laptop. “Really good with tongue. Breast man. Nice ass, and didn’t recoil when partner (i.e., myself) expressed moment of sexual dominance by grabbing—”
    She exhaled loudly and quickly hit save. Maybe she’d start tomorrow with another guy, one from a bar, where no confusion or deceit could conceivably cloud the results of her experiment. Yes, that would be much better. This morning was a blip, an unexpected rough draft she’d delete from her brain. A trial run. Off the record.
    Setting the laptop aside, the damp cups of her bra rubbed against her tender nipples and her body flooded with heat. Her body knew she was a liar. Bodies never forget a skilled touch.
    “Damn,” Bonnie said, and went to the bathroom to strip off the bra and wash away as much of Uncle Paul as soap and scalding water could manage. 
    And resist the urge to release the pressure with her Water Pik. She needed as much carnal tension as possible to brave a shot at Man Two. Whoever he might be.

Chapter 3
    P aul lasted two days before he had to ask his sister about her.
    “But Jakey’s mom had to go out of town for her job,” Mary said over the phone one afternoon, distracted as usual by children screaming and laughing in the background. “She was begging with the teacher to take him every day for the rest of the week and her neighbor would watch him at night. From her building. A graduate student or something. But they needed somebody on Wednesdays to drop out so he could drop in, because they have licensing laws about class ratios—”
    Paul was too busy feeling a rush of optimistic lust flooding his body to listen to the rest of it.
    A neighbor.
    Before his smart sister could figure out—or have time to grill him—why he’d asked about a woman at her son’s preschool, he abruptly ended the call and ran across his ornately tiled bathroom to shower a second time. And shave. With the good-smelling stuff. Ten minutes later, in a fresh shirt and jeans fresh from the dryer, Paul sent an email off to his team excusing himself for the rest of the day, then ran out the mud room door to his car