Quinn had her at his mercy…

The night Quinn had first met Dulcy, all he’d wanted was a quick roll in the hay. Then he’d discovered she was his best friend’s fiancée. Now…well, now he wanted to show her all the things Brad never could. Make her beg for him in a way that made her question her choice in men.

“I’ve always admired women who are comfortable in their own skin,” he murmured, stirring her hair with his breath. “Who feel as comfortable out of their clothes as in them.”

Her shudder seemed to ripple straight to the core of him.

“Tell me, Dulcy,” he whispered in her ear. “Would you like to be naked with me right now?”

She blinked at him, her eyes swimming with desire and confusion. Her lips parted, as if awaiting his kiss.

Quinn gave into the urge to groan. She hadn’t put her panties back on after their morning encounter in the ladies’ room. The thought of her walking around in public for the past three hours, naked under her skirt, air caressing her soft flesh, made him rock hard.

He didn’t know how he was going to pull it off, but he had to convince her that he really was the best man….

Dear Reader,

A few years ago, we had the opportunity to drive to California on the infamous Route 66. Haven’t you done it? You have to! And along the way, put aside some special time to explore New Mexico. By far, the state was the most magically romantic place we encountered along the way. Once you’re there, gaze out at the infinite rolling desert, broken only by breathtaking mesas at sunset, and tell us if you don’t see our characters, Dulcy Ferris and Quinn Landis embracing in the distance. (And be thankful you can’t see what else they’re doing….)

In A Stranger’s Touch, sexy litigation attorney Dulcy Ferris is one week away from entering a passionless marriage…until gorgeous Quinn Landis tempts her with everything she told herself she didn’t need but now urgently wants. One blazing night of passion leaves her questioning everything—including the mysterious disappearance of her fiancé, and the realization that her new lover is also the best man!

We hope you enjoy Quinn and Dulcy’s sizzling adventure. Let us know what you think. You can write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612, or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.com.

Happy (and hot) reading!

Lori & Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington

A Stranger’s Touch
Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s for the foreign publishers who make our books available to readers around the world, including, but not limited to, the warm and wonderful people at Mills & Boon and Harlequin Hellas. And for those same readers, who are more similar to us than different. You prove that romance knows no boundaries….

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

1

MAYBE THERE WAS SOMETHING to the saying that women reached their sexual peak in their thirties. Dulcy Ferris shakily tried to light a forbidden cigarette as she sat in the bathroom stall of Rage—the nightclub that was all the rage in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that her two best friends had brought her to. The lighter she’d had forever didn’t seem to want to produce a spark. Not that it mattered. Lately her body seemed to be sparking enough for a thousand lighters.

Finally a tiny flame. Dulcy pulled deeply on the cigarette, then sat back on the closed commode seat, resting her head against the cool ceramic tiles behind her. She’d be the first to admit that she didn’t buy into the whole biological clock scenario. That’s not why she was marrying Brad Wheeler in a week. It wasn’t the reason why at thirty she was marrying for the first time. But it did strike her as strange that lately her hormones seemed to be running on overdrive, filling her with all sorts of decadent urges she’d never even thought about before, much less entertained. Then there were all the…weird physical side effects. Her skin seemed to tingle constantly. Her nipples were eternally taut. Her inner thighs seemed to generate a heat all on their own. And the mere act of taking a shower made her eye the soap in a naughty way, igniting in her a desire to do all sorts of wicked things to her own body.

She glanced at the glowing end of the cigarette, her gaze languidly sliding over her fingers and arm. Even now a light sheen of sweat coated her skin, though the central air system of the hotel that housed the club was likely adjusted to handle the dance-generated heat. If she didn’t know better, she would think she was suffering from an early stage of menopause. But she remembered when her mother had gone through her hot flashes. No, she definitely was not experiencing that. Catherine Ferris had been a murder away from becoming a homicidal maniac during that rough two-year period and her activity level had seemed notched up to warp speed. Dulcy, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to drum up enough energy to open the jar of dill pickles that had sat unopened in her refrigerator for the past month, despite countless half-hearted attempts that left her staring at the contents as if they were some unattainable dream.

Okay, she absently admitted, so maybe her sexual relationship with Brad, or lack thereof, was partially to blame for her current condition. If only she knew what it was like—

The outer door swung inward, letting in a blast of music. Dulcy stood up and tossed the cigarette into the bowl, then waved the smoke away, hoping she didn’t set off an alarm somewhere. A quick rap vibrated the pink metal stall door. Normally she would have jumped out of her skin at such an intrusion, despite her suspicion of who it was. But now she could only sigh and open the door to stare at her friend Jena McCade.

“Can’t a girl go to the bathroom?” Dulcy asked.

“Are you smoking? You were smoking, weren’t you? My God, when did you pick up that nasty habit? People are quitting smoking now, not taking it up.” Jena wrinkled her nose, then reached into her purse.

Dulcy tried to avoid the spray of her perfume.

“Only you would steal into the john for a smoke when the place is crawling with grade A men,” Jena added.

Dulcy snapped straighter and tugged at the hem of her short black leather skirt, an impulse buy she hadn’t had the guts to wear until tonight. The fact that the place was crawling with grade A men was all the more reason for her to be in the john. The cigarette she’d bummed off the barmaid was just an excuse, the lighter in her purse an old one she’d picked up eons ago when she’d briefly dated a smoker.

The truth was that all the men in the other room only served to heighten her awareness of her heated condition. She stepped to the sink and splashed cold water over her face. Jena grimaced at her in the mirror.

“What?” Dulcy asked.

“You do know you just messed up your makeup.”

Dulcy scanned her features. So she had. So what? She couldn’t bring herself to care. She wasn’t here to entice any of the guys out there to go out with her. In one week she was officially off the market, married and settled. And it couldn’t come soon enough for her. Maybe it was the thought of her honeymoon that was getting her all hot and bothered.

“Here—” Jena rifled through her purse and came up with a compact. Her perfectly made-up face was puckered in disapproval as she dabbed at Dulcy’s cheeks and nose.

Dulcy batted her away. “I don’t want to look like I’m on the make.”

Jena’s devious violet eyes twinkled. “This is your bachelorette party, babe. That’s exactly how you want to look.”

Dulcy wiped off some of the rouge her friend had applied. No, she didn’t want to look like she was on the make. Simply because she was afraid that if a particularly good-looking guy did approach her, she’d be hard-pressed not to wrestle him to the ground and have at him. And then where would she be? Or, more accurately, who would she be? Certainly not the woman she’d spent the past thirty years looking at in the mirror.

Then again, she was already having trouble with her.

She slowly touched up her lipstick, finding the silky way it glided on almost unbearably sensual. She squeezed her eyes shut. Now this was going too far. When she started thinking of her own lipstick as sensual, she was in big trouble.

God, Brad would think she was the biggest hussy alive.

Brad…

“Are you ready?” Jena asked, crossing her arms under her breasts and tapping her foot.

Dulcy recapped her lipstick then tucked it into her purse. She supposed she’d stalled as long as she could. She had agreed to this night out with Jena and Marie. She’d just have to see it through. She glanced at her watch. She only wished it were later than nine o’clock.

“HERE’S TO HOCKEY PLAYERS!” Jena toasted an hour later, then lowered her voice to a bawdy whisper. “And their big…sticks.”

Dulcy blinked and tucked her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ear. Her head felt as if it were stuffed with wool, her limbs felt peculiarly languid, and if she wasn’t imagining things, her friend had just made a brazen reference to hockey players’…private equipment. Not that she was surprised. Jena somehow managed to squeeze the topic of sex into any conversation.

Dulcy mentally repeated the word. Sex. Sex, sex, sex. She grinned. The magic of the liquor seemed to have squelched her hormone-ridden body. Or, if she was lucky, the unfamiliar feelings had bit the dust altogether.

“Dulcy, you dropped the ball,” Jena accused.

Balls and hockey sticks? She scrunched up her face, opening her mouth to correct the mixed metaphor, but somehow the words never made it out. Instead, she shifted in the corner booth of the nightclub and raised her shot glass, the tequila inside splashing out and coating her fingers, as she waited for Jena and Marie to pick up their shots. “To hockey… Hey, wait a minute. Haven’t we toasted hockey players already?”

