She was so damn pretty she made every male sense knife sharp. His bones melted. His weaker nature won. Down in hell his name on that list blazed brighter. Anything?
She nodded.
What do I have to do?
Money. And I need a ride north.
How much money?
Her eyes locked on his. A lot.
Undress.
Cashbefore II begin
Strip first.
Meekly lowering her lashes, she gulped in a deep breath. For courage, he thought. Then she slanted her eyes at him as her fingers fumbled with the sash of his robe.
Take your time, he said with a touch of irony.
Untying the rope of blue cloth, she coiled the sash between her fingers.
He appraised what he could see of her body, watched her fingers stroke blue cloth. So, I was right about you?
Her wounded eyes stung him. She flung the sash full-force at his face.
That temper of hers turned him on. He caught the sash, recoiled it and plunged it inside his pocket. Take it all off.
She paled.
He grinned. Act like youre having fun.
She brought a hand to her throat protectively. You better hope Im never in the position to exact revenge.
You said anything.
A gentleman would help a lady for nothing.
Gentlemen are an extinct breed.
She gave him the once-over. How right you are.
Nor does the term lady apply to any female in this room.
Ha! Someday Ill make you regret this.
You blame mefor your idea!
Its always the mans fault.
Right, he said.
With a little shrug, she flashed him an infectiously warm smile, covering it with fluttery fingertips. Then she squared her shoulders and blew him a kiss. The next thing he knew she winked and began to hum a ribald burlesque tune.
While he watched, she mimicked a strippers high-stepping strut, moving fast as was her custom, peeling the terry cloth back and giving her full, shapely breasts a little jiggle for him.
Lust arced through him. He began to burn.
His response paralyzed her. Her quick steps faltered; her humming paused in midnote. Her outstretched leg hung suspended in the air. She stared at it in openmouthed astonishment as if she were terrified to find it there.
Long seconds passed in which each was too aware of the other. Then she recovered, threw her head back, cupped her breasts as if to offer them to him.
She looked so damn cute, so eager, holding her breasts like that.
Available. She was like a fantasy in a dream. Only she was real.
She let the robe slide from her slim, rounded shoulders, down the length of her voluptuous body. His heart thundered.
His sea-gray gaze flicked over full, soft breasts, her narrow waist, and the fullness of her hipsand those incredible legs that went forever.
She blushed, as if stunned by what she was doing, and then quickly averted her gaze to the blue pool of terry cloth at her feet. Her modesty only enhanced her charm and beauty. He wanted to grab her, take her.
You wont say no againjust when things get interesting? he rasped, taking a step toward her. When her smile froze, her fingers falling from those voluptuous lips, and she shrank back an inch or two instinctively, he softened his tone. You didnt answer me.
She bowed her head, her cheeks crimson in shame. I wont say noif you make me go through with this.
His eyes narrowed. He moved in for the kill, took her chin in his callused hand before she could escape. How much?
W-what?
He studied her slender neck, her swollen mouth. How much do you chargefor this little dancefor all the rest?
He loathed himself when she looked from him to the bed and began to shake. Then he saw the tears glistening in her eyes. A thousand dollars, she snapped. But you have to take me with youtonight. Her strangled voice was so low and hot with that temper of hers he could barely hear her. Like I said, I need a ride.
Youre gonna get the ride of your life.
Hot color crept up her throat, warming the skin beneath his fingertips.
You like thinking of me as an object, a toy you can play with, dont you? But if you give me the moneyand help me She shut her eyes. IIll try not to let myself care what you think.
She was so soft. His blood pumped at an alarming rate. His breathing was so shallow and quick, he couldnt get enough air.
I want my thousand dollars now.
A thousand dollars. Youd better be good. Youd better doanything.
Oh, dear. Then she said, You got it!
He pulled out his wallet, counted ten bills and laid them across her open palm. She took her time, folding them. In slow motion, she set them down one by one on the table.
That done, she lifted her gaze from the ten green bills. Squaring her shoulders, she faced him, wild emotion flaring in her pale face. Go ahead, she whispered, fighting to keep her voice steady. Her body went stiff.
Instead of seizing her as a girl in her business, no doubt, expected, he knelt at her feet as if in worship, his fingertips starting at her toes. Tracing the arch of her narrow foot, he noted how she quivered, goose-flesh springing beneath his lightest touch. When his hand reached the top of her thigh, he forced her legs open.
My, mya natural blonde.
His gaze climbed, fixed on her face. I have a thing for blondes.
Her eyes were closed. Was she pretending he was someone else? Brand maybe? Or imagining this wasnt happening? What was she thinking? He had to know. She had to know she was with him. For some inane reason that was vital. More vital than sex itself.
Open your eyes, he commanded.
Her cheeks flamed. Her black lashes fluttered reluctantly.
Are you sure about this? he demanded.
Her eyes clung to his in mute desperation, but she nodded.
Smile, then.
Her bottom lip wobbled, but she tried. Dear God, she tried. Despite her smile, a tear trickled down her flushed face.
He jerked his hand away. The fact that she didnt want to look at him, that when she forced that tremulous smile, she wept, angered him. Had she wept in that shack with those goons?
A girl of yourertalents ought to be able to act like she wants itas bad as her client.
More tears welled. Im trying. Its just that with you Her smile died. Her control slipped. She lifted her nose in outrage, stared down its length. Her wet, dilated eyes cut him like daggers. With you, its difficult.
More difficult than with other men? he growled.
I imagine so.
You did sayanything, he reminded her, trying not to show the dark jealous emotion that had begun to gnaw at him. And I have a lifetime of fantasies. The girls in my dreams never cry.
Would I be the girl of your dreamsif I didnt cry?
No way.
A blink brought more of the same liquid pooling in those beautiful eyes. Then turn off the light if you cant handle a real girls tears.
Cant handle
She stabbed at the switch behind her. Darkness enveloped them. Then she reached for him. Dream on, she whispered.
He felt her shaking, felt her reluctance, knew she was still crying. When he kissed her, she shuddered.
He felt her shaking, felt her reluctance, knew she was still crying. When he kissed her, she shuddered.
She didnt want to do this. And, damn it, he wanted her to.
Why the hell did that matter? He would handle it.
Shed sold herself. This was business. He could use her any way he liked.
Whats your name? he demanded even as his hand blindly touched her wet cheek to comfort her.
After a breathless pause, she said quaveringly, Willa.
More than sex, he wanted to hold her close, to make her feel safewhich was ludicrous.
Ive never paid a woman for sex before.
Youre the first for me, too.
Guilt crept over him. If she was telling the truth, if she wasnt a whore, some desperate need he knew nothing about was driving her to this.
She was a whore. Of course, she was a whore.
Hed bought companies, ruined men of far more worth than she.
His gut knotted.
Get into bed, he growled.
As her bare feet scampered in the dark, pictures of a naked golden girl in a dozen way-out fantasies flipped in his imagination.
Sheets rustled. He heard her reluctant sigh.
He was as hard and hot as a brick just out of the kiln.
He couldnt wait.
She didnt want him.
Why the hell did that matter?
5
Willa de Mello was afraid of the dark, afraid of going to sleep, afraid of bad dreams. Especially when there was a big bad wolf lounging in the stuffed armchair right beside her.
So, she lay in the dark and wondered how in the world she would get away from Luke McKade. Not that she was really worried. For all his macho bravado, the big, oversexed lug was a pussycatat least compared to Brand.
Shed known he wouldnt force her to do it. Not if she didnt want to. A man like him lived for challenges. He was so conceited he truly believed it would be childs play to win her, before he bedded her.
Willa was a cat lover. Thus, she understood predators. Cats liked to stalk and wait, to play a bit with their prey. They savored the chase, anticipating the treat. In his mind the treat was a yellow-haired party girl. A lot of men had been fooled by her hair color and sexy looks.
Ha! This was one lady who wasnt about to serve herself on a silver platter to another oversexed rogue, even if he had paid a thousand dollars for the meal. Under different circumstances, he might have been fun. Not tonight. But Brand, what hed nearly done, had changed Willa forever. Willas secret agenda was a matter of life and death.
Not that McKade wasnt attractive, if a girl went for tall dark and disturbingly handsome and rich and powerful, which did have a certain appeal to a fan of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters novels. But Willa was way too disillusioned and in way too much trouble to take on a new man, especially another know-it-all bully who thought the worst of her. All her life shed been misunderstood. If her appearance didnt get her into trouble, then her wacky responses to life and literature did.
What shed been looking for was someone who believed in her, who accepted herwho respected her, who saw past her sexpot, dumb-blond good looks. Shed known she had to have a man who didnt mind a woman who was a little different. A man who didnt expect her to be a deb or a Martha. Here in Laredo, the highest class debs were known as Marthas and Marthas were the equivalents of New Orleans Mardis Gras queens. And Willa had thought, until tonights rude awakening, shed found such a man in Brand.
Desperate moments. Wild impulses. Reckless deeds.
She was used to this sort of thing. Like a cat, she would land on her feet.
It isnt just you anymore though. You cant keep flying by the seat of your pants, Willa dear.
Her conscience always had Mrs. Connors voice. Dear, soft-spoken Mrs. Connor had been her favorite art teacher at Trinity Elementary. Mrs. Connor hadnt minded if she hadnt colored in between the lines, if shed drawn her own pictures instead. When all the other kids had been coloring red apples on apple trees in their workbooks, Willa had drawn an upside down orange tree floating on a cloud because there had been an orange grove right in her backyard. And sometimes, when shed lain under her favorite orange tree and stared up at the branches, shed seen clouds floating above her tree.
If it hadnt been for Mrs. Connor, Willa wouldnt have majored in art in college. She wouldnt have become the biggest success in her class by going on to the grand career of painting T-shirts for a living. Of course, real artists despised her. Or, at least, Willa imagined they did. But she did make a good living. Which was more than a lot of real artists could say.
If things were half as bad as McKade described, you were in a heap of trouble tonight, girl.
Willa always talked back to Mrs. Connor.
Tied to a bed in that vulgar, uncomfortable costume? Who me? McKade probably ripped it off some other woman and then embellished what happened to exaggerate his own importance and humiliate me.
As if he read her rebellious thoughts and saw through her denial, McKade grumbled and shifted his large body in that chair that was much too small for him. Poor boy. He probably wanted to attract her attention, so shed feel sorry for him and invite him to bed.
Ha!
Not that she wasnt grateful. If it hadnt been for him, there was no telling what might have happened to her. But Willa didnt have the sort of mind to dwell on such things. She believed life was an adventure. She believed in destiny, that everything that happened was supposed to happenand all for the best. One didnt have to understand. One had to accept and go on.
But tonightBrand
If half of what McKade said was true, and deep down she knew it was, tonight things had gone way too far. Well, she was safe now, or she would be when she got out of town and escaped McKade.
Soon.
Willa was warmhearted and irrational. High drama was her forte. From birth she had been a handful, getting herself into more mischief than ten curious little girls.
Was it any wonder? After all, shed barely been five before she was the tragic heroine of a grand adventure. Her adoring parents, both every bit as whimsical and reckless as she, had been swept off their yacht in a stormy sea only seconds after theyd lashed poor Willa to the mast.
Willa had survived two days and two nights in that storm while the boat broke up beneath her. Like the ancient mariner in her favorite poem, shed gone mad with grief and fear, but shed found her courage, too. That was why, or so her imminently practical if ever-so-scandalous aunt, Mrs. Brown, said, Willas exasperating because she cant take life, or at least what normal girls consider life, seriously. She cant plan for the future. Shes too busy living. Not that the tyrannical Mrs. Brown was always so philosophical about Willas shortcomings.
To Willa, the moment was all. Nobody had more fun than Willa. Nobody got into more trouble. As a little girl, she hadnt cared a fig about making good grades.
She even fails subjects shes a whiz in, her teachers complained. She could be so brilliant in math. And shes fast when she takes a notion to be.
But math had bored Willa. Why should a little girl waste precious life working problem after problem she already knew how to do? Especially when one preferred staring at mysterious creatures such as butterflies or pill bugs and wondering what the world was like to them? Did pill bugs have schools that were dreadfully boring with dull books and endless, repetitive exercises?