He was a sure thing

Ryan let out a nervous laugh. She couldn’t help herself.

Cade raised an eyebrow. “What’s the joke? All I said was that I take what I do seriously. I deal with people who have a certain set of needs and I come in and make sure they get satisfied. It seems pretty worthwhile to me.”

“So you leave satisfied customers behind you?” She lost a beat watching him.

“I do my best. So what do you do, when you’re not hanging around hotel lobbies?” he asked innocently.

“Oh, I spin yarns.”

“Oh, yeah? Tell me a good story.”

When Ryan was a child, her family vacationed near a lake in Maine every summer. In early June, the water was still icy cold and there were two ways to approach it: stepping in an inch at a time, or running and jumping in, taking the shock all at once. Ryan had always jumped.

“Let’s go upstairs and I will.”

“Whatever you say, darlin’.” Cade rose and tugged her to her feet. “I’m all yours.”

Dear Reader,

Being a romance writer has been a longtime dream for me. I’m thrilled that it’s come true with the publication of My Sexiest Mistake, my first book for Harlequin’s new Blaze line. I like my sex hot and my writing even hotter, so when I had gorgeous but stubborn Ryan meet her match in sexy hunk Cade, it was easy to steam up the pages. Let the two of them take you on a rollicking ride that starts with mistaken identity and turns into a red-hot love affair that’s true-blue beneath.

Blaze is a line designed to appeal to women who demand more from their relationships and their reading—more steam, more tension, more romance. I’d love to hear what you think of Blaze, and of Ryan and Cade’s tale. Write me at kristinhardy@earthlink.net, or visit www.kristinhardy.com for contests, e-mail chats between characters in My Sexiest Mistake and Blaze-ing excerpts from upcoming books.

Enjoy!

Kristin Hardy

P.S. Don’t forget to check out tryblaze.com!

My Sexiest Mistake
Kristin Hardy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my beloved Stephen

Te adoro, amor

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

1

“ARE THEY HAVING SEX YET?”

Ryan Donnelly jumped for the button that transferred the call from speakerphone to handset. In the stodgy offices of Beckman Markham Corporate Training, the last thing she needed was for her boss to hear a caller talking about sex. She blinked at the gravelly voice barking out of the phone. “Not even a hello today. You must be in a good mood, Helene.”

“Well are they?” her agent persisted.

“You know the plot line calls for a love scene in chapter five.” Ryan sounded evasive even to herself.

“Oh my god, you still haven’t done it.”

“I’m going to get to it.” Ryan strove to seem placating rather than panicked.

“Get to it? Your final manuscript is due in exactly fifteen days. You’d postpone my trip to the E.R. for hypertension and heart failure if you could be a little more specific.”

Ryan looked uneasily around her office. “Helene, I’ve got a class to teach in ten minutes. Can’t we talk about this later?”

“Do I need to remind you what’s at stake, here?” Ryan could picture the redhead sitting at her speakerphone, the cigarette in her hand sending a thin ribbon of smoke to the ceiling. “A legal contract. The other three books in the series. Your early retirement from corporate training. Your reputation. My reputation, and—not to be overlooked—my commission. You know I’ve had my eye on that hot tub.”

“Helene, I’m trying.”

“For heaven’s sake, Ryan, the hard part is done. You’ve got most of the book written. All you have to do is get them between the sheets for a little nooky.”

“A lot of nooky, Helene.” Ten to fifteen pages, last time she’d checked. Ryan tried to stem the rising tide of anxiety. “The scene doesn’t want to come out. I keep trying, but I just can’t write it. Oh, why didn’t you let me stay in sweets?” Her voice rose in a wail of frustration.

“Let you stay in sweets? I should be beaten for letting you stay in sweets as long as I did,” Helene rasped, as a crack in the background signaled she was opening one of her ever-present Diet Cokes. “Eight of them, two awards. You’re the best thing out there. You should be writing single-title books, but I can’t get you there because everybody wants to see how you’ll handle the sex. It was a miracle I managed to get them to consider a multibook deal,” she grumbled.

For the past four years Ryan had been happily writing sweets in her spare time, short, snappy romances with nothing more provocative than a lip lock or two. Each time she sold a book she thought that this time, finally, she might be able to quit the day job she loathed and write full-time, but it never quite happened that way. She felt a distinct pang of longing for each of her eight books, lovely little tales that required nothing explicit, just some impure thoughts and a few kisses. Kissing she could do. Kissing she had done, with her own lips. At least, oh, well, half a dozen times, anyway. Sex was largely a black hole to her, enlivened by one memorably unfortunate outing.

Write what you know, she’d learned in her courses at Brown. Unfortunately, sex was something she didn’t know. One fact was indisputable, though—the hook of the book she had sold was supposed to be hot sex between the hero and the heroine. All she had to do was finish the book, get the contract, and write full-time. If she screwed it up, though, there was no telling how long she’d be condemned to teach corporate management classes.

Helene heaved a long-suffering sigh down the phone. “Ryan, you have to do this. Now is not the time to get writer’s block. Do you at least have a draft?”

Ryan thought of the miserable paragraph that she’d wrung out the night before. Normally, her prose galloped onto the screen. Okay, well, there were times it trotted and times it downright dragged its feet, but it at least came.

If only her characters could.

Helene decoded her noncommittal humph for the negative that it was. “Come on, kid, just pour yourself a glass of wine and think about the last time you had really hot, sweaty sex. You do remember sex, right?”

Ryan made a vague noise and Helene’s voice sharpened. “How long has it been since you’ve slept with someone, anyway?”

“Oh, a while,” she answered evasively, nervously straightening a stack of files on her desk.

“How long?”

“Um, eight years. Or so.” Ryan’s voice sounded thin even to her own ears.

“Eight years?” Helene’s voice rose incredulously. “Since you were twenty-one? Eight years?”

“A little less,” Ryan said defensively. “I’ve been busy…” her voice trailed off.

“Ryan. Honey. You’re gorgeous. You’re in the prime of your life. What are you waiting for?”

“I just haven’t had too much luck in the dating department.”

“You’ve been hiding away teaching Quark classes. No wonder you can’t write about sex. You probably don’t even remember what it’s like. Sweetheart, we need to find you a man,” Helene said decisively.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Helene, you are not going to set me up with a sex partner.”

“Ryan, you’re writing a Private Moments romance. You don’t just need some Joe to have sex with, you need a sex god.”

“Helene, give me a break. It will be fine, really. I’m a novelist. Stephen King didn’t need to have a demonically possessed car to write Christine. I don’t need a sex god. I can handle it.”

“You need inspiration.”

“Helene!” Ryan’s voice vibrated with frustration. She took a deep breath. “I have to go. I’m late for my class.”

“What are you teaching?”

“Conflict resolution for managers.”

“That won’t help you with hot, sweaty—”

“Helene.” The line went silent. “Thank you. Now, I have to go to class,” Ryan continued, enunciating carefully. “I’ll work on the scene this weekend and I’ll call you next week.”

“I’ve already picked out the hot tub,” Helene threw in. “Just in case you’re worried about me.”

“Goodbye, Helene.”

WRAPPING HER CHENILLE bathrobe around her, Ryan stared at the mercilessly blank screen of her computer in the fading light of evening. Candles winked around the room and Frank Sinatra crooned quietly in the background. Her silk camisole slid over her skin. A half finished glass of wine sat at her elbow, forgotten, and incense perfumed the air. “Set the mood,” she muttered, pushing her tumble of dark hair back over her shoulders. “Fat lot of good that does me.”

Six years before, the plan had been clear—get a master’s degree and teach English at some tony upstate prep school. Unfortunately, several hundred other Ivy Leaguers had had the same idea, she discovered on graduating. Her temporary—she thought—sojourn at Beckman Markham had rescued her from being an overqualified copy-shop clerk, but three years later it was clear that bigger and better things weren’t going to materialize for her in academia. By now, though, she hardly cared. Since she’d discovered romance writing via a Sunday supplement article one day in grad school, she’d been writing sweets. Now her only goal was to turn writing into a full-time job and leave the purgatory that was Beckman Markham.

Finishing the first novel of the new series would open that door for her.

Finishing the book currently seemed like the last thing that was ever going to happen.

Heaving a sigh, she got up from the computer chair and wandered over to her silent TV to watch Dennis Quaid trap Ellen Barkin in a kiss in The Big Easy. Helene was right. That was what she needed, she thought, stretching out on the couch to sink into the film. Passion. True romance. A man who would sweep her off her feet.

Unfortunately, her life to date had been notably absent of feet-sweepers. Except for Ross, who had mostly swept the floor with her. Ryan sighed as the characters on the screen kissed. Sometimes she could almost feel a movie kiss, almost remember what it was like.

She untied her robe to feel the silk beneath. It wasn’t her fault she never got involved with anyone. Guys just always seemed to look right through her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want someone to touch her the way Quaid was touching Barkin, she thought, absently stroking her fingers along her collarbone and sliding down the curve of her shoulder. She wanted to make love, she wanted to feel a man’s hands on her. It just never seemed to happen.

She ran her fingertips down over her silk camisole and tap pants to stroke her thighs, then back up, softly, rhythmically. The feel of silk rubbing against her nipples made her shift restlessly. Just a man who could see her for what she was, instead of walking right past like she was invisible. So maybe she wasn’t on the cover of Cosmo, but she’d inherited her mother’s high cheekbones and her father’s full mouth. Nobody quite knew where she got her green eyes, but they were her favorite feature. When she got dressed up, she thought she looked nice. Okay, to be honest she thought she looked hot, but somehow when she was around men she just seemed to disappear.

She could be sexy with the right guy, Ryan thought, slipping her fingers under the edge of her tap pants to tease the top of her thighs, stroking her breast with the other hand. It was just that somehow they never seemed to notice her.

She watched the characters on screen as her fingers slid up to feel the curls of hair between her legs. Maybe what she’d experienced sex-wise had been forgettable, but she knew just how good it could be from the way she could make herself feel. Her fingers slipped into wetness and she felt the surge of arousal as she stroked herself where she was most sensitive. On-screen, Barkin gasped in desire as Quaid slipped his hand up between her legs. Ryan closed her eyes and imagined the fingers of a lover driving her to the brink and beyond. What would it be like to have a man touching her there, to feel his naked flesh against hers? Would he know how to stroke, how to circle around in the way that made her hips jerk the way they were now?

She was on fire everywhere from her hips to her knees. She ached with tension. The rhythmic stroking took her higher and higher. She brought herself to the edge, caressing her breasts with her other hand, brushing and squeezing the nipples. She paused, letting the arousal ease off, knowing it would be even better at the end if she made herself wait.

She stroked her body, feeling her curves, then returned to the moist heat, finding herself again with a touch that made her catch her breath. She teased, circled, then she could feel it rushing in. Suddenly it was like a freight train, barreling along, no stopping now. Slick, hot, wet, her folds enveloped her stroking fingers. The flush of heat flowed over her like molten pleasure, then the orgasm slammed into her. Her body jolted as the glory of it surged from her center out to her fingers and toes in a flush of heat that flared, pulsed, and left a glow behind. Sighing, she lay back and closed her eyes.

She didn’t go back to the computer.

“MA, YOU RUINED MY CAREER.” Ryan clattered through her parents’ back door and into her mother’s kitchen.

Sonia Donnelly turned to smile at her dark-haired, leggy daughter, marveling as always at how she’d grown from the tiny, pink baby she remembered. “Morning, Glory. What brings you here?”

“I’m meeting Becka to go antiquing. She’s up the street at her parents’ house, helping make paper flowers or something for Nellie’s wedding.”

“Nellie’s getting married?” Sonia blinked in shock. “I just bought Girl Scout cookies from her last week. She can’t be more than fourteen.”

“Ma, she just turned twenty-two.” Ryan said gently. “I think you bought the cookies from Colleen’s oldest.”

“Colleen has a daughter old enough to be in Girl Scouts? Good god, where does the time go?” Sonia muttered, bending to pull a pan of cinnamon rolls out of the oven. “Anyway, what’s all this about ruined careers? Are you in trouble at work?”

“I’m repressed, is what I am. I have two sex scenes to finish before the end of the month and nothing’s coming out.”

The wall of newspaper over at the kitchen table rattled. “What are you two talking about over there?” a muffled voice said.

“Nothing, dear.” Sonia flipped the sweet rolls out onto a plate and pulled them apart with forks.

“Hi Dad,” Ryan called.

Her father’s head appeared from behind the Boston Globe sports page. “Oh, hi honey. How’s Cambridge?”

“Fine, but my life as a writer is over.”

“That’s because you do those girlie books. I keep telling you, detective novels are the way to go. You get a nice gory murder, a tough cop, a psycho villain. It’ll sell a million and you can retire.”

“Sure Dad, next book,” she promised, tucking her tongue in her cheek.

“So you’re having problems with your latest?” Sonia asked, setting the platter of cinnamon rolls on the table.

“It’s my name,” Ryan said morosely. “I have a boy’s name. No wonder I can’t feel enough like a woman to get a lover.” She crossed to the cupboard and pulled out coffee mugs. “If I could remember how it felt to have sex, I could write about it,” she said reflectively, carrying the mugs over to the table.

“You know why I had to name you Ryan,” Sonia returned. “Your grandfather was on his deathbed. It was little enough to ask and we were just so sure you were going to be a boy. Anyway, you could have gone by your middle name.”

“Gladys?”

“I couldn’t help it,” her mother said defensively. “I could hardly tell your father’s mother no after giving you a name from my family.”

“Don’t bring me into it, I was just an innocent bystander,” said her father, rattling the sports page.

“You could have gone by a nickname,” Sonia pointed out, carrying over the coffeepot.

Ryan sighed. “By the time I was aware enough to do that the damage had been already done.” She picked at the sweet roll in front of her.

Her mother poured coffee into the mugs and set the pot on a trivet. “Sweetheart, you’re a wonderful writer. Just watch a couple of Mel Gibson movies to get in the mood and imagine the rest.”

“I tried that. Didn’t work.” She sipped the coffee, deciding not to tell her mother what else she’d done to try to get into the mood. Which had put her right smack in the mood for about five minutes. And to sleep for the rest of the night.

“Why don’t you ask someone to set you up with a fellow? Mrs. Seberg across the street has a single grandson.”

“It’s a long way from a blind date to between the sheets, Ma. My deadline’s in two weeks. What I need is a mental vision of a monumental lover.”

“I guess stag movies wouldn’t do it,” Sonia said reflectively, slipping onto a chair.

“Mother!” Scandalized, Ryan stared at her mother, then burst into laughter. “I can’t believe you just encouraged your daughter to go rent a dirty movie.”

Her father peered around his paper with interest. “She never told me to go see one.”

“Oh hush, you. You never needed one.” Sonia stirred her coffee, unflappable. “I’m just trying to help salvage Ryan’s career. Given that I ruined it to begin with.”

“Well, it’s a romance novel, not soft-core porn. I don’t think those movies will do it.” Ryan gulped the last of her coffee and leaned across the table to snag another roll. “Anyway, I have to get going. I just stopped in to lay the blame for my impending ruin at your door.”

“Always happy to help, dear.” Her mother followed her to the kitchen door. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart, you’re such a wonderful writer, it will all be fine.” She pulled her close in a hug. “You’ll find the right fellow, too.”

“When’s that going to happen?” Ryan pulled back and looked at her soberly.

“When you stop running around looking so busy and overtaxed that any man who looks at you figures you have to be running to meet a date. When you make yourself available, you’ll find him.”

“But what if I don’t? I’m tired of looking. It’s easier to just forget about it.” Suddenly all the joking was gone, and in its place, an ache of loneliness so familiar that Ryan had almost stopped noticing it. Almost.

Sonia looked at her levelly. “You don’t really believe that or you wouldn’t be writing romance novels as a second career.”

“If I don’t meet this deadline, my second career is going to go up in a puff of dust and I’ll be forced to teach memo writing for the rest of my life,” Ryan said dolefully.

“You’ll do it, sweetheart, you’ll see. Everything will be fine.”

HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY be fine, Ryan wondered the next day as she sat in her office. She’d avoided thinking about her deadline for months, but now it was inescapable. For more than a decade, she’d dreamed of being a professional writer. Now, on the verge of making it a reality, she was going to blow it.

Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the display before picking up the receiver with resignation. “Hello, Helene.”

“Have they done the deed?”

“Not yet, but I’m getting there.”

“No worries, kid. I’ve got an answer for you.” Helene was absolutely chuckling with good humor. This boded nothing good, Ryan thought.

“No blind dates, Helene, I told you.”

“This isn’t a blind date, honeybunch, at least not exactly. It’s just what you need.”

A stir of misgiving whirled in her stomach. “What, exactly, do I need?” Ryan asked carefully.

“Some quality sheet time with a guy who knows what he’s doing and knows how to drive you crazy.”

Ryan’s brows drew together. “Helene, you are not going to set me up with a one-night stand.”

“You’re right, I’m going to do something better,” said Helene, sounding far too pleased with herself for Ryan’s comfort. “You need inspiration and I can deliver. A girlfriend of mine knows an agency that supplies guys she says will make you see God.” She paused a moment. “In return for a token of your appreciation.”

Ryan’s jaw dropped “You’re not suggesting…” Her voice trailed off. What was going on with people? First her mother suggesting she watch dirty movies, then Helene trying to line her up with a…a… “You’re talking about a gigolo!” Her voice rose to a squeak on the last word.

“Not a gigolo, an escort.” Helene corrected. “A class act. Come on, you loved it when the society lady went to one in those Tales of the City books.”

Ryan closed her eyes and massaged her temples where a headache was rapidly forming.

“Think about it,” Helene continued, her lighter snapping in the background. “A guy who’s gonna focus only on making you feel good. You sit there, quiver in ecstasy all night long.” Ryan could hear her drawing on her cigarette. “You make mental notes for when you go back to the computer, and you write it all down in the morning.”

“I am not going to pay someone for sex,” Ryan said in outrage.

“Well, right now, it doesn’t seem like you’re going to get it any other way, kid, and until you do, this book’s not going to get written,” Helene said tartly.

Was the whole world going nuts? Ryan groped for words, not even knowing where to start. “You do fine on your own, why isn’t it okay for me?”

Helene’s voice softened. “Ryan, I’m a dried-up old broad. I had my run, and it was a good one. H.L., God rest his soul, left me with a bundle of wonderful memories.” She sighed a little. “But you, you’re gorgeous, you’re young. Enjoy it while you’ve got it. Get out and live a little.”

“By sleeping with a gigolo?”

“An escort. Why not? Think of the great story it would make for your grandkids.” Helene stopped. “When they’re grown, anyway. Better yet, think about the manuscript deadline. This baby’s gotta be good, Ryan.” Her voice sharpened with intensity. “You’ve gotten the chance, but you’ve got to convince that editor Elaine that you’ve got the goods or you lose the other three books in the series. You’ll be stuck in sweets, and you can’t make a living doing those.” She paused. “What you’re doing isn’t working. Why not try this?”

Ryan opened her mouth and nothing came out. She closed it slowly, considering. From nowhere, a rush of daring hit her. Why not try it, she thought, brushing a finger over her lips, shivering a little as the nerve endings woke up. What would it feel like to have a man kiss her? What would it feel like to have his naked body on top of hers, to have him inside her, thrusting in and out, his back muscles slippery with sweat beneath her fingers? To know what it was really like…

“…don’t you think?” Helene’s voice sounded in her ear.

“What did you say?” Ryan asked, shaking her head to dislodge the image.

“I said, it’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

What did she think?

She thought it was scandalous.

She thought it was outrageous.

And as a sudden surge of recklessness came over her, she thought it could be just what she needed.

“Yes.” The word was out before she knew she was going to say it.

“Yes? Yes? You’re going to do it?” Helene’s voice rose in a whoop. “Yes! Now when? The sooner, the better to my mind.” Her voice fell into her staccato deal-making cadence. Details and plans were her passion. “Got plans for tomorrow? Mavis says she meets her guy in the lobby bar of the Copley Plaza Hotel. See? Class all the way.”

“I must be out of my mind to do this,” Ryan moaned.

“Don’t you dare back out,” Helene ordered. “This is exactly what you need. We’ll have to set you up with a room. I’ll take care of it, and get the key delivered to your office. All you have to do is walk upstairs with him and into bliss.”

“I should have my head examined.”

“I don’t know about examining your head,” Helene said with a wicked lilt to her voice, “but we’ll find you a guy who’ll play doctor with you to your heart’s content.”

“GENTLEMEN, IT WAS A pleasure doing business with you.” It was like a tribal ritual, Cade Douglas thought as he and his partner went around the conference table shaking hands with the members of the venture capital group that had just funded their start-up to the tune of $7 million. Even back in his days of wheeling and dealing at Shearson Lehman, in the end the deal came down to handshakes.

$7 million. He felt a surge of triumph. They had backers now, a group convinced that eTrain.com was more than a pipe dream. Backers who believed that they’d be a success, who believed enough to sink a small fortune into their ability to turn online education into money.

There was a whoop of jubilation somewhere down deep in his throat, but he contented himself with a wide smile as he and his partner, Patrick Wallace, walked out into the hotel corridor.

$7 million.

“I still think we should have them to the office while they’re here,” Patrick muttered. “That dial-up connection was pathetic. They can’t have any idea of what we’re trying to do.”

“Patrick, VC guys don’t care about the technology,” Cade said patiently. “They’re in town for an Internet conference. They don’t want to spend an hour driving out to Peabody. They just want the business plan.”

“I still think…”

“Patrick. Did we or did we not get the money?”

“We got the money,” Patrick said, a smile spreading across his face until it looked like it was going to crack. “Jesus, we just walked into a room and convinced five guys to give us seven million dollars.” He whooped and punched his fist in the air. “Yes!”

Cade pushed the elevator call button, the heady glow of the deal rushing through his veins. Eventually, the weight of responsibility would descend, but right now, life was good. Reflexively, he pulled out his cell phone to check messages. An instant later, he gave a muffled curse.

Patrick shot a wary glance at him as the elevator doors opened. “No problems right now, buddy, I’m feeling too good.”

“Nothing that you need to worry about,” Cade said briefly, punching the button for the hotel lobby. “A message from the darling Alyssa. She apparently heard that we were pitching the VCs today and wanted to remind me that she still hasn’t gotten the certificates on the stock options.”

“Ah, Alyssa. Everybody’s favorite ex-wife.”

Cade snorted. “Yeah, right.” Then he did a double take and his eyes narrowed. “I don’t want to hear it, Patrick.”

Patrick shook his head. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Skip it, Patrick.”

“She’s getting married again,” Patrick blurted.

Cade rolled his eyes. “Good for her. I don’t care.”

“It just bugs me, that’s all. She guts you and comes out of it smelling like a rose.”

“She didn’t gut me. We both knew it wasn’t right, practically on the honeymoon. Me getting off the Shearson Lehman gravy train to help start a dot-com just gave her the excuse she needed to make the break.” He shrugged. “I’m not happy about the money part of it, but the rest doesn’t matter.”

“Is that why all you ever do is work?” Patrick’s voice turned serious. “Don’t get me wrong. As your partner, I’m not complaining, but as your friend I worry. Where’s the guy of a thousand dates that I used to know? Hell, Cade, you don’t even look at a woman anymore. Why don’t you give yourself a break and at least get some kind of life going?”

Cade bit back temper. “Patrick, there are times I get home and even the people on the TV seem like they want too much from me. I don’t have the time and energy for doing the dance, okay?” The elevator doors opened and they walked out into the brightly lit marble lobby. “Besides, chemistry doesn’t last, that much I learned from Alyssa. Just give me a break.”

“Cade, it’s been four years since you guys divorced. I mean, forget about obligations, I’m just talking about a one night stand.”

Cade snorted. “That sounds like the cry of a married man who wants to live vicariously.”

“You’re going to get hair on your palms and go blind if you keep this up too much longer, buddy. And that’s going to turn the VC guys right off.”

“Patrick.”

“What about her?” he cocked his head as a curvaceous blonde in white passed them, then grinned to see Cade’s eyes following her. “Well, I’m glad to see that your gonads aren’t completely dead.”

Too reminiscent of Alyssa’s ice blond Beacon Hill debutante looks, Cade thought. The kind who would freeze you if you got too close. “Serve you right if I hauled you out on the town for a night of partying. See how much trouble I can get you in with Amy.” They stopped in front of the lobby bar, talking over the whisper of the fountain burbling in the center.

“I wish I could stop for a drink to celebrate, but I’ve got to get home. Amy’s got book club tonight. That shouldn’t stop you, though,” Patrick said, nodding toward a passing cocktail waitress carrying a tray laden with glasses.

Cade shook his head in mock remorse. “Tragic, what marriage does to a man.”

Patrick smiled and patted him on the back. “Just because I’m peeling out doesn’t mean you should. Hang around for a little while. Have a drink. Who knows, maybe in a couple minutes some gorgeous woman will show up out of the blue and come on to you.” He leaned in closer. “And if she does, do me a favor, buddy. Don’t question it, don’t ask why. Just go with it and let whatever happens, happen.”

Cade raised an eyebrow at him. “What the hell kind of advice is that?”

“Take it as a few words of wisdom from someone who knows a thing or two.” Patrick grinned. “I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Cade waved him off and looked at the passing waitress. Maybe he would have a drink. After all the work he’d put in, he deserved it.

RYAN WALKED INTO THE Copley Plaza Hotel, teetering a bit on her heels as she spotted the lobby bar, her heart trip-hammering. The silk of her dress slithered against her as she walked, making her conscious of every brush of her thighs. She’d wanted to look good for tonight, but maybe dropping $250 on the peacock-blue mid-thigh number was overdoing it, considering it would be off in less than half an hour. Oh my God. Butterflies surged in her stomach at the thought. What in the world was she doing? She had to be out of her mind. Only the panic of facing her empty computer screen kept her from wheeling around and going right back to her car.

She glanced across the semi-crowded room. On one of the groupings of deep, soft couches, a group of noisy businessmen laughed at each other’s jokes. From the looks of their rumpled suits and disheveled hair, she figured they’d been sucking down martinis for some time. On a nearby settee, an older woman with an air of faded elegance cast a disapproving glance at the group, leaning close to whisper to the young girl beside her. Up by the bar, a piano player was murdering an old Harry Nilsson tune. There ought to be a law, Ryan thought. And then she saw him, sitting on a couch, an empty glass at his elbow. He raised a beckoning hand.

Her knees turned to water.

Helene’s friend hadn’t exaggerated. Stunningly good-looking didn’t come close to describing him. Thick, dark hair stopped just at his collar, a sheaf falling down over his forehead. His face was strong-boned, the eyes too shadowed under the slashes of dark brows for her to see the color. But his mouth…a fantasy blazed through her mind, her naked, on her back, looking down to see his mouth on her. And it was going to happen, everything she wanted, everything she could think of. Oh my god. She took a quick breath to fill lungs that felt robbed of oxygen. Then she breathed in again.

Okay. The thing to do was to be casual, classy, self-possessed oh my god just walk up, introduce herself, and go upstairs oh my god, he’s going to—

Ryan reached the couch. Blue. His eyes were the deep blue of the Atlantic on a clear fall day. As he looked her up and down, she felt her cheeks heat. Casual, classy, self-possessed.

Oh my god.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Hello. I’m Ryan.” She put her hand out.

He hesitated just a beat, then caught it up and brought it to his lips. “You’re also lovely.”

She was, simply, stunned. His lips sent a frisson of heat and electricity through her hand, which seemed to have instantly grown a thousand new nerve endings. She sank down on the couch because her knees wouldn’t hold her.

Cade studied her in bemusement. Granted, he’d been out of the bar scene for a couple of years—okay, for six or seven if you wanted to get picky—but he was almost sure that gorgeous women didn’t just fall into a guy’s lap because he was sitting in a bar alone. At least not unless you were Russell Crowe, anyway. The waitress he’d waved at brought him another scotch. He passed her a bill and glanced at Ryan. “Would you like something?”

Nothing from the bar, thanks, a little voice in her mind answered back. I’ll just have you. Cade and the waitress looked at her, waiting for her response. Her cheeks heated. Classy. What was a classy, sophisticated drink? “A martini,” Ryan said quickly. “I’ll have a martini.”

“How do you want that?”

Great. How would a martini drinker answer? “Um, dry, please.” Ryan breathed a sigh of relief as the waitress nodded and walked off. Then she pushed back her hair and turned to the man beside her.

She truly was something to look at, Cade thought, watching the blush slowly fade from her high cheekbones. Long and lovely in a narrow, electric blue dress that slipped up to show legs longer than any woman had a right to have. Glossy dark hair tumbled down her back. Her mouth was a deep, ripe red that sent his brain running down carnal pathways. He took a sip of his scotch. “So how are you this fine Wednesday evening?”

Nervous. Giddy. In heat. “Fine. How about you?”

“I’m good.”

“So I hear.” Ryan’s eyes widened and she put a hand to her mouth. She’d said it out loud. It must have been that voice, vibrating her nerve cells and setting loose butterflies inside her. She forced a laugh that sounded fake and tinny even to her own ears. “Just, uh, joking. So, are you having a nice evening?” she asked brightly. Jeez, Ryan, can you get any more pedestrian? On the other hand, she thought, it didn’t really matter if she was a fount of witty banter or not.

He was a sure thing.

She laughed again, this time for real.

Cade raised an eyebrow. “What’s the joke?”

Ryan gave a small cough. “Sorry, I’m just in a good mood tonight. I don’t usually go out on weeknights, so this is like a holiday for me.”

“What’s the occasion?”

Her mouth curved. “Oh, I think a chance to meet someone like you is occasion enough.”

He glanced at her legs appreciatively. “I’d say the pleasure’s all mine.” He’d forgotten what it was like to sit in a bar and flirt with a sexy woman. Patrick was right, he did need to start getting out more.

“And do weeknights usually find you out and about?”

Cade shrugged and rested an elbow on the back of the couch. “Sometimes a special job makes it worthwhile. It was definitely worth it tonight, especially since now I’m sitting here in the company of a gorgeous woman.” He eyed her over the rim of his glass. “You are gorgeous, you know.”

He enjoyed watching her blush. She was luscious—dark, vivid, unconsciously lovely with none of the hard-edged gloss and sophistication that seemed to run through so many of the women he met. There was something addictive about the quick flash of her smile, something that compelled him to keep the conversation rolling. “Anyway, a buddy of mine was just lecturing me that I need to get out more.”

“I suppose all work and no play makes life dull. Do you like your work?”

He paused to consider before answering. “Yeah, I do. It has its challenges, but boy, when it goes well I just feel like if I can do that, I can do anything.”

Her pulse speeded up at the thought of just exactly what he might do to her. The waitress returned and Ryan reached out for her drink. This would be interesting, she thought, given that she’d never had a martini in her life. They always looked sophisticated, though, with that deep green olive glowing in the icy clear liquid. How bad could it be? “Here’s to weeknights,” she said, and clinked her glass against his. She took a sip and the cold, clean taste of the liquor flowed over her tongue. Then the heat slammed into her and she coughed fire.

“You okay?”

Eyes watering, Ryan nodded, giving up the pretense of sophistication. “My first martini.” She coughed again. “I always thought they looked great but never had the nerve to try one before.”

“And what’s the verdict?”

She gave a rueful smile. “It’s an eye-opener.”

Cade ran his thumb lightly across her cheek. “So are you.”

A shiver ran up her spine at his touch. Then the first flush of the liquor hit her. She couldn’t tell whether the warmth she felt was from the drink or from the heat in his eyes. Her pulse jumped and she groped to organize her scattered thoughts. Say something witty, Ryan. “Do they give you guys a script or something?”

Cade blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“You say such pretty things it’s like something out of a movie.” She took another cautious sip of her drink and was pleased to find that it flowed down easily this time.

“Is that a polite way of saying ‘stop feeding me lines’?”

She smiled. “No, it’s nice. I like it. Guys just don’t usually say things like that to me.” And though she tried to tell herself it was part of his professional persona, she was charmed.

“You’re obviously hanging around with the wrong guys. I guarantee any man in this room would be thrilled if you walked up and started talking with him.” His eyes glimmered. “Unless his wife were sitting next to him, of course.”

“Oh please.”

“You don’t believe me?” He surveyed the room. “There are about fifteen or twenty men sitting in this bar. We can take a poll.” There was a burst of raucous laughter from the conventioneers. “Actually, I don’t need to take a poll. Those guys over there? The only time they’ve been quiet the entire night was when you walked through the door. Aunt Cordelia and her charge at the next couch over were very grateful.”

Ryan caught the glare the older woman gave the group. “I noticed when I walked in that she wasn’t very happy. Why do you suppose she stays there instead of moving?”

Cade shrugged. “Boston Brahmin—she was there first, why should she move for a bunch of savages?”

Ryan’s smile flashed again. “You seem to know the type well.”

“I was married to a baby Brahmin for a couple of years. I learned to recognize entitlement from fifty paces.”

“Where’s the baby Brahmin now?”

Cade took another sip of his drink. “Getting remarried, last time I heard. Hopefully it’ll stick for her this time.”

It was Ryan’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “You don’t seem very bitter. Most people tend to be hostile after divorces.”

He shrugged, his eyes dropping to where the blue silk dipped low over her breasts, then rising back up to meet her eyes. “No reason I should be. We just made a bad pair. It was best for both of us that we ended it.”

“Was that how she felt about it?”

“More or less. I think her family was relieved. They lived off a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old shipping fortune. Someone who worked like I did was an embarrassment to them.”

She looked into his laughing eyes and found herself smiling at the thought of an unrepentant gigolo infiltrating an old-money Boston family. They must have been scandalized. “I take it you didn’t agree?”

He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Not really. I dealt with people who had a certain set of needs and I came in and made sure they got satisfied. That seemed pretty worthwhile to me.”

“So you leave satisfied customers behind you?” She took another sip of her martini and her eyes darkened as she licked a drop of vodka from her lip.

Cade lost a beat watching her. “I do my best. I think satisfaction is a pretty worthy goal.” He hooked a finger in his tie to loosen it, then unbuttoned his collar.

Ryan suddenly had an image of pulling the tie off, unfastening the buttons one by one as he lay back on a bed. She shifted on the couch and her thighs brushed together, a tendril of heat starting to grow between them.

The bar had been gradually filling up with more patrons. Noticing the mood, the piano player switched from bad Harry Nilsson to bad Billy Joel. Ryan winced at the opening strains of “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.” “That’s painful. I didn’t think it could get any worse than the last tune.”

“I think the quality of the material is irrelevant. He was murdering ‘Love is the Drug’ before you got here.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” she said insincerely.

Cade grinned. “So let’s see. You don’t want the smooth talk, am I right?”

“Oh, I like it when you talk pretty. Just skip the stuff that sounds like a line. You’ve already got me.” She took another sip of her drink and felt the warmth run through her.

“Let’s see. Well, I could tell you that I’ve been sitting here thinking that your eyes are a very elusive color of green and I just realized that they match the olive in your drink. Now that’s straight from the brain, no lines in sight.”

Ryan winced. “I think I liked it better the other way.”

She laughed and something flipped in his gut. Well that was new, he thought. Beyond her, he saw the blonde he’d noticed earlier. Against the swirl of vivid color that was Ryan, she only looked more icy pale than before.

Cade took another swallow of scotch, wanting to hear that soft, throaty laugh again. “So what do you do when you’re not hanging around hotel lobbies with strange men?”

“Oh, I spin yarns,” she said airily.

“Oh yeah? Tell me a good story.”

When she’d been a child, her family would go to a lake in Maine in the summers. In early June, the water was still icy cold. There were two ways to approach it. You could start at the shore, stepping in an inch at a time, waiting for your body to acclimate until you got so chilled the water didn’t feel cold anymore. Or you could run off the end of the dock and jump in, take the shock all at once. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Ryan had always jumped.

She took a deep breath and looked in his eyes. “Let’s go upstairs and I will.”

Cade blinked, and Patrick’s words came back to him. Maybe in a couple of minutes a gorgeous woman will show up out of the blue and come on to you. And if she does, do me a favor, buddy. Don’t question it, don’t ask why. Just go with it and let whatever happens, happen.

Maybe Patrick was right.

“Whatever you say, darlin’.” He rose and pulled her to her feet. “I’m all yours.”

2

JUST WHAT HAD HE GOTTEN himself into, Cade wondered bemusedly as he listened to Ryan’s heels click on the marble lobby tiles. He was pretty sure this was not the way pickups went in this day and age. But the scotch was singing in his blood, the flush of triumph was still flowing through him, and he couldn’t stop wondering what it would feel like to touch her skin.

Ryan ran a hand through her hair, shaking it back. She’d thought she’d be more nervous, but somehow she was more at ease than she’d ever been with a man. Always before she’d wondered and analyzed, trying to figure out what he was thinking, how he felt.

Whether he wanted her.

This time, she didn’t have to wonder. Everybody knew what was going to happen up front. The situation should have made her feel awkward, but it was strangely liberating. The deal was done, she could just ride with it.

And yet, somehow it didn’t feel like a deal. She could swear she’d seen heat in his eyes when she’d approached him. Maybe he was just very good at his job, but it seemed too genuine to be an act. Helene’s friend was right, it felt like a date. A perfect date who was going to put out. She laughed to herself.

“What’s the joke?” Cade asked, those extraordinary eyes on her.

Ryan smiled. “This. I thought it would feel so strange, but it doesn’t.”

“Why should it?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure you hear this all the time, but I’ve never done this before. You know where it goes from here. It’s all new to me.”

“I have no idea where it goes from here,” Cade spoke with perfect truth. “I thought we’d work it out as we go along.”

A chime rang as the elevator doors opened and they stepped into the car. “Fourteenth floor,” she said when he looked at her inquiringly. He punched a button and the car surged upward. Her stomach fluttered in a way that had nothing to do with the movement. Somehow their fingers were still entangled as though they’d fused together. The heat licked up her arm and a surge of pleasure washed over her. It felt so good to touch someone. Just to touch someone. Then his fingertips began tracing patterns over her palm, and she caught her breath.

The chime rang again, and the elevator doors opened on a plushly carpeted hall.

And the nerves hit. Ryan’s hand shook as she dug in her purse for the room folio. “Fourteen twenty-seven. I think we’re down here.” One of her heels caught in the thick carpet and she wobbled before Cade caught her arm.

“Steady.”

Steady? She’d never been less steady in her life. “No more martinis for me.”

“They do pack a punch.”

“So do you.”

“Now who’s talking like the movies?”

She laughed. “I’m the client. I’m allowed to do what I want.”

“What?” Cade came to a stop, fortunately in front of the right door. What the hell was going on? The client? If she was the client, then who did she think he was? What was this all about? To buy himself time to think, he took the card from her hand and unlocked the door.

Ryan took a deep breath and stepped inside. Across the room, floor to ceiling windows looked out on the Boston skyline and a cool April night. Inside, warm light from a silk-shaded table lamp suffused the room. Ornate gold throw pillows accented a couch covered in soft, muted blues and an armchair pulled up nearby. She tried to ignore the acre of bed beyond.

On the low oak coffee table, a plate of cheese and grapes sat next to a bottle of cabernet and a pair of cut-glass goblets. “That Helene,” Ryan said dryly, “she doesn’t miss a trick.”

Cade stepped up behind her to slide her wrap off, staring at her pale shoulders gleaming in the soft light. He wanted to curl his fingers around them and feel her skin against his palms, see if it was as silky soft as it looked. Fill his hands with the hair that flowed down her back, press it to his lips. Feel her move against him. God, it had been so long…

“Who’s Helene?” he asked.

Ryan could feel the heat from his body as he stood behind her. Desire pulled at her and she swayed. Touch me touch me touch me drummed through her mind. Strive for sophisticated, she thought. “Helene’s my agent. You have her to thank for the business, you know.” Because her nerves were strained to the breaking point, she moved away and sank down on the soft blue cushions of the couch.

Business? Agents? Just who was she, Cade wondered, watching her reach toward the tray. She had the lush mouth of an actress, and a body dressed to drive a man wild. She’d talked about it being her first time, but then she’d mentioned spinning tales. Just relax, he thought to himself, ride along with it. “So you said you spin tales. Do you act?” He took the wine bottle and corkscrew that she handed to him.

Ryan gave a short laugh. “Hardly. I’m a writer. Part of the time, anyway.”

“What do you write?”

His hands were long-fingered, capable, and she stared in fascination. “Oh, women’s fiction,” she answered vaguely, watching him twist the cork off of the corkscrew, then handing him a glass. “I’ve got a nasty case of writer’s block and a deadline. My agent thought this would give me inspiration.”

“Inspiration for what?” Cade asked, his brow creasing in puzzlement as he poured the wine into the cut crystal and handed her a glass. Pouring a glass for himself, he sat on the couch.

Ryan looked at him impishly. “To the power of inspiration.” She clinked her glass against his.

“You still have to tell me what for,” he reminded her, then drank, letting the dark flavor of the wine roll over his tongue.

“For my sex scenes, of course,” she said.

Cade choked.

Ryan watched him cough, amused. “What, you don’t think of yourself as an artistic muse?” she asked, watching as he walked over to the windows and back, catching his breath.

“If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about then no, I don’t,” he said as he came back to the couch. He picked up the glass that he’d set on the table while he was busy coughing up a lung and took a long drink.

“Well I hope you live up to your billing. This has to be a very hot scene. Helene’s friend said you had the hands and mouth of a god,” Ryan said, and watched him choke again. “You came highly recommended,” she said, then pounded him helpfully on the back. “Should I get you some water?”

“No, thank you.” Cade cleared his throat and grabbed his glass again. Christ, he definitely needed a drink while he worked out what to do here. All his instincts were telling him to go, not to get involved, but her scent wound around his brain. He started to drink, then lowered the glass. “Do me a favor. Don’t say anything else dangerous while I drink this, okay?” He eyed her warily over the rim as he sipped, then he put it down.

Ryan popped a grape into her mouth, enjoying herself hugely. She felt desirable, gorgeous…sexy. Power surged through her. She crossed her legs slowly and leaned toward him, resting her arm on the back of the couch. “So what happens now?” Her pulse skittered over the deep, slow burn of arousal. She wanted to feel his hands on her, now. “Isn’t this the part where you’re supposed to start feeding me grapes and having your way with me?”

Her husky voice and the slow smile that went with the words hit him like a sucker punch. Didn’t this one just beat all, he thought. He wanted her so badly he could feel it pulsing through him, but going along with this charade had the makings of a disaster. He owed it to her to tell her what was going on.

Yeah, but what did it matter really, asked a soft, persuasive voice in his head. That was the little head thinking for the big head, Cade thought grimly, but he stared at the shadows in the hollow of her neck and listened anyway. She thought she was sleeping with a gigolo. Really, she’d be better off sleeping with him. At least he’d be doing it because he wanted her, not because he wanted money. As far as complications went, well, it wasn’t as though she could be expecting to have a relationship with a gigolo, so it could all begin and end here. He couldn’t lead her on because the very nature of the situation meant that she wouldn’t be expecting anything besides a one-time roll in the hay.

Besides, if he told her the truth now she’d strangle him.

Okay, here was the deal, he thought, shutting down the voice. He’d go to the bathroom and figure out some kind of fake excuse, and then he’d go. He’d do the right thing and get up and go. Right then.

Except that just then he had a hard-on that would hammer nails.

Ryan was watching him closely. “What’s wrong? You’ve got a really funny look on your face.”

“I uh…I just remembered that I forgot to bring along any condoms,” he said, and gave himself points. In today’s world it was a pretty valid excuse.

“Oh.” She fought down a quick surge of disappointment, then paused as she considered some of the alternatives. “And here I thought you were a professional,” she said mockingly. “I guess you’ll just have to think of something special to keep my mind off the fact that I’m not getting the full package, so to speak.”

He should have known there’d be no easy outs here, Cade thought. He must be out of his mind trying to escape it. Any other single guy would be all over this one in a heartbeat. Any other guy would be all over her in a heartbeat. “Well, it’s actually got me thinking. Based on what you said before, I just…I think you’re doing this for the wrong reasons.”

“The wrong reasons?” Ryan echoed in bewilderment, her euphoria dying away. “Because I’m paying you for sex for business reasons rather than for personal companionship? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I just don’t want this to turn out to be a bad thing for you. We’re having a good time. Why don’t we just leave it at this?”

Suddenly it felt like every horrid date she’d ever had. Like the worst times with Ross, thinking he wanted her, finding out it was all entirely different than she’d imagined. “I thought we were supposed to have sex,” she snapped. “I didn’t realize that this was a pass/fail interview.” She jumped up and stalked to the wall of windows, leaning against the handrail that ran across it and staring out into the night. “This is unbelievable. I must be the only person I know who can’t make it with a guy even when I’m paying him.”

“This has nothing to do with me not wanting you,” Cade said sharply, rising to follow her. “But if we do this I think you’re going to be sorry, and I don’t want that. I like you. And I don’t think you’re thinking this through.”

“You don’t think I’m thinking this through?” Ryan spun to face him, sputtering in outrage. “What business is it of yours? Who set you up to decide what’s best for me?” Two spots of color stained her cheeks. “Whatever happened to all your talk about satisfying needs? This is supposed to be about money, honey.” The words dripped with sarcasm.

“This has nothing to do with money,” he said quietly.

She refused to be mollified. “Oh come on. Money’s why you’re here.”

“No it’s not. It’s you.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she said coldly.

“Why? Don’t you see yourself when you look into the mirror?” His words came to her softly, and the low thrumming started again in her blood. “When I saw you walk in tonight it stopped me dead.”

“Oh please.” He wasn’t going to play her for a fool, Ryan thought. And yet, when she looked into his eyes she could swear that he was telling her the absolute truth.

“I mean it.” He stepped close to her and tilted up her chin, running his fingertips lightly down her throat. Smooth as cream, he thought. And he knew he was about to make a big mistake. “This has nothing to do with money.” He brushed his lips over her jawline. “This only has to do with you and with me.”

Then his mouth closed over hers and a roaring madness swept them away.

3

IT WAS NO SOFT, gentle kiss. There was no time to sample and savor. Urgent with the suppressed desire of the past hours, he took her, possessed her, his mouth driving her into a frenzy. The wanting, the desire drove them both.

This is what it’s like, ran a refrain in her head. For years she had watched, yearned, tried to imagine what it felt like, the riot of sensation that was rushing through her body. Now there was no more need to imagine, just to feel. Ryan pushed his jacket off his shoulders, greedy to have him against her.

Cade tossed it impatiently on the floor, throwing his tie off after it. Running his hands down her sleek body, he pulled her to him, then spun her around to face the glass.

Ryan was dizzy, drunk with arousal, glorying in his urgency. After a seemingly endless drought of affection, she was suddenly in the arms of a man who wanted her so badly he trembled. It was intoxicating. More, was all she could think. She wanted more.

His hands curved down over her shoulders and his lips traced a line to follow. “When I was taking your shawl off earlier, all I wanted to do was touch you like this, just feel your skin under my hands,” he murmured against her skin.

A slow, molten flow started deep in her belly.

Ryan groaned at the heat of his hands on her, at the feel of his body behind her, his arousal pushing hard and insistently against her. She turned her head, letting it fall back so she could kiss him. “And is that all you want now?” she murmured against his lips.

“Not by half.” He spun her back around and pulled her against him. Then his mouth was on hers again, parting her lips to taste the dark flavors inside. Any thought of principles had been annihilated in the burning pulse of desire that consumed him. His hands slid down her sides and curved around in front to fill themselves with the soft fullness of her breasts and he caught his breath.

Ryan reveled in the riot of sensation, the textures, the flavors, the scents. How had she ever managed to live without this? How had she ever managed to do without this driving urgency, without the heat of a man’s hands hard against her body? Without feeling him stiff against her and knowing without a doubt that he wanted her? All the nerves were gone, the second-guessing was a thing of the past. Certainty flowed through her. She didn’t have to think about it—the way she touched him was inevitable, instinctive. She kissed as though she would inhale him, then broke off to nibble a frenzy of kisses down his cheek and neck, feeling fresh amazement at the smooth tight feel of his skin against her mouth.

His hands stroked down the smooth skin of her back until he found the zipper of the low-cut dress. She was alive in his arms and he wanted more. He tugged the zipper down and felt the fabric part beneath his fingers.

The cool air from the window brushed over her skin, making her shiver, but the heat of his lips made her shiver more. “The lights are on in here,” she whispered. “People will be able to see in from the outside.”

“We’re fourteen floors up. Let ’em look if they want to.” Forcing himself to go slowly, he slipped the dress from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor, holding her steady as she stepped out of it. And stared dry-mouthed at the low-cut black bra and garter belt that had been hidden underneath. Holding her arms out to the side, he stepped back and simply looked. “You’re so sexy,” he whispered huskily, then filled his hands with her breasts.

So long, it had been so long since he’d felt the yielding softness of a woman’s body. And he wanted her more than any woman he’d known. He pressed her back against the glass, stroking his hands over the swell of flesh that rose above the black satin cups, then sliding his hands down her sides.

His tongue traced a line down her neck to linger at the tops of her breasts as he unsnapped the front clasp of her bra and peeled the cups back. Her breasts tumbled out, rounded and full. He whispered something and took one of her nipples in her mouth.

Ryan moaned, nearly delirious at the liquid warmth of his tongue against her. Part of her was utterly amazed that this was happening at all. This was the kind of passion she watched in movies, not the kind of thing that happened to her. Only now it was happening, and she gloried in every groan, every brush of skin against skin.

Twisting sinuously, she brought herself into closer contact with him, tangling her fingers in his hair. He sucked and stroked his tongue against her, dwelling on first one peak, then the next, driving her higher as the tension built deep inside.

Then he traced his tongue lower still, licking across the quivering skin of her belly as he dropped to his knees in front of her. Impatiently he unbuttoned his shirt, flinging it to one side, then wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her to him to feel her against his bare flesh.

Ryan ran her hands over his shoulders, feeling the curve of hard muscle against her fingertips. She was greedy for everything she could feel, everything she could take, everything she could give. To know that she could make his breath come fast, make him shudder was intoxicating. Knowing that they were only scratching the surface was more intoxicating still.

Cade heard her moan as he slid his hands down her back and over the curve of her buttocks, hooking his fingers in the sides of her black lace bikini. He smiled as he realized she’d put it on last when she dressed that evening. Then he stripped the silky thing down and she stood against the wide window in only her garters and stockings, looking like some delectable advertisement for sin. The smoothness of the gossamer hose against his palms as he ran them up and down her legs made him catch his breath. He pressed his lips against her hip, then journeyed lower, brushing against the first curls of hair, then lower still. Sliding his hands between her legs, he pushed them gently apart.

Ryan gasped and jolted as the wet warmth of his tongue slipped into the slick cleft between her legs, stroking the tight, hard bud of her sex. The slight roughness of his cheeks scraped the tender insides of her thighs as he caressed her with his tongue, swirling it in a way that made her lose control and move her hips mindlessly, crying out in breathy moans she wasn’t even aware she was making. Touching herself had never been like this, she thought in shock. In her wildest dreams she couldn’t have imagined anything could feel this good, that the wet, slick strokes could bring on such heat.

Feeling her response, Cade drove her higher, inflamed by her arousal. “This is what I wanted to do from the moment I saw you,” he whispered, his mouth on her. “You walked in that room and I just wanted you naked, under me, against me. I wanted to know what you tasted like, how you moaned when you came.” He ran a finger back and forth where she was most slippery, tormenting her with his touch, then plunged it inside her as he worked her with his mouth.

Ryan arched and cried out as the climax ripped through her in a rush of pleasure and light. Her body shuddered with the contractions and the flush of heat that rocketed out to her fingertips and toes. She surged to another peak and cried out again. The jolts lasted long after the flood of sensation had abated. Her legs turned to water and she swayed.

“Easy,” Cade said softly. “I think we need to go over here.” He guided her to the bed. Ryan laid back bonelessly against the sweet-smelling sheets, watching him strip off his shoes, trousers and briefs. God he had a gorgeous body, lean and muscled like a champion swimmer.

The mattress gave as he laid down next to her, turning on his side to watch her as he stroked a hand down her body. Ryan reached out to touch his face, then ran a fingertip down his body to his hip. He sucked in a breath and she felt a surge of triumph. Sitting up, she pushed him flat on his back. “I think its time you sit back and let me drive,” she murmured. Before she had relaxed and taken. Now it was her turn to give, her turn to feel the power of desire.

On her hands and knees, she leaned down to kiss him slow and lingeringly, rubbing her lips against his, tracing a line down his neck with her tongue. Tasting the salt tang of sweat, she licked her way down his flat belly, letting her hair trail over his skin, then sank down to the mattress by his hip, staring at his pulsing erection in fascination. Slowly, she touched a finger to the drop of clear liquid that glistened on the tip, then spread it along the sensitive underside. Cade’s body jolted and his breath hissed.

The last time she’d done this, she’d been a clumsy innocent groping in the dark with a man, a callow boy, really, who had been wishing she was someone else. This time, for just this hour, she knew Cade wanted her. After years of longing for contact, she was touching someone who desired her, feeling his response to her touch, watching his arousal leap and pulse in response to her teasing.

Heart hammering, she leaned over and ran the tip of her tongue where her fingertip had been. The sensation was incredible. He was hard yet silky soft against her lips as she rubbed them against him, running them up and down, first slowly, then faster, swirling her tongue around the rounded tip of him. She was rewarded with a strangled moan. More boldly now she grasped him with her hand and slipped him into her mouth.

Power. It surged through her as she heard him groan, as she felt his hips rock helplessly in response to her touch. To know that she could bring him to this level of intensity was intoxicating. She ran her head up and down in an intimate caress, feeling him get harder and harder against her mouth with every stroke. The skin was like silk stretched over marble.

“Ryan,” Cade said in a strangled voice.

“Hmm?” she looked up but didn’t slow her movements.

“If you keep doing that I’m going to—” he broke off and hauled her roughly up his body. Kissing her hard, he put her hand on him and stroked it once. A groan tore out of him and he surged against her, pulsing in her hand.

RYAN STRETCHED, FEELING relaxation settle over her slow and heavy. Cade pressed a long, lingering kiss on her lips. Ryan turned her head on the pillow and looked at him intently. “Thank you.”

“Thank you?” he laughed. “What for?”

“For bringing me back,” she said simply, and kissed him. “I haven’t done this in a very long time, years.” Her eyes were serious. “You probably don’t know what it’s like to be without sex that long, but you lose touch with the world. After a couple of years go by, you’re afraid to touch anyone, afraid you’ll hug a friend too hard or stare someone in the eyes too long because you’ve been so disconnected with the world that you don’t know what it’s like anymore, to be in touch with people.”

She was describing his life for the past four years, Cade thought. He’d been running hard and trying to ignore it, but he knew the feeling that she was talking about. Isolation, in a way that went deeper than being alone. He pulled her close, feeling the luxury of her naked body against his. “I can’t believe that you don’t have guys coming on to you right and left.”

Ryan blushed. “Well, I don’t usually wander around dressed like I was tonight. I don’t know, guys just don’t ask me out.” Suddenly self-conscious, she reached for the sheet.

Cade put a hand on hers. “Uh-uh.” He pulled the sheet back. “I want to look.” He ran the flat of his hand over the curve of her hip. “I think you’re amazing.”

“This is amazing.” She shook her head. “You don’t know what it’s like. It’s as though you’re living in the world but you’re only a spectator to the life that everyone else is living.” She kissed him again. “You’ve brought me back from that. I feel like I’m part of the human race again.”

“Incredible,” he murmured, rolling her over so that she lay on top of him. He ran his hands down her back, resting them on her hips. “I don’t know what those other guys you’ve known have been thinking. I’m glad to be the one you let inside.”

“Well, I didn’t let you in everywhere,” she said impishly, squirming against him. “I can think of some places you haven’t been, what with your forgetting items key to your profession.”

Cade winced at the reference, but his expression was lightly amused. “Oh yeah?”

“Well, yes. And as a professional, what do you propose to do about that? After all, the scenes for my book do have to be complete in the particulars.”

He rolled her again so that she was half underneath him. “Well, I pride myself on keeping my customers satisfied,” he said between kisses. “I suppose the fair thing would be to forgo payment until you receive the full treatment you were led to expect.” He stroked the tender skin on her breast until she shivered, then slid his hand over the soft curve of her hip to linger at the tops of her thighs. “What do you say you hold on to your payment and we meet again tomorrow night to close the deal?” His clever fingers teased her, stroking her into arousal all over again. “In the meantime, I think a demonstration of good faith is in order.”

Ryan’s yes was a moan that he stopped with his mouth.

4

RYAN BOUNCED TOWARD HER office building, dancing on air. With only three hours of sleep under her belt, she should have been exhausted, but she walked down the pavement buoyed by a bubble of euphoria. The sun was shining, the streets gleamed from the previous night’s rain. The whole world looked shiny and new, just like she felt.

She was no longer on the outside looking in. She was a part of it all. The elevator that boosted her to the tenth floor was no match for the buoyancy that had taken her over.

“’Morning, Mona,” she called to the administrative assistant assigned to their group.

The plump blonde smiled to her as she walked past. “Morning, Ryan. Barry says he wants to see the viewgraphs for the Internet meeting by the end of the day.”

Ryan rolled her eyes. “Barry always wants something.” She heard her phone ringing before she even made it into her office. Swinging inside, she picked it up with a grin, stretching to close the door behind her. “Hello Helene.”

“So what happened?” the gravelly voice demanded.

Ryan dropped into her chair and turned toward the window, stretching luxuriously. “God, Helene, it was amazing. Incredible. It was like nothing else that’s ever happened to me before.”

“Well, that’s surprising considering that he never got near you. What’d you do, chicken out?”

“I was up until four in the morning writing the lo…” Ryan stopped short. “What did you say?” she asked slowly.

“I just got a call from a very irate person at the agency wondering why their high-priced best boy spent the evening cooling his heels at the Copley. They were demanding payment in full, I might add.”

“Helene, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I met him at the Copley at eight,” Ryan protested. “We spent most of the night together.”

There was a short silence. “Oh really.”

Ryan stared at the phone. “This is the part where you say ha ha, just kidding, Helene,” she said. “Helene?”

“Ha ha, just kidding.” The words were in a robotic monotone.

“Helene, tell me this is a joke,” Ryan said with slowly dawning horror. “Tell me the man I was with last night was the guy from the agency.”

The silence stretched out.

The blood began roaring in her ears.

“That son of a bitch,” she said slowly. “That goddamned son of a bitch.” Pure fury slammed through her so quickly it took her breath away.

He’d lied to her. He’d let her think he was the gigolo and as a result she’d taken a complete stranger into her bed. Admittedly, she had expected to take a complete stranger into her bed, but it was supposed to be a complete stranger with references. Instead, she’d been shanghaied by Cade Douglas, who was heaven only knew who.

Her imagination painted steadily more frightening pictures. He could have been anyone, she thought with a chill. She was lucky she hadn’t been robbed or worse. Yet he’d turned down her money, so he wasn’t some down-and-out hustler. He was doing it for kicks. It must have been quite the joke to him. She could just imagine him laughing inside the whole time he was scamming her.

She thought of him groaning as he came and the chill flamed back into fury. Oh no, he hadn’t been laughing the whole time. He’d been getting off on it all, playing up his whole little charade. “You’re doing this for the wrong reasons.” “What do you say we meet tomorrow night to close the deal.” Close the deal, indeed, she fumed. It wasn’t enough that he’d played her once. He had the nerve to keep going. Sure, and why not? It was the ultimate male fantasy, sex with no commitment.

“Hey kid, are you okay?” Helene’s voice broke into her thoughts.

She wanted to yell. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit something, preferably Cade Douglas. No, hitting was too good for him, she thought dizzily. He should be horse-whipped. He should be roasted over a high flame.

“Talk to me, Ryan.”

She unclenched her jaw and forced her face to move. “Sure. I’m fine,” she said tonelessly. “Just surprised.”

“Hey, at least you got some good material for the scene, right?”

“Helene, skip the bright-side stuff. I have to go now.”

“Don’t do anything drastic,” Helene put in hastily.

“I won’t. But if I wind up in jail, bail me out, okay?”

Ryan hung up, waiting for the roaring in her ears to go away. She fumbled in her purse until she found the phone number Cade had given her the night before, she started to dial the digits, then stopped. Her desk clock ticked the seconds away and she sprang up to pace. It wasn’t enough. Reading him the riot act over the phone was not enough to pay him back for what he’d done. For this, she needed to see him in person.

She stopped and stared out the window, remembering the feel of his hands on her, the promise of his naked body. Anger and desire warred in her. Tonight they would be together. No matter who he was, no matter what game he was playing, she couldn’t give up the chance to be with him one more time. If she told him off now, she’d be the loser. She’d gotten her lovers through much of the scene, but was missing the final climactic moments.

Which didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that she’d be missing the final climactic moments. After all these years without touching anyone, how could she really walk away from finally, completely knowing what it was like? From having him inside her? All she had to do was show up tonight and he would be kissing her, making love with her, taking her to the edge and beyond. Ryan rolled her forehead against the glass.

She had to feel his hands on her again, but how could she let him get away with what he’d done? The anger flowed back afresh and Ryan shook her head. He needed to learn a lesson about honesty and taking advantage of people. He needed to learn a lesson, but she needed to make love with him.

There had to be a way she could have both.

She stared out to the street and raked back her hair with her fingers. And then she blinked. Slowly, slowly a smile crept over her face as the beginnings of a plan took shape in her mind. Oh yes, she thought, there was definitely a way she could have both. Walking back to her desk, she signed her computer onto the Internet. It was time for a little research. This needed a personal touch.

By the time she talked with Cade an hour later, her plans were in place.

HE HAD TO COME CLEAN, that was all there was to it. Cade stared out the windows of his office for the hundredth time that day. Hearing her voice on his cell phone had brought the previous night back to him in Technicolor. He hadn’t realized how sterile and empty his life had become until he’d held her against him. Now everything felt different. Now all he could think of was Ryan in his arms like a column of flame.

The current situation, though, was a disaster waiting to happen. If there was anything he’d learned in his life, it was that the truth was the only way to go. He’d seen where the lies got you.

He’d grown up in L.A. with a father who worshipped the art of the deal and beautiful women, pretty much in that order. Cade and his mother had come in a distant third. Unfortunately, Cade’s father wasn’t nearly as good at lying as he was at cutting deals to finance feature films or high-rise office buildings. By the time Cade was eleven, his parents were in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. One hadn’t been enough for his father, though. With monotonous regularity, every four or five years the man got hooked enough on one or another of his mistresses to marry again. In a year, sometimes two, the shine would wear off and they’d divorce.

Infatuation didn’t last. After seeing his father go through wives two through four, he should have known that. Some lessons, though, you couldn’t learn by observation. Nope, Cade had had to find out himself with Alyssa. It was true love, he’d been sure of it. He was going to show his parents how a marriage was supposed to be. Except that when the flush of infatuation had faded, there’d been nothing left. “Chip off the old block,” his father had said when Cade had told him about the divorce. Christ, he’d hated him for that. In a way, though, he’d been right. Some people were cut out for it and some people weren’t.

Cade sighed. Maybe he wasn’t set up for happily ever after, but he could do with some more of Ryan’s company. The problem was how to salvage the situation. He’d botched things up the night before. He should just have told her the truth and tried to worm loose her phone number so he could see her later. Sleeping with her had been a big mistake. Unbidden, a smile stretched over his face. Huge mistake, and boy was he glad he’d made it.

So what now? Calling her up and telling her the truth wouldn’t do it. The only thing to do was to show up and be honest with her. If he put his mind to it, he was pretty sure he could bring her around sooner or later. He had to come clean with her, though. He owed it to her.

He owed it to himself.

RYAN STARED OUT THE window of her room at the Beacon Hill Hotel, watching night fall. Stepping into the room was like stepping onto a movie set for a turn-of-the-century bordello. Cade Douglas had a few surprises coming to him, she thought as she rose to open the bottle of wine that sat on the impeccable cherry wood vanity table. Of course, she thought, pouring herself a glass, if all else failed she could just brain him with the antique porcelain ewer.

Moving around the room, she lit candles. Roses and mums perfumed the air. A tufted brocade chaise longue sat in front of the window, bearing an ornate, tasseled pillow perfect for cushioning milady’s head. With sheer hangings draped over the canopy of the lace-covered, four-poster bed, it was a scene for romance and seduction.

Time for her to get in costume.

The knock on the door came as she was spritzing on perfume. She tried to ignore the quick surge of adrenaline, equal parts fury and desire, and walked over to the entry hall.

It was unfair that anyone should look that good, she thought, peering through the peephole. He stood there in a dove-gray suit, the indigo of his shirt bringing out the blue in his eyes. His hair looked black under the gas-lamp-style sconces in the hall. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

The words he’d planned to say died on his lips. She stood in a black lace merry widow, garters stretching down to silky hose, eyes challenging him to take her on. A red silk dressing gown swirled over the lace and matched the spike-heeled pumps she wore. Her dark hair tumbled down over her shoulders. Her mouth was an irresistible temptation. He stepped inside and she flowed into his arms.

She’d remember why she was furious with him in a minute, Ryan thought hazily as she sank into the kiss. Desire flowed around her thick and sweet, and she lost long minutes to the feel of his arms around her, the taste, the dark honey taste of his mouth. She barely heard the door swing shut behind them, enclosing them in the candlelit room.

Cade pressed his lips to her neck. “I’ve thought about this all day,” he murmured, sampling her skin.

Ryan broke loose first, breathing hard. She looked at him, eyes heavy-lidded. “I wasn’t sure if you’d forget again this time, so I planned ahead,” she said, glancing at a handful of condoms on the bedside table.

“Wouldn’t do to disappoint a lady.” Swiftly, he pulled her to him, running his hands down her body, over the curves beneath the lace. “Or myself.”

Ryan ran her fingers through his hair. It felt glorious, but it wouldn’t do to forget why she was here. “Seems like one of us has too many clothes on, and it’s not me.”

He stroked the bare flesh above her stocking. “Oh no, darlin’, what you’ve got on is exactly right.” Cade stepped back and grinned, shrugging off his coat. “Guaranteed to give me good dreams tonight, assuming you ever let me sleep.”

She watched him strip off his tie and stepped in to help unbutton his shirt. “Does being a gigolo always require such formal wear?”

“You know, all these career advancement seminars always talk about the importance of appearance.” He leaned down to unlace his shoes. “There are even rules about how to undress.”

“How to undress?” Ryan sank down on the bed to watch him, propping her head on her hand and casually flipping her dressing gown back to reveal lace and garters. Lazily, she stroked a hand up the inside of her thigh and circled out over her hip.

His eyes flashed hot with desire. Leaning over the bed, he kissed her until her breath came fast, then he stood back up. “Well, yes.” Enjoying himself, he watched her intently. “For example, even the sexiest guy looks like a dork parading around in socks and jockey shorts. All the best gigolo manuals advise removing the shoes and socks before the pants come off.” Sitting in the chair by the window, he demonstrated.

“Do tell. I’d always figured that natural talent counted most in your career. Clearly, I was misinformed.” Ryan stroked the skin of her neck, fingertips sliding down to the swell of her breasts.

Cade’s eyes were riveted on her hands. “Well, there’s certainly something to be said for talent and enthusiasm,” he said, standing up to drop his trousers, his “talent” jutting out from his boxers.

Then he stripped them off as well and her mouth went dry.

“Now who’s got on too many clothes?” he asked, easing onto the bed beside her and sliding his hands down her silk gown. He kissed the smooth skin of her shoulders as he eased the silk down her arms.

“Cade,” Ryan said as she felt his lips on her. “I was thinking about this all day today when I was at work.” His response was muffled as he pushed her flat and began to kiss her breasts where they rose above the merry widow. Despite herself, she moaned. “I was thinking about what we could do tonight and what would really turn me on,” she managed.

“And this isn’t doing the trick?” he asked mischievously, running his fingertips lightly up the bare skin of her inner thighs.

It felt wonderful, she thought, fighting not to writhe against him. She had to stay focused. “I wouldn’t say that, but I thought your stock in trade was making fantasies come true.” And this was her fantasy happening this instant, but he was playing her even now. Payback had to be on the agenda. But oh, it felt blissful.

His lips traveled back to hers. “What’s your fantasy?” He pulled back and looked at her, his hand stroking the soft skin of her breasts, his eyes hot. “Tell me and we’ll do it.”

Ryan ran her hands down his torso to capture him hard in her hand, slipping her fingers up to the velvety tip of him, then back down. When he sucked in his breath, she smiled. “My fantasy has always been to drive a man crazy.”

“You’ve got a good start on that right now, sweetheart,” he said in a strained voice as she continued to move her hand.

Ryan shook her head. “Oh, I mean reeallly drive you crazy,” she said, pushing him onto his back. She came up on her hands and knees to lean over him, nibbling her way down his torso. “Take you right to the edge until you’re begging for more.” She nuzzled his hard erection, then blew a warm breath over it. “And then give it to you.” For a heady instant, she took him in her mouth, felt him pulse against her.

“Sounds like quite a fantasy to me,” Cade said raggedly, reaching out reflexively as she pulled away.

Ryan leaned over to pull open a drawer at the side of the bed and pulled out a tasseled silk rope. “You haven’t heard it all,” she purred, running the silk tassel up and down his chest. “What would you say if I told you my fantasy included tying you up?”

Cade raised an eyebrow. “Bondage?”

She gave a short laugh. “Hardly. It’s not as serious as all that.” Ryan teased his chest with the tassel, and followed its path with her tongue. Then, she moved up the bed to lie beside him, stroking him with the silk. “I just think it would be kind of a turn on. Besides, it’s not as though you haven’t done this before. I imagine in your line of work you’ve seen this more than a few times.” She leaned in to kiss him hard. “Anyway, I thought your job was to do anything I asked.”

Against his will, he sank into the kiss she pressed on him. She felt so good and smelled so good that it was a struggle to stay focused. His choices were simple: fess up or get tied up. There didn’t seem to be any other way out. If he stayed in character, getting tied up would be no big deal, familiar territory. It would be part of the job. The only way out would be to break character, in which case he’d be lucky to get out the door in one piece, let alone with his clothes. He’d lied to her and led her on. All his fine resolutions to tell the truth had evaporated when she’d opened the door. He’d deserve anything he got.

That didn’t mean it would be pleasant, though. He wished that this tangle didn’t exist and he was just here to be with her. At this point telling the truth would basically ensure that he never saw her again.

And that just wasn’t an acceptable option right now.

Her fingers were on him again, sending a curl of heat through his body. She’d said her fantasy was to drive him crazy. The whole reason she was here was to find out what making love was really like. He felt her draped against him and thought of driving himself deep into her softness, of having her hot and tight around him. If he told her the truth and left, that was what he’d be walking out on. If he stayed, that was where they were sure to go. After that, maybe he could do some fast talking, work out a way to see her again for real.

“You’re spending a lot of time thinking, Mr. Douglas,” Ryan purred. “Are we going to do this, or will I have to call the agency and ask for someone else?”

In a flash he rolled and had her beneath him. “Over my dead body.” His mouth was possessive on hers. Marking territory, Ryan thought through a haze of desire.

Cade rolled on his back and stretched one arm out lazily toward a bedpost. In the flickering candlelight his skin looked bronzed, as if from ancient Rome. “You want to tie me up, sugar, you go right ahead.”

5

RYAN PULLED THE LAST silk rope tight around Cade’s wrists and eased herself down to lie on the bed beside him. “What’s it like being tied up? I’ve never done this before. Is it sexy?”

Strange, Cade thought uneasily. Definitely strange, and not something he’d be doing again any time soon. “You seem to have done an efficient job,” he said, testing his bonds. “Were you a Girl Scout?”

“Yes.” She traced patterns over his chest, brushing lightly over his nipples, then leaned over to nibble. “Were you a Boy Scout?”

Cade’s body jolted at the contact. He nodded. “Resourcefulness is my middle name.”

“What was the Boy Scout list of virtues, again?” Ryan began kissing her way down his body, pausing now and again to sample the flavors of his skin. “Cleanliness? Politeness?”

“A Boy Scout is loyal, helpful…” he broke off as she licked him, then let her hair brush over his chest until every nerve ending shivered at attention.

“Go on,” she prompted, stroking her hands along his sides.

“Mmm, friendly…courteous…” She was driving him crazy, he thought, just as she’d wanted to. The soft, cool stroke of her hands, the warmth of her mouth, it was all pushing his control to the limit. “Kind…obedient…”

“Don’t stop,” she whispered, tracing his hip with the tip of her tongue.

“Cheerful…thrifty…” Cade took a shuddering breath as she drew closer to where the hard length of him trembled. “Uh, brave…clean…” he managed in a strangled voice as she put her mouth on him. “Reverent…trustworthy,” he groaned. He started to reach for her and found his hands stopped by the rope. Then the heat of her mouth went away.

“Trustworthy. Honest. Yeah, that’s the one I want.” Ryan rose up suddenly and stepped off the bed. “You didn’t learn that one so well, did you Mr. Douglas? Assuming that’s your real name, of course. I already know this isn’t your real career.”

Busted. It flashed through him. Reflexively he tried to sit up, and was faced with the inescapable fact that he was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. This was not good, he thought. Not good at all.

“I can explain.” God, what a lame response, he thought disgustedly.

“Oh, I certainly hope so.” Ryan pulled a chair up to the side of the bed. “I’m dying to hear this one. Wait,” she stopped him when he started to talk. “Let me get my wine.”

She took her time coming back to the chair. Cade knew it was to annoy him, and she succeeded. It infuriated him to be so helpless. It was even more irritating to know that he probably deserved whatever she could dish out to him. She draped herself over the chair, and it annoyed him even more that he still wanted her.

“You planned this, of course,” he said calmly. “I wondered why the sudden change in location. The Copley Hotel doesn’t have any four-posters. And you played the fantasy thing brilliantly. You tricked me and I walked right into it.”

“Well, you tricked me into bed,” she shot back at him. “I don’t see the difference.”

“You had a choice.”

“So did you.”

Cade shook his head. “I didn’t know what was going on at first. It isn’t every day that a gorgeous woman comes by to pick you up, even if it is an accident. It wasn’t until we got upstairs that I realized what was really going on.”

“You thought I was a pickup?” She’d thought she was angry before, but now she was livid.

“What did you expect? You walk up to me unexpectedly, you ask me upstairs. What am I supposed to think? You caught me in a mood to take a chance. I know it was stupid but I wanted to be with you.” He blew a breath out in frustration. “I tried to get out of it when I realized what was going on. You wouldn’t let me.”

“You didn’t try very hard.”

“I wanted you. Is that a crime?” His eyes blazed at her. “You were ready to happily jump into bed with a guy who sleeps with people for money, but you’re pissed off that I slept with you because I wanted you.”

“No, I’m pissed off because you lied to me.” She sprang up from the chair and paced across the carpet. “I liked you. I thought we clicked. It could have stayed that way if you’d been honest with me.”

Cade snorted. “If I’d been honest with you, you’d have said goodbye and gone looking for your hustler and we would never have said another word to each other.”

He was right, she thought. But he’d still been out of line. “It never occurred to you to try to set the record straight?”

“Of course it did,” he said impatiently, then closed his eyes and shook his head. “From the minute I figured out what was going on I was trying to find a way out that would let me set things straight and still keep this going.”

“‘This’ meaning the sex, of course,” she said frostily.

“This meaning being with you. And yes, the sex—it’s not like we’ve spent a lot of time talking politics or philosophy. But what we had together felt pretty damned good, and at the time I wanted it to keep going more than I wanted to come clean. I came over here tonight thinking I’d tell you everything. Until you answered the door looking like that.” He stopped for a moment. “I’m not proud of it, but there it is.”

She stared into his eyes, softening. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to be with him, to feel the way she had that morning. If only… Her breath huffed out in frustration. In all honesty she was as bad as he was, searching for a justification for keeping it going instead of recognizing it for what it was and letting it go.

Cade raised his head and looked at her. “You’ve obviously been planning this ever since you found out today. So what happens now? Please, fill me in. I’m all tied up in knots over it,” he finished sarcastically.

Ryan looked at him stretched out on the bed, his skin gleaming copper-colored in the candlelight. Heat flared in her blood, driven this time not by anger but by passion. “Well, it looks to me like I have you at my mercy.” She rose to lean over the bed and brush a palm over the smooth, hard lines of his belly. “Your punishment is that I get to amuse myself with your body until I’m ready to let you go.”

Standing, she shrugged out of her dressing gown, letting it slide down her arms to pool on the floor. Then she kicked off her shoes and sank down on the bed beside him. “You see, I’ve always been very curious about the male body. Outside of last night, I’ve never even seen a naked man up close before, at least not in the light. The only things I know are what I’ve read in Cosmo.” She gave him a serious stare. “I don’t know what parts are sensitive or what will make you moan, or even how the equipment works.” She kissed him hard, then drew back. “Tonight, I get to experiment.”

“You’re not seriously expecting me to cooperate with this, are you?” Irritation replaced the momentary empathy in his eyes. “I’m not some lab monkey.”

“No, indeed, Mr. Douglas. I’d say you’re all man.” She smiled wickedly. “And I hope you’ve been taking your vitamins. Tonight, you’re going to need them.”

Hell of a position to be in, Cade thought. On the other hand, he could think of worse punishments than having someone play with his body and looking for what pleased him most.

That didn’t mean he planned to enjoy this.

Ryan leaned over to the bedside table and came back with a feather. With excruciating slowness, she traced the soft tip over the lines of his face, stroking his brow and his cheeks, teasing his closed eyelids, tracing the line of his lips. Then she went lower, writing swirling patterns like cursive script over his arms, his palms, his chest. He stiffened as she dropped lower to trace over his torso, then his flat belly. He sucked in a breath as she drew down close to his hips, feeling the moist heat of her breath fanning over his skin as the feather tip trailed along. He steeled himself not to react as he felt her trace circles on the sensitive skin of his hips, but instead of going to the next obvious destination, she twirled it down over his legs and stroked the tender flesh of his instep in a surprisingly erotic caress.

He couldn’t stop it any longer and was starting to react when the tip of the feather suddenly traced the hardening tip of him. He caught his breath.

Ryan tossed the feather aside and rose onto her hands and knees. Dropping her head, she let her hair spill down onto his chest. Slowly she dragged it down his torso so that just the ends stroked over his chest, his hips, and beyond. Swaying, she ran it down his legs then back up again, across his arms and back down his chest.

The silky brush of her hair brought his skin to a state of exquisite sensitivity. The anticipation was as much a part of the experience as the touch. When the soft spill of hair stroked over his most tender parts, he bit back a groan. This was something new, and he liked it more than he wanted to. The teasing touch was lighter than hand or mouth, and more tantalizing than either.

Then he felt her lips against his neck, trailing down over his shoulder then over to linger over his nipples, kissing the newly sensitized skin. Her lips traveled lower and he felt himself stir in anticipation. Instead of touching him, though, she stopped and straightened up.

“You know, this merry widow feels very sexy but it’s starting to get hot.” She straddled him and reached down to begin unfastening the long chain of hooks that wound down the front of the garment. Her breasts spilled out first, then a growing triangle of white skin appeared. Hook by hook, the triangle widened, exposing rosy nipples, soft white breasts, and her flat, smooth stomach. Finally she finished and tossed it away, sitting astride him gloriously naked. How he wanted to fill his hands with her breasts, feel their weight and softness. Instead, he pulled his hands impotently at the ropes.

“Now, now, don’t get impatient,” she chided him. “Everything in good time.” She moved back down his body to stare at his hardening erection. There was no sense in pretending that he wasn’t aroused. In fact, he wanted to drag her close and stop the teasing, erase this maddening need that was overtaking him.

Ryan traced her tongue down the hard heat of him, feeling the incredibly arousing contrast of the slippery skin against her lips. She took her time, stopping to dwell whenever she heard his breath come fast or felt his hips twitch. Finally, she slid him into her mouth, ripping a groan from his throat.

Then she stopped and leaned over to pluck a condom from the bedside table. “Let’s just put one of these on you, shall we?” She unwrapped it and rolled it down the length of his shaft. “I thought the slippery kind sounded best.”

She straddled him again until she was poised just above where his pulsing erection lay flat against his belly. Holding her breath, she lowered herself until she was pressed against his hot flesh. Her innermost folds closed around him. Then she moved her hips so that she slid against him to feel him hard and hot against the slick swollen bud of her sex. She was ready. With each motion of her hips she rubbed herself against him, teasing them both with the slick, intimate caress of skin against skin. Swiveling her hips slowly, she stroked herself and him, inflaming their increasing arousal. She stared down into Cade’s face. His eyes were dark with desire, and she leaned in to take his mouth with hers.

He kissed her back hard, parting her lips, his tongue darting in to duel with hers before she pulled away. She knew the slow stroking of her softness against him was driving him mad. He pulled futilely against his bonds and ground his teeth.

Ryan felt her body start to shudder in climax as she swiveled her hips against Cade, then she was jolting and feeling the heat and glow surge through her. Before she was even done, she reached down and slid him swiftly into her. Their groans came in tandem as his heat speared deep inside.

It took her breath away. For a moment she was absolutely still, absorbing the feeling of having him fill her. It was excruciatingly exquisite, the hardness, the heat. Her one brief encounter had never felt like this, the slow, hot flow of arousal running through her body. Instead, she put her hands on his shoulders for balance and began to ride up and down on him. It was impossible to keep from moaning at the glorious friction as he slid in and out, as she felt him get harder and thicker with every stroke. Second by second, the intensity increased, her muscles tightened as she drove herself to a higher and higher pitch of arousal. This was what she’d been missing, this, this…this…

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