Jena nearly gave herself whiplash watching three hot guys walk by the table. Well, at least they were what Jena considered hot. Which sometimes seemed to include any male under the age of forty who could financially support himself. These three guys weren’t Dulcy’s type at all. They were too…muscular, too…alpha, too…smug. She preferred a bit more of a challenge—a man whose own personal criteria in the women he dated extended beyond “breathing.”

Jena rolled her eyes heavenward, then groaned in lust. “Yes, we have toasted hockey players already. Three times. First, for their smooth moves. Second, for their large sports cups. Third…for their big sticks. Living in New Mexico, where hockey players are a rarity, you can’t possibly be complaining, can you?”

Dulcy glanced around the club, which was conveniently located just off the lobby of one of Albuquerque’s better hotels. From the real leather, deep-burgundy colored booths and stools, to the brass fixtures and mid-level rock band playing in the far corner, the place was teeming with NHL pro hockey players from a visiting L.A. team, a result of a season kickoff exhibition game against New Mexico’s WPHL division team. The instant Jena had gotten wind of their whereabouts, the location of Dulcy’s bachelorette party was a done deal. There was nothing she or Marie could do to change Jena’s mind. So all of them had checked into three connecting rooms on the seventh floor of the hotel, and headed straight down to the club to “get their party on,” as Jena had put it.

“To hockey players, then.” Dulcy clinked her shot glass against her two friends’. Licking the salt off the back of her hand and downing the fiery amber liquid, she grabbed for one of the dwindling lemon wedges on a plate in the middle of the table.

Dulcy shuddered. She’d never been much of a drinker. A beer here, a glass of wine there. And her lips had certainly never before touched a shot glass, much less tequila. Well, unless the glass was wide-rimmed and the contents were called a margarita. But this was her last real night out with the girls as a single, professional female, and she had agreed to give in to Jena and Marie’s hearty demands that she do it right.

She only wished they had chosen a better-tasting liquor. “Who said this was supposed to get easier after the second shot?”

“I said it gets easier. I don’t know. Maybe it’s after the third shot. How many have we had? Has to be more than three… But it will get easier.” As the youngest and the third member of the circle, Marie Bertelli had a smile, they all agreed, that could stop Tom Cruise dead in his tracks. Well, all except for Marie, anyway, who thought her looks rated as paper-sack material.

Dulcy leaned against the younger woman’s arm, Marie’s red hair nearly putting out an eye. She batted the curly strands away. “And you’re a terrible liar. Maybe that’s the reason why you’re not married yet.”

Marie made a face that only made her look cuter, if that was possible. “Yes, well, you probably wouldn’t be getting married either if you were still living under your parents’ roof. How’s a girl to get any man to stick around in that environment?”

Dulcy conceded the point. Marie’s parents, along with her three impossible older brothers, were convinced that sex was strictly reserved for the married—at least, when it came to women. All three Bertelli brothers had always had very active sex lives, from what Dulcy could remember. As for Marie, she couldn’t even kiss a guy at the end of a date without the entire Bertelli family swooping down and grilling him about his income and investments and religious affiliation. In that order.

“Arranged marriage,” Jena said.

Dulcy and Marie stared at her.

“Oh. Sorry. Guess they already tried that route, didn’t they.”

Not only had Marie’s family tried that route, but they had failed, virtually chasing her from town, until Dulcy and Jena had tempted her back.

Marie grimaced. “Anyway, in reference to my inability to lie, I’ll have you know that I talked my way out of a traffic ticket this morning, thank you very much. I told the nice police officer that I was late for a court date, batted my eyes and, presto—” she snapped her fingers “—he tore up the ticket.”

Jena waved her away. “That’s because you’re so damn cute, especially when you lie.”

Marie looked for support from Dulcy. “Sorry. She’s right, kid. You couldn’t lie to save your life.”

Finally, Marie smiled. “I resemble that remark.” She fingered nearly every one of the corn chips in the bowl she’d dragged closer, then picked the smallest one, always counting calories. “When are you two going to stop calling me ‘kid,’ anyway?”

Dulcy grabbed the largest chip. “I don’t know. When you move out of your parents’ house, maybe?”

Jena lined up the three empty shot glasses in front of her and began filling them. “You’ll also have to make up for the four years you’re younger than us. Don’t forget that.”

“So, in a word, the answer is never.”

Her martyr’s sigh never failed to amuse Dulcy.

“Yes, well, I wouldn’t be under my parents’ roof if not for you two. If you hadn’t called me six months ago with that proposal to move back and go into practice with you two and the infamous Bartholomew Lomax, I’d still be in L.A. in my comfortable little apartment in Redondo Beach.” She wiped the salt from her hands. “Not everyone has the money you were born with, Dulcy. Or makes a killing setting serial killers free like you do, Jena. I’ve spent two years keeping L.A. streets safe for John Q. Public by working in the DA’s office.”

“And making nothing in the process,” Jena added, sliding one overflowing shot glass in front of Dulcy, another in front of Marie.

“Yeah. Which is precisely why I have to live with my parents until we start turning a good profit.” Marie lifted her glass. “To success.”

Jena lifted hers. “To hockey players…and their tight buns.”

Dulcy laughed and hoisted her glass. “To love.”

She and Marie went through the salt-licking, fire-downing, lemon-grabbing process, then stared at Jena where she sat with her glass in the air.

“What is it?” Dulcy asked.

Jena shook her head so that her sleek raven hair swayed, then fell disgustingly back into place. “You had to go and do it, didn’t you. Say the L word.” She sighed.

“What’s wrong with the L word?” Marie asked.

“Nothing,” Dulcy said.

Jena twisted her lips. “Well, seeing as this is your night, I’m going to refrain from arguing that point with you.” She raised her glass again. “To hockey players.”

“And their tight buns,” Marie finished.

Marie started giggling, then slapped her hand over her mouth, appalled, which sent Dulcy over the edge. Dropping her head into her hands, she laughed until the bar was blurry. But that could also be a result of the cigarette smoke in the air, and the liquor, too, so she didn’t pay much attention.

“God, you two are pathetic.” Jena’s smile softened her exotic features as she pushed her glass away. “Anyway, Dulc, you haven’t told us yet how it feels to be eight days away from becoming a married woman.”

“Probably great.” Marie turned toward her. “Brad’s an absolute top-of-the-line hottie.”

Dulcy and Jena stared at her.

“What? He is.” Conviction vanished from her face. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” Dulcy agreed, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth. She stared at it in horror. Had she actually just done that? God, her mother would die if she knew. She picked up a napkin, hoping she wouldn’t next be running the heel of her hand against her nose.

Then it dawned on her what Jena might be after. “Oh, no. You can just forget about it. I am not sharing any…intimate details about any part of Brad’s anatomy.”

Not that she could share details. At least, not specifically.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from blurting out what she had essentially kept from her friends for the past few months. Namely, that straight off the bat, at the end of their first date five months ago, Brad had suggested they not have sex. First he’d told her he didn’t want to move too fast, then after they became engaged two months ago, he’d said they might as well wait until their wedding night.

She’d thought it quaint—for a whole two minutes. Then her overactive imagination began wondering what he was hiding. Could the breathtakingly handsome playboy be a minute man? Done the instant he began? She shifted awkwardly. Then there was the size issue. Something she’d immediately set out to disprove by launching a surprise attack on him after dinner at his mother’s house one night. She smiled to herself. Oh, no. Size was definitely not a problem. But at the time, Brad’s scandalized reaction was.

So the guy was traditional when it came to the woman he wanted to marry. She told herself she should be flattered. Still, a little part of her thought the whole thing was a bit…weird. Not to mention immensely frustrating.

There. That was it. The reason why her hormones were running amok. It was only natural that she’d want to make love with her fiancé, the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with, right?

She swallowed. The only problem was that lately everything but Brad seemed to set her off. Her recent highly charged state had even made her consider acquainting herself with the gag gift Jena had given her for her last birthday. She probably would have if the damn vibrator wasn’t so large it took enough batteries to run a small car.

Jena rolled her eyes. “Good, because I, for one, am not interested in hearing about them…it.” She snickered. “Whatever. No, I want to know how it feels, generally speaking. You know, your being on the verge of becoming Mrs. Bradley Wheeler III.”

Dulcy straightened. “As a bride, in general, I feel pretty good.” Damn good, actually. At some point over the past year she’d stopped ignoring her mother’s incessant speeches about her needing to find a prosperous prospect before there were none left, and started listening to them. And rather than tossing the bridal magazines Catherine Ferris had subscribed to and had delivered to her condo, Dulcy had started absently leafing through them. Then she’d met Brad at a cocktail party and everything had fallen neatly into place. Too neatly, she sometimes found herself thinking.

She smiled at Jena’s frown and waved her finger. “But I know that’s not what you’re asking. As for that, all I have to say is that his being Bradley Wheeler III has absolutely nothing to do with my feeling good. I’d be just as happy if he were a…bartender.”

“That’s sweet,” Marie said.

“That’s dumb,” Jena disagreed. “Honey, bartenders don’t make Bachelor of the Year three years running.”

“Neither do hockey players,” she pointed out.

“Depends on which publications you’re reading.”

Dulcy laughed. “Sorry. My subscription to Jocks-R-Us must have run out.”

Jena playfully slapped her palm against the table. “Then, you must renew, pronto. These guys take home some whopping salaries.”

Dulcy tugged the bowl of chips closer to her. “I’ve already got a groom. Remember? And money has nothing to do with it. I’m marrying for love.”

She caught Jena’s cringe and silently chalked up another one.

“That’s nice,” Marie said, sighing.

Dulcy and Jena stared at her again.

Okay, so Marie got romantic when she drank. Jena grew even bawdier. And Dulcy was a sloppy drunk. Dulcy didn’t know how they’d gone so long without discovering this before, but she tucked the information into the back of her mind for future reference. Some night when they were vegging in front of the television with a stack of old videos, frapuccino and popcorn, she’d pull it out and they’d have a good laugh.

She propped her chin on her hand and gazed at her two friends. “Thanks, guys—you know, for doing this for me. I’m…I’m having a great time.”

“You’re drunk,” Jena said.

“That, too. But I meant what I said just the same.”

“But we’re just getting started, Dulcy Ferris.” Then Jena fixed the kind of determined gaze on her that made Dulcy and Marie say “uh, oh” whenever they saw it. That gaze was what made her such a great criminal defense attorney. It’s also what made her a downright nosey friend. “So tell me, Dulc. Since in eight days, when you go in front of that altar and profess your undying commitment for Brad Wheeler in front of God and everyone, you’ll forfeit all possibility of seeing it come true…tell us, what’s the sexual fantasy you’ll miss most?”

“Yes,” Marie chimed in, the dreamy expression vanishing and an almost voyeuristic interest taking its place.

“And if Brad satisfies all my sexual fantasies?” Dulcy asked. Oh, please let that be the case. Let them get married, hit the honeymoon suite and have Brad shed his conservative behavior and turn into a virtual Tarzan in bed. pImages** of hard abs, ropes and a leather loincloth leapt to mind, and she sighed.

“Ha ha,” Jena said. “I’m serious.”

Dulcy dropped her gaze and cleared her throat, then told a bald-faced lie. “What if I told you I don’t have one?”

Jena scoffed. “Everyone has a sexual fantasy, even Marie here. Don’t you, Marie?”

“Oh, yes. But we’re not talking about me. I still have plenty of time to fulfill mine. Dulcy’s the one getting married.”

Dulcy stared at them pointedly. She’d never been very comfortable discussing items of a personal nature. Being amused and sometimes appalled by Jena’s behavior was one thing. Telling her friends when she had her period or how frustrated she was that she and Brad hadn’t slept together yet…well, that was quite another. She knew her discomfort was due in large part to her upbringing. You could live in a conservative, emotionally repressed household for only so long before some of it rubbed off on you. In her case, it was talking about intimate matters.

She slumped back against the booth. “God. You’re not going to let me off the hook on this one, are you.”

“Uh-uh.”

“No.”

“Okay, then…” Resigning herself to the fact that putting them off would only make things worse, Dulcy searched her mind, trying to come up with something that would please them. “Okay. My secret sexual fantasy is a night of white-hot passion with an anonymous bad-boy.”

Jena grimaced. “Been there.”

“Done that,” Marie agreed.

Dulcy lifted her brows. “You have?”

Jena waved her away. “Never mind us. We’re talking about you. And certainly even you can do better than that. Half the female population has that fantasy.”

Okay, so she was a cliché. Wouldn’t be the first time. She twisted her lips and looked around the hockey-player-choked bar, then through the glass doors to the lobby of the hotel. The silhouette of a man seemed to appear out of nowhere. She swallowed hard. Boy, could her imagination work overtime with a little help from tequila. The silhouette moved closer to the club, then halted in the doorway, his face concealed, his body the stuff of which dreams were made. Tall. Broad shouldered. Long legged. Rock hard.

Every single last urge she had hoped she’d drowned with the liquor came rushing back tenfold. Especially when she realized the guy wasn’t an apparition at all, but a flesh-and-blood male who seemed to prowl rather than walk. His dusky skin hinted at a mixed heritage. The length of his longish black hair teased the back collar of his shirt.

All sorts of naughty thoughts popped to mind, suddenly making her task much easier. “Okay,” she said slowly, her throat mysteriously tight as she tugged her gaze away from the real thing and focused instead on imagination. “My secret fantasy is a night of white-hot passionate sex with an anonymous bad-boy…in an elevator.”

Jena’s gaze narrowed. Marie nodded encouragingly.

Dulcy’s pulse seemed to slow to a steady thrum as she worked her way through the vision. “I, um, would have on this short short skirt…and I wouldn’t be wearing any underwear. And he’d…um, he’d be wearing leather pants…black…” That was good. The guy who still stood at the door had on jeans. Close-fitting faded denim that hugged his crotch and thighs to perfection. “And he’d have leather straps in his pants pockets. Straps he’d use to tie my hands above my head….”

Dulcy couldn’t swallow, with the vivid pImages** in her head of open-mouthed kisses and soft moans; the glistening, silk-covered shaft of an erection pulsing in her hands; the scent of sex thick and musky, tanned skin pressing against her sensitive pale flesh.

Jena shifted, and Dulcy blinked her into view. It was the first time she’d seen her friend speechless. Afraid of how much she’d just revealed about herself, she curled her fingers into her palms and searched for a way out of the corner she’d painted herself into.

“Oh, and…there would be another hot guy standing in the corner of the elevator…watching.”

Judging by the way Jena’s brows shot up and the way Marie’s eyes bulged, she’d succeeded in her endeavor.

“You just made that up,” Jena accused.

Dulcy rubbed the side of her neck, glad she’d momentarily sidetracked her friends. The fact that the guy in her fantasies was real wasn’t improving her finely tuned condition any. “Okay, you’re right,” she lied. “But you have to admit, I had you two going.”

She’d also made herself more than a little hot and bothered. Not because she got into exhibitionism or S&M by any stretch. But the hot passion and the anonymous stranger part had long been a secret fantasy of hers. Ever since she’d graduated from ogling her high school P.E. teacher and had taken to privately rating men in public places on how she thought they might perform in bed. Like having coffee at the café around the corner from their office and summing up the young, athletic waiter in the tight black pants that left very little to the imagination. Or dining out at her favorite Mexican restaurant and watching the hot Latin dancer teach customers how to tango, making her wonder how he danced in bed. Or during lulls at work, eyeing the building’s new maintenance man, whose biceps practically split the seams of his shirt while he fixed the rash of broken light fixtures.

Dulcy twisted her lips. Curiously enough, all three examples were from the past week alone.

Her wedding—and wedding night—couldn’t come soon enough for her.

Jena folded her forearms on top of the table. “Okay, since you’re not interested in sharing your real fantasy with us…tell me, Dulcy, why did you say earlier that you have to lie to get married?”

Dulcy made a face. “I did not.”

“You most certainly did.”

Had she? She thought back and realized that, yes, she had, when she’d suggested that maybe Marie wasn’t married yet because of her inability to lie. “It was a joke,” she said.

“No, it wasn’t. You don’t make those kinds of jokes. Does it have something to do with Brad?”

“Jeez, Louise—Jena, give a girl a warning before you go back to something we talked about two days ago.” Had she really just said ‘Jeez, Louise’? Horrified, she realized she had.

“It was five minutes ago, not two days. And are you going to answer my question?”

Dulcy grimaced. “I plead the fifth.”

“It’s impossible to incriminate yourself with us, Dulc.”

When Dulcy merely smiled, Jena sat up. “Would you like me to rephrase the question in a simple yes-or-no format?”

Dulcy pursed her lips, then said, “Yes.”

“Okay. Did you lie to your groom, your husband-to-be, one certain Mr. Hottie,” she glanced at Marie, having used her name for Brad, “today?”

“Yes.”

“Did it have to do with sex?”

“No.”

Jena frowned. “Damn. Okay…did it have to do with your friends, one Ms. Jena McCade and Ms. Marie Bertelli?”

Dulcy went completely still, the question hitting a little too close to home. “Well…it’s more complicated than that—”

“A simple yes or no will do, Ms. Ferris.” Jena looked to Marie. “May I request Your Honor instruct the witness to respond in the manner requested and agreed upon?”

Dulcy looked to Marie, the session’s judge, hopefully.

“Answer the question, Ms. Ferris.”

Dulcy gaped at her. Marie never sided with Jena. “Okay, then…yes. Yes, the lie I told to Brad had to do with you two.”

She didn’t realize the weight of the question and corresponding answer until silence settled on the table. She blinked to stare at her empty shot glass, avoiding her friends’ curious looks.

Jena had warned her last month during a cocktail party at the Wheeler estate that Brad would try to break up their friendship after he placed the old rock and ring on her finger. Dulcy had laughed at her, thinking the prospect ridiculous…until Brad had asked her earlier today why only Jena and Marie were involved in her bachelorette party. And why his mother Beatrix—who looked remarkably like Betty White on steroids—wasn’t included, as she wanted to be. During the drive into town, she, herself, had begun to wonder whether or not Jena’s warning held any water. If Brad did disapprove of her friends now, what would happen after they were married? Would he begin by suggesting they leave one or the other of them off the list of dinner invites in deference to one of his friends or family members? Would he suggest they go to his family’s for the holidays, essentially banning her from spending time with Jena and Marie?

She’d snapped her mouth open to make it clear to Brad that her friendship with Jena and Marie wasn’t up for debate. But there weren’t enough words in existence to convey the special bond that had developed among the three of them when they were kids. A tragic incident with Jena’s parents had inspired in each of them an interest in law, and that interest had taken them through the bar exam and eventually to their recently formed law practice in partnership with Barry Lomax. Then she’d decided that she wasn’t going to be placed in the position of defending her friendship with Jena and Marie. It was a fact he’d just have to accept.

Concerning her mother-in-law to be, she’d told Brad that bachelorette parties were traditionally for the bride’s peers. Besides, Beatrix scared the living hell out of her.

As for the lie…she’d told Brad the three of them were going to dinner and a movie, then staying at Jena’s afterward.

“Let’s dance.”

Startled, Dulcy looked up to find Jena getting up from the booth. “What? Without—”

“Men? Absolutely.” Jena tugged on Marie’s hand; Marie in turn grabbed Dulcy’s.

Giving a protest yip, she found herself stumbling down the aisle toward the dance floor set up in front of the band. They were playing Seger’s “Old Time Rock ’n’ Roll” and the decibel level was ear splitting up this close.

Jena easily found her groove, shimmying and shaking in that spontaneous way Dulcy had always secretly admired. Marie began clapping her hands, not nearly as graceful and slightly out of step, but having a good time.

Dulcy shrugged. Why not? She could do this. After all, it was her last real night as a single woman. Surely even she deserved to cut loose and have a bit of fun with her best friends.

With that, she threw her hands up in the air and began shaking her hips in a way she hoped wasn’t too ludicrous.

GREAT. HIS FIRST NIGHT OUT in three months and he had to pick a gay bar.

Quinn Landis leaned against the highly polished bar and eyed three men standing nearby. They looked like models from a Gap commercial—as did every other male in the place—and they didn’t seem to mind that there was nary a female in sight. He frowned, then asked the bartender for a beer. When he was handed an ice-cold bottle, he leaned across the bar. “What’s going on tonight?”

“Sir?”

Quinn gestured with the neck of his bottle toward the guys.

The tender grinned. “Hockey team staying in the hotel.”

“Oh.” He paid the man, including a generous tip. “Thanks.”

Gripping his beer, Quinn made his way toward the only empty table in the place, a small one near the dance floor. He hooked his foot around a chair leg, pulled it out and sat. Okay, so the joint wasn’t a gay bar. But considering the low percentage of female clientele, he might soon wish he were anywhere but here. His odds of snagging a prime, long-legged woman interested in spending an hour between the sheets with him were looking slim, with all these jocks roaming the place. He glanced to where a waitress was taking a swat to the bottom from the guys at the neighboring table. Her grimace made him grin. Then again, maybe his chances weren’t that bad, after all.

Good. After three months on the range, with nothing but fellow weathered ranch hands as company, he needed to get laid. As soon as humanly possible. Tonight. It was the reason he’d stopped at the hotel for the night rather than heading straight for his best friend Brad Wheeler’s family estate. He needed the release before he could even think of facing his friend and hearing all the details about his upcoming nuptials. Besides, merely thinking of Brad’s mother Beatrix Wheeler made him roll his eyes. Would the self-proclaimed Queen of Albuquerque appreciate his having trimmed his hair for the occasion, rather than relying on a simple leather cord to hold it back? He doubted it. To her, he’d always been that offensive boy Brad had dragged home when they were kids, no matter the style of his hair.

Married.

Quinn settled back more comfortably into the chair. He couldn’t believe Brad was getting married. Of the two of them, he’d figured he’d be the one to settle down long before his restless friend. Well, he supposed he had settled before Brad, at least in an important way. Only, his lifestyle didn’t include a woman. Not many females were interested in life on an isolated ranch where you had to drive over an hour just to go to the market. He’d thought he’d roped one, once. He wasn’t about to make that mistake again. But Brad…

He shook his head and took a hefty swallow of beer. Since he was a kid, Brad’s mother had tried to force him into a mold that spoke of wealth, power and kowtowing…mostly to her. But while Brad could wear a tuxedo like he was born in one, he’d also thought nothing of hanging out with wrong-side-of-the-tracks Quinn. And while Brad had the latest model Jaguar, the fifth one he’d gone through since coming of age, Quinn still had the old Chevy in need of some TLC that he’d bought when he was sixteen with money he’d made breaking his back on his uncle’s ranch.

And while Brad had embraced the idea of running his family business, Wheeler Industries, Quinn was satisfied with the spread he’d bought from his uncle three years ago. He enjoyed getting his hands dirty—literally—and working a muscle other than his brain.

He peered through the scant couples on the dance floor toward the band. The sax player wasn’t bad. Hmm…neither was the female backup singer. He had just shifted to get a better look, when three women passed in front of him, blocking his view—correction—improving the view. Taking a long, slow pull from his beer bottle, Quinn considered the threesome, who were obviously minus three guys.

The black-haired one definitely had possibilities. She moved that slender body of hers in a way that virtually guaranteed she’d be killer in bed. His gaze slid to the redhead. She wasn’t bad. Obviously shy but with the pink tinge to her cheeks and a fire in her eyes that revealed she could be coaxed to take risks.

He put his bottle down on the table and sat up, trying to see around to the blonde’s face. She put her hands up in the air, attempting to emulate the brunette’s steps…then fell smack-dab in the middle of his lap.

He grinned.

Bingo.

2

ONE MINUTE Dulcy was dancing—at least she preferred to call it dancing while Jena called it clucking—and the next minute she was sprawled across the very warm, very hard lap of a guy sitting next to the dance floor.

Okay, no more tequila for her.

She laughed at her silent quip, then tried to gain a foothold. “I’m sorry. I…must have tripped.”

She twisted to get up, her bottom rubbing against the man’s…strategic area.

His groan caught her off guard and she blinked up into his face. Then blinked again. Not because she was having difficulty seeing. But because if she wasn’t mistaken, she had just landed on top of the star of her most recent fantasy—the guy from the door. And, oh boy, he was even better this close up. Not since she was a teen and had plastered pictures of Sting all over her room—posters her mother had immediately taken down—had she reacted so strongly to the mere sight of someone.

Either that, or she was completely smashed.

“No hurry,” her fantasy lover said in a deep baritone, drawing the words out, sounding better than even her imagination could have supplied.

A delicious shiver ran the length of Dulcy’s spine, then inched back up again, leaving her stomach quivery and her breasts achy. She brazenly allowed her gaze to flick over the guy’s features. Over his broad forehead and thick shoulder-length jet-black hair, the type of hair a girl could lose her hands in. She took in his strong, tanned silk-covered jawline and criminally generous mouth, the kind a woman might be tempted to run the tip of her tongue along the rim of. Then she skimmed her gaze up along the length of his nose to lash-rimmed eyes the color of the amber tequila she had just gulped down with her friends, the sort of eyes that should bear a warning Dangerous Waters Ahead.

She blinked, just then realizing he was returning her gaze with equal intensity, his strangely penetrating, predatory…hungry.

But it was his grin that made her stomach yo-yo to the floor right next to her high-heeled shoes, then bounce back up again.

He cleared his throat, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple mesmerizing. “I was just sitting here, trying to come up with a good come-on line to use on you and, bam, you fall straight into my lap.” He straightened her when she would have slid to the floor. “If that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.”

Dulcy clutched his shoulder to straighten herself, intrigued by the rock-hard muscles she felt bunched beneath the soft, beige chambray of his shirt. Brad wasn’t exactly soft, but he wasn’t this hard, either.

She noticed she had a good portion of the shirt clutched in her fist. She set about smoothing out the wrinkles, her huge diamond engagement ring flashing in the lights from the dance floor.

She snatched her hand back as if scorched. “I’ll say it’s a sign. It’s a sign that me and tequila don’t mix.”

She finally struggled to a standing position, finding the strange thunk-thunk of her heart disconcerting, and the burning in her lower abdomen completely foreign and as intoxicating as the tequila. She felt as if she’d barely escaped being hit by a charging horse.

“You can dress her up…” Jena’s voice edged its way through the silken cobweb crowding Dulcy’s mind. “Well, since you’ve already been personal with the man, don’t you think you should properly introduce yourself?”

Introduce herself? What was Jena talking about?

The man stood. And it seemed her gaze had to travel up and up, and up again before she could see his grin.

“I’m Quinn.”

Dulcy made a face. “Quinn? That’s the name of my—” She yelped when Jena elbowed her strongly in the ribs, the words “groom’s best friend” effectively lost.

Not that it mattered. Even though she’d yet to meet Brad’s mysterious friend, no exclusive, blue-blooded Wheeler associate, much less Brad himself, would ever be caught dead in a meat market like Rage. And the connecting hotel didn’t have nearly enough marble to be considered fashionable, which was one of the reasons why Dulcy had given in so easily to Jena’s demand that they come here. For one last night, she wanted to be in a place where no one gave a hoot who the Wheelers were. And the man in front of her, with his longish wild hair, his brawny body and decadently suggestive grin, would not only not care who the Wheelers were, but also effortlessly make her forget about them.

“I’m Jena,” her friend said, shaking the man’s very tanned, very large, very fascinating hand, and shaking Dulcy out of her reverie.

“Hi. I’m Marie.”

Dulcy watched dumbly as Marie followed suit, then stood back expectantly. Another nudge. She glared at Jena, then smiled at the stranger. What had he said his name was? Oh, yeah. Quinn. “I’m sorry to have—” she looked around, but saw that the other chair at the table was empty “—to have interrupted your evening, Quinn.”

“No name?”

“Oh. I’m—”

“Dee,” Jena said quickly. “Her name is Dee.”

Dulcy made a face at her. Why would Jena give him a name that she and Marie had used when they were kids? God, Dulcy couldn’t remember the last time either of them had called her that. Of course, she’d been the one to insist on the nickname when she was a teenager, hating that her given name was so different from everyone else’s. Jena was a derivative of Jenny or Jennifer, Marie…well, it went without saying that her name, as well, was common. Only Dulcy had been stuck with a peculiar name solely because it had belonged to some dead ancestor and her mother had liked it.

The man’s large, rough-skinned hand completely dwarfed hers as he took it, knocking her train of thought completely off track. Dulcy felt a strange vibration move up through her fingers, swirl around her arm, then travel the entire length of her body. Good God.

“It’s nice to meet you, Dee.”

“Me, too. I mean, it’s nice to meet you, too…Quinn.” The song “The Mighty Quinn” popped into her mind. Oh, yeah…the Quinn standing in front of her would, indeed, be mighty in all the ways a woman needed. She started at the thought, then grimaced. “Um, if you’ll excuse me…I think I’m going to be sick.”

WELL, AS FAR AS COMEBACKS WENT, Quinn had to say that Dee’s ranked right up there with some of the most memorable. While he wasn’t arrogant enough to think himself capable of charming any woman, he could safely say he’d never made one feel sick before.

Still, he couldn’t help grinning, as Dee teetered back on her heels. He hoped she didn’t plan to be sick that moment. On him.

Only she didn’t look sick to him. She looked…well, damn good. Rather than being bereft of color, her cheeks were flushed, and while her eyes were bright, he suspected it was more a result of their very close encounter just now than from whatever she’d had to drink.

“Okay, I think I’m going to be all right now,” she said, obviously relieved as she pushed her blond hair back from her face. “Yes. I’m fine. I just got…a little dizzy, that’s all.”

Dizzy was good, Quinn thought. Dizzy was real good.

The redhead stepped up and wrapped her fingers around Dee’s arms as if to steady her. “Are you sure? Would you like some water? Maybe you should sit down.”

Quinn deftly pushed the chair opposite him out. “Be my guest.”

The blonde looked from the small table to the empty chair to his face again. “I couldn’t,” she said, trying to back away.

“You can,” Jena said and steered her toward the table.

Quinn noted the interesting behavior. The brunette pushed and the blonde skidded a couple of inches, then stopped again. “I can’t,” she said, staring at her friend.

The other woman rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling and sighed gustily. “Talk about wet blankets.”

Oh yeah. Sheets…silk ones…black, to contrast with the paleness of the blonde’s skin. Quinn waved a hand toward the empty chair. “Please. At least until you get your feet back under you.”

The brunette grinned, the blonde grimaced and the other one… Quinn looked to see her pirating a glass of water from a waitress’s tray. With a tad too much enthusiasm, she plopped it down on the table next to his beer.

Interesting…the two women appeared to be trying to hook their friend up with him. Which should have pleased him, if solely because it would make his job that much easier. But somehow the obvious attempt left him feeling a little ill at ease. He squinted and looked at them more closely. What were they up to? The one named Jena gave him a catty smile, Marie immediately avoided his gaze and the blonde…

Jena grasped Dee’s shoulder and firmly pushed her into the empty chair. Dee appeared as mystified by her friends’ behavior as he was. Quinn slowly sat back down in his own chair.

“We’ll be right over there,” Jena said and smiled. “You two have a good time…getting acquainted.”

The blonde made a grab at her friend’s arm, but the brunette seemed to anticipate the move and maneuvered around it. The redhead followed quickly behind her.

Quinn shook his head, then glanced at the woman across from him. “I think we’ve just been hooked up.”

She stared at him as if now remembering he was still there. She nearly knocked the chair over in an attempt to get up. Quinn quickly grasped the back of it. “Whoa, there. I don’t bite.” The soft silk of her blouse was warm to the touch as he steadied her back into the chair. “Although I have been known to nibble a little. Upon a lady’s invitation, that is.”

Her cheeks burned bright, heightening the hazel of her eyes. She looked caught between wanting to bolt…and longing to stay.

Quinn looked at her more closely. Oh, it had been a long time since he’d been with a bad-girl playing good. And this one was definitely a bad-girl. It was evident in the delicious curve of her neck when she turned her head just so. In the enticing jut of her erect nipples against her blouse. In the way her decadent tongue dipped out to touch the corner of her mouth as if eyeing a treat she really wanted but didn’t dare take.

The heat that had accumulated in his groin when she had dropped into his lap ignited into something hotter, and difficult to ignore.

“Oh God,” she murmured, trying to get up again and this time succeeding. “Nothing personal, but…this just isn’t something I should be doing.”

Quinn allowed his gaze to travel over her from forehead to ankle, liking every incredible inch of her but knowing the chances of his getting to sample any of her wares had just dwindled to zero. “Are you sure?” he asked.

She nodded so emphatically she nearly fell back into her chair. “Oh, I’m very sure.” She bit her plump bottom lip, then glanced in the direction her friends had gone. “Absolutely…positively…” Her gaze settled on him. “Um, sure.”

Quinn grasped his beer bottle, trying to cool himself with the condensation running down the green glass. “Well, it was nice meeting you, then.”

She gave him a fleeting smile that made him want to groan, then left him staring after her, even more in need of a woman than he’d been a half hour ago.

“ARE YOU INSANE?” Dulcy repeatedly splashed water over her face and stared in the rest room mirror at Jena, who was skillfully freshening her lipstick. She felt…anxious, shaken, and one-hundred-percent sober.

Jena pursed her lips and tried to hand Dulcy her lipstick. “Actually, I was just asking myself the same question. Of you.”

Dulcy violently yanked paper towels from the holder one after another. “For God’s sake, Jena, you can’t possibly be implying what I think you are.” She realized she’d accumulated a small pile and forced herself to stop, blotting her skin with a handful.

“What? That you spend your last night as a single woman in the arms of a complete stranger?” Her smile was decidedly wicked. “Absolutely.”

The flushing of a toilet sounded, then one of the stall doors opened and Marie’s curly red hair sprung into view. She claimed the sink on the other side of Dulcy. “In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good idea,” said Marie.

Dulcy slumped against the sink in relief. “Thank you. At least someone sounds reasonably sane.”

Marie smiled at her in the mirror. “But you have to admit, the guy was downright…tempting.”

“Native American.”

Dulcy stared at Jena.

“What? Didn’t he look Native American?”

Marie nodded.

“Not full-blooded, mind you. But he definitely has some of that hot Native American heritage in his background.”

Dulcy really didn’t want to discuss this. She wadded up the towels and rounded Marie to stuff them into the wastebasket.

“That’s exactly what I thought,” Marie said, washing her hands and drying them. “All that wonderful brown skin. Those chiseled features. That…that mouth.”

“He’s not,” Dulcy said, closing her eyes against the seductive image that her friend’s words conjured. “Just because a guy has long dark hair and a great tan doesn’t mean he’s Native American.”

Jena’s gaze homed in on her in the mirror. “So you did notice what a wowie he was.”

Dulcy raised her chin. “I’m engaged, not blind, Jena.”

“Yes, but you’re not married yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m even discussing this with you.” She held up her hand. “No, let me rephrase that. I am through discussing this with you. I am not going to do anything with any strange man just because I’m getting married in a week. Get it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

Marie smiled and linked her arm with hers, then Jena hesitantly did the same on the other side of her. “Now that that’s out of the way…let’s go have some fun.”

FUN. THREE HOURS LATER Dulcy supposed that someone might have found the molten temptation flowing through her veins fun, but she found it downright alarming. A woman in love with the man she was about to marry wouldn’t salivate over another man, would she? She’d always thought love made one blind to all others, no matter how tantalizing…or how much one had had to drink.

In hindsight, she should have insisted she, Jena and Marie go up to their rooms and settle in with every last item on the room service menu and a pay-per-view movie immediately after the “anonymous male” incident. But she hadn’t. No. Instead, she’d downed more tequila—in moderation—scarfed down more corn chips and a large number of the nachos they’d ordered, and danced until she was sure her feet would fall off.

And during every single move she was heatedly aware of the stranger watching her from across the room. That is, when she didn’t catch her own gaze plastered to him and his strikingly manly physique.

Did he have a Native American background? She admitted that with his dark hair and eyes and skin, all made darker still by the intimate lighting in the club, he very well could have. And the contrast between his provocative dark looks and Brad’s handsomely waspish features couldn’t have been more profound.

Dulcy absently fingered the sexy silk negligée in a box at her elbow, a gift from Marie, and watched a woman approach the man she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from. He’d talked to no fewer than four other women during the course of the night, and danced with two others, but she couldn’t deny her relief when none of them joined him at his table. As if sensing her attention on him, he slid a dark, suggestive glance in her direction, and then led the woman onto the dance floor. She felt as if she were about to swallow her tongue whole when he skimmed his hands down the woman’s back as he pulled her close, even as his gaze was fused with Dulcy’s. Good God…

“Don’t be such a prude, Marie,” Jena was saying across the table. “Of course it’s all right to bring sex toys into the marriage bed.”

Dulcy forced herself to pay more attention to her friends, and less to the man who was touching another woman but seemed to be suggesting he’d rather be touching her.

Marie was twirling a spiked dog collar around her finger. “But there are sex toys…and then there are implements of torture.”

Jena smiled. “You mean there’s a difference?”

Dulcy caught herself rubbing her index finger and thumb against the decadent material of the nightgown and forced herself to place the lid back on the box. “I hope you got a receipt for this stuff, Jena,” she said softly, indicating the array of materials that seemed cruel even for a pet.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not you plan on returning the items yourself.”

Dulcy made a face and peered into the bag in which she’d instantly stuffed the highly wicked items that served as Jena’s gift. “Tell me you got them on the Internet?”

“Nope. There’s this great little shop downtown I know you’re going to love.”

Dulcy groaned and snatched the collar from Marie. “I don’t think so.”

“What’s this one for?” Marie asked, poking at a miniature version of the dog collar about two inches in diameter.

“Never mind.” Dulcy took that one, too, then put it in the bag with the other items that gave a whole new meaning to the word unmentionables.

She was aware of the slow song ending, which probably meant another fast song would soon start up. And Jena would undoubtedly pull them up for another fifteen-minute set. Dulcy didn’t think her feet could stand it. She found herself glancing toward the dance floor, only realizing why she’d done so when she spotted the man named Quinn being led off by the woman he’d just danced with. But rather than heading back toward his table, she was navigating a path toward the door and the lobby beyond. Dulcy quickly averted her gaze. She didn’t have to guess where they were heading. She looked down to find her hands clutching the bag, and released her grip. No doubt that couple could find something interesting to do with these items.

As expected, the band launched into another dance number and Jena virtually popped up from her seat. “Come on.”

Marie groaned but slid from the booth, while Dulcy shook her head. “I’m just going to go run these things up to my room before someone sees them and gets the wrong idea about me.”

What she really wanted to do was go strip out of her clothes and her heels, brush her teeth, pull the sheet up to her chin and veg with a really good movie…and think about what she could have been doing tonight had she had enough guts.

Jena leaned over the table toward her. “You’d better be back in fifteen or else I’m coming up after you.”

Dulcy smiled, knowing that despite her friend’s threat, she’d be more likely to curl up on the bed with her and steal whatever she was eating, along with the remote. “Deal.”

She gathered her gifts together and slid from the opposite side of the booth, giving Marie a sympathetic wave as Jena led her toward the dance floor. Well, she did have to give Jena some credit. The place was teeming with men who were exactly her type, but she hadn’t once wavered in her promise to make this Dulcy’s night. There had been one moment when Dulcy was afraid they were about to lose her—when a fresh-faced hockey player with a lopsided grin, a chin dimple and devilish eyes had stolen her for two whole dances—but Jena had finally peeled herself away from him and rejoined the party. Dulcy had decided to let slide the bit of paper, no doubt holding the player’s phone number, that Jena had slipped into her pocket.

The difference between the smoke-choked atmosphere of the club and the brightly lit, sparsely populated lobby was like night and day. And Dulcy felt immediately better. More like herself, more in control. She took a deep breath of the hotel air and blinked, slowing her step as the pulse of the music drifted farther and farther away. It had been so long since she’d actually been to a club, she had forgotten what it was like. The intimate lighting. The heat of too many young, single, needy bodies filling the room. The rhythm of the drum that seemed to vibrate across the floor and grip her heart. She and Jena had gone a few times when they were in undergrad school together. And again when Marie had come of age. But it had never really been her thing. Going to the theatre or out to a nice dinner, visiting with her friends—those had always been her preferred styles of entertainment.

And now she knew why. There was something about the wild environment…about merely being in a club that seemed to emphasize wantonness and willingness for experiences she only allowed herself to fantasize about, and never indulged in. What others, like Jena, saw as challenges, she saw as strictly dangerous.

She started to walk by the concierge’s desk, then backtracked, clutching her packages tightly to her side. “Excuse me, when does room service close for the night?”

The young, attractive man behind the desk openly eyed her and grinned. “Never, miss. They’re open twenty-four hours. With a limited menu after midnight.”

She found herself smiling back at him. “Good. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She turned back toward the far hall and the elevators there, her heels clicking against the marble tiled floor. See, the concierge’s overt reaction to her, probably after having seen her come from the club, was proof positive of her verdict on clubs and clubbing. She thought the appropriate word nowadays was player but she couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, she certainly wasn’t one, and never would be.

She punched the elevator button, then stood back to wait. No. In eight days she was going to be Mrs. Brad Wheeler III. She grimaced. Why had she thought of it that way? She shook her head and dug through her purse for her room card key. But even she had to admit that while Brad’s financial status hadn’t influenced her decision to marry him one iota, it would certainly impact her life from here on out. She’d just gotten used to balancing her own checkbook, yet now she’d have an accountant and house manager to look after all that for her. It had been a challenge to remember when she’d last had the oil checked in her car, yet now she would have use of Brad’s in-house mechanic, who looked after his half dozen or so cars on a daily basis.

She pulled out her card key. Oh, yeah. Her life from here on out was definitely going to change. For the better, she firmly told herself. Who cared if personal privacy would be virtually nil? Her mother would have the money she’d had to do without for too long. And Dulcy would have Brad. That’s all she needed.

The elevator dinged open, and she stepped inside and pressed the button for the seventh floor. The mirrored doors began sliding closed and she leaned against the back of the elevator and sighed. An inch before the doors would have closed altogether, a hand snaked through the opening. The doors bounced, then jerked back open.

Dulcy stared, suddenly dry mouthed, at the new arrival—all dark skinned, big grinned and looking so good she could eat him with a spoon.

Oh, yeah? If Brad was all she needed, why was she looking at the guy from the bar as if she wanted to order him up from room service?

3

TWO TIMES LUCKY, Quinn made a mental note to himself, because something like this didn’t happen to him every day. First this girl who could have come from one of those 1-900-babe hotline commercials literally drops into his lap…now he runs into her, alone, in the elevator.

He held the doors open with one hand and watched Dee scramble from where she was leaning against the wall. Her relaxed position had caused her skirt to inch farther up her long, long legs. The design of her white blouse was far too conservative to be called sexy, but the leather skirt hugged the body it was wrapped around to delectable perfection. No matter how hard she tried, he’d bet, she was never quite successful in covering up the sensuality that emanated from her like a seductive scent. A mystifying, evocative sexuality had ensnared him so completely in the scant few minutes they had spoken that he hadn’t been able to drum up enthusiasm for anyone else. He’d thought he might have something with the last girl he danced with. But when she propositioned him, he turned her down. So then she’d asked him to do her the favor of walking out of the bar with her because one of the hockey players was coming on a little too strong for her liking. He had, and after stopping off at the hotel gift shop to pick up a fresh razor, he’d decided to go upstairs…alone.

At least, that had been his intention. But now that he stood staring at the fantasy-in-heels staring back at him like she wanted to eat him whole…well, maybe the night wasn’t yet over.

“Hi, again,” she said, her voice soft and hesitant.

He noticed she was nearly bending in half the box she held, and his grin widened.

“Where’s…um, your friend?” she asked.

He cocked a brow and stepped into the elevator, allowing the doors to close behind him. The simple move caused her to step back farther.

“Friend?”

She nodded and tucked her hair behind her ear, looking everywhere but at him. Correction. Looking everywhere on his body except his face.

“Oh. You’re talking about the girl I left the bar with.” He shrugged. “I don’t know where she is. I guess she went to her room. Alone.”

Something he’d been facing himself until ten seconds ago.

He glanced at the control panel, then pressed the button for the sixth floor. “Your birthday?” he asked.

“Huh?”

He pointed to the boxes she held.

“Um, no, but…something similar.”

He turned so that he was facing the doors alongside her. The scent of something fruity, something fresh, reached his nose and he breathed it in. While city girl was stamped all over her, she smelled amazingly like the outdoors. And infinitely edible.

Quinn had never noticed how quiet elevators were before. Or how small. He swore he could hear the sound of his blood rushing full speed to his groin. Feel the heat of his body increase the temperature of the enclosure. Sense Dee’s growing tension as she swallowed.

How did one close a deal of this nature in the negligible amount of time it took for the elevator to climb to the sixth floor? He’d already guessed that one-night stands and becoming intimate with strangers went against Dee’s principles, although he suspected that if she listened to her heart, she’d probably follow it. But her running away from him in the bar proved she wasn’t anywhere near ready to do that.

But he also knew that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. Had watched her watching him all night. Had stared at her as she licked salt from her hand with that naughty pink tongue of hers, her gaze steadfastly on him, then downed tequila along with her friends.

The elevator bell dinged. The doors slid open.

Damn.

The way he saw it, he had two options. Push the emergency button and thrust her against the wall and have his way with her. Or leave.

He began to exit. He heard her intake of breath, as if she was about to say something, and hesitated on the threshold, another option emerging.

He turned, butting his shoulder against the open door. He gazed at where she still stood rigidly straight, clutching her packages as if they’d somehow protect her against him. Protect her against her attraction for him. An attraction that widened her pupils until her hazel eyes nearly shone black, and left her moistened lips parted.

Quinn cleared his throat, then smiled. “You, um, wouldn’t happen to want…”

He purposely let his words trail off, allowing her to define the parameters, if she chose any.

She quickly shook her head. “No. Sorry. I can’t.”

He glanced at his boots. “My loss, then, huh?”

The elevator door bounced against his shoulder. He started to straighten. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman throw the packages she held to the floor. And suddenly she was up close and real personal.

Quinn wasn’t all that clear on the details of what brought her from the far end of the elevator to flush up against him, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Almost instantaneously, her fingers were in his hair, tugging the strands from the leather strap. Her mouth rested awkwardly against his, the stiff peaks of her breasts jutting through the chambray of his shirt. Acting on pure instinct, he groaned and pulled her closer, slanting his mouth more comfortably against hers. With the tip of his tongue, he traced the seam of her lips, coaxing them open. And just like that, they were.

God, she tasted like pure temptation, just the way he knew she would. Mischievous, sweet, and hot as hell. He slid his tongue along the length of hers, reveling in the texture of it, the taste. He’d all but given up hope of kissing her like this. Now that he was…well, it was even better than he had imagined. In an instant he was rock hard and wanted her in a way that made him forget where they were—a condition that intensified when she wriggled and shimmied hungrily against him.

Quinn slowly slid his hands to her hips, holding her still as he pressed his erection into her soft flesh, leaving little doubt about how he was feeling and what he had in mind. When she not only didn’t object but shivered in response, his body temperature leapt another few degrees. He skimmed his hands from her hips, up along her slender midriff, then created a wall on either side of her full breasts with his palms. At her gasp, he stepped up the force of his kiss, then drew his hands all the way over her breasts, squeezing the straining tips between his thumbs and palms.

Take it easy, buddy. You don’t want to scare her off.

And he was all too aware of the risk of scaring her off. Of moving too quickly and having her balk. She had run from simple conversation in the bar. Pushing her too far too fast here, alone in the elevator, might ruin his chances altogether. But he simply couldn’t help himself. The instant he’d been given a taste of what he’d been longing for all night, he was filled with the need to take it all the way. For the past two hours he’d mentally envisioned every last thing he’d like to do to the woman now in his arms. And, by God, he couldn’t stop himself from making those plans a reality.

A slight pulling of fabric and her blouse opened. A dip of his hand and the material bowed, revealing a snow-white lace bra. He briefly broke off the kiss to gaze at the small mounds of flesh accented to perfection by the half-cups of fabric. Her nipples poked against the material, begging to be set free. And he found more than anything that he wanted to grant them that freedom. Dipping his index finger inside the cup and under the stiff peak, he lifted. The rosy tip popped up. He wasted no time fastening his mouth around it, licking and tugging and pulling until Dee’s breathing was so erratic that it nearly tore the succulent bit of flesh from his mouth. He blindly found and liberated her other nipple, groaning at the decadent way she held her shoulders back, straining for his attention. He caught the stiff peak between his thumb and forefinger and pinched, reveling in her sharp intake of breath.

Quinn closed his eyes. God, but her responsiveness was killing him.

Stroking her right breast, he dropped his other hand lower, skimming the backs of his fingers down her hip, then lower still, until they rested against the skin of her leg. The bare skin of her leg. The fact that she wore no nylons surprised and excited him. Maybe this bad-girl in good-girl clothing had a naughty streak she didn’t even know the breadth of. He drank in her moan. Oh, he was going to enjoy not only introducing her to that naughty side, but making her love it. He edged his fingers upward, slowly lifting her skirt until he was mere millimeters away from her sex. He paused, measuring the hunger in her kiss, the rapidness of her breathing, then he brushed the backs of his fingers against the crotch of her panties, finding her hot and wet and ready.

She shuddered so violently that for a moment Quinn thought she might have climaxed. But rather than collapse against him for support, she grasped his shoulders and pressed her hips more solidly against his, cradling his pulsing erection between her thighs. Quinn stretched his neck and groaned. Sweet Jesus, but she was going to end him right here and now.

WILD…hard…wet. Dulcy had never felt so out of control in her life. Yet so completely in control. Of herself. Of Quinn. Of the powerful emotions surging through her body, bringing to life a hunger, a need, she hadn’t known existed. The instant her sex made contact with his through their clothes, she knew she had to have him. Gone was any rational thought. Vanished was every last shred of self-doubt or concern about tomorrow. She completely gave herself over to the power of feeling. Nothing more. Nothing less. Of listening to her body and following its lead, trusting it not to lead her in the wrong direction.

She began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, then gave up and tore at the material, sending buttons ricocheting through the elevator. Finally, the smooth, hair-peppered chest was bared to her gaze. She tugged the soft material down over his shoulders, marveling at the toned, sculpted quality of his pecs. She’d sensed his hardness when she’d fallen into his lap, but somehow not even that brief contact had prepared her for this. She placed a hesitant kiss against the heated flesh, then opened her mouth for a more thorough taste, thinking that if, instead of air, she could breathe him right that moment, she would.

She shamelessly jutted her hips against his, absently wondering what felt better—the fire licking through her veins, making her aware of every pulse of her heartbeat, or him. The long, thick ridge of his erection pressed against her swollen flesh, and she shivered, deciding that there was no longer any differentiating between the two. His actions fanned the flames, provoking even bolder reactions from her.

His fingers seared her bottom, tunneling under the edge of her panties and cupping her. Dulcy reached for the front of his jeans and the button there. Her fingers brushed something, and she swallowed hard, realizing that the tip of his arousal was right there, peeking from the waist of his jeans.

Dear Lord…

She skimmed her thumb over the velvet tip, rubbing the bead of moisture over him, then shamelessly lifted her thumb to her mouth, tasting him. She blinked to look into his eyes. The sight of his enlarged pupils, the sheer desire on his face, enhanced her own skyrocketing feelings.

The elevator door bumped against her arm. Dulcy grasped the gaping edges of his shirt and pulled him inside the mirrored enclosure. The doors immediately slid closed, but when the elevator started to drop, Quinn reached behind him and pulled the emergency button, stopping it from going anywhere.

One of his fingers traced the length of her fissure from behind, coaxing her right leg up in order to allow him freer access. Dulcy hooked her foot around his calf. She nearly collapsed as the same finger found the pulsing bit of flesh at the apex of her thighs. She gasped as the finger dove into her dripping recesses.

Forgotten was her own quest as she grasped his shoulders, afraid she might faint from the headiness of it all. She broke contact with his mouth and rested her cheek against his bare shoulder. Through heavy-lidded eyes she watched their reflection in the smoky wall mirror. Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she thought she should be shocked to find herself standing there, her blouse open, her engorged nipples peeking out from the top of her bra, her leg hiked up revealing more than was decent and Quinn’s dark-skinned hands branding her pale flesh. But the image only served to turn her on more.

“Reach into my back pocket,” he said savagely into her ear. “Now.”

Dulcy slid her hands down his back and into both pockets, moments later tugging out a foil packet. In one swift movement, he freed her of her panties and undid the front of his jeans. Not wanting to let go of him, Dulcy put the corner of the packet between her teeth and ripped, praying she hadn’t damaged the latex. She moved to sheath him, but he took it from her fingers.

“Oh, no, darlin’. If you do that, we’ll never get a chance to use it.”

He covered himself with the latex condom, then thrust her against the back mirror of the elevator. Dulcy braced herself against the cool surface even as he circled his hands to her bottom and pulled her legs up to rest on either side of his hips. She crossed her ankles behind him, then sighed as he entered her in one, long, thrust.

The flames that licked through her veins exploded to engulf her entire body. Her breasts throbbed. Her stomach tightened. And the sensation of his erection filling her seemed, oh, so right and made her hungrier for more.

She tilted her hips, taking him in even deeper. He groaned and thrust again, moving her back up the smooth mirror even as she steadied herself with her hands. He thrust again, each stroke edging up the chaos swirling inside her stomach, further tightening her nipples. She moved her head restlessly from side to side, able to do little more than anchor herself to accept his long, deep thrusts. She caught their reflection in the glass again, the vision chasing the air from her lungs. His legs were slightly bent to balance their weight, his dark shoulders glistened with sweat, her breasts swayed with each long stroke.

She swallowed hard, thinking that long was the key word. Long…and hard…and thick. His dark hair fell over his brow, half concealing the fierce expression on his face as he plunged again and again into her swollen, welcoming flesh. She’d never felt so naughty, so elemental…so mind-blowingly sexy as she did when he grasped her hips tighter, grinding against her, and forcing her right over the edge into oblivion.

A HALF HOUR LATER, Dulcy paced the length of her hotel room, then back again, barely seeing the patterned bedspread that matched the draperies that matched the wall hanging that went with the lamp. Her breath came in irregular gasps, her muscles felt oddly electrified, and despite the thirty minutes that separated now from the erotic moment in the elevator, she was still on fire, her body hungry for a nameless something that only the stranger who had awakened the hunger could give her.

What had she done?

She glanced at the packages she’d tossed onto the bed, then at the clock, then at the telephone. She was distantly surprised neither Jena nor Marie had come after her yet. Then again, for all she knew they’d caught one of the elevators while she and Quinn had been stopped in theirs on the sixth floor, and were already in their rooms. She stalked to the connecting door and listened but couldn’t hear anything. Not prepared to face either of her friends if they were there, she opted against opening the barrier.

She moved to the other side of the bed and the phone there. The red light was ominously dark. But just to be on the safe side, she punched the button to retrieve her messages, only to be told by a cold, automated voice that her voice-mail box was empty.

She hung up the receiver again and stared at the clock. It was after one o’clock. She didn’t care. She needed to talk to someone. And the perfect someone for her to be talking to right now was Brad.

She picked up the telephone receiver again, punched the button for an outside line, then followed with his number. Ten rings later, she hung up the receiver again, then sank down onto the bed, rubbing the heels of her hands against her eyes.

What had she done? She groaned. Oh, she knew what she had done, all right. She had effectively mauled the most dangerously enticing man she’d ever seen in her life, in a hotel elevator. Tempted the man of her fantasies. Welcomed him into her flesh. She clamped her eyes shut even farther, until she saw stars. One minute she’d been congratulating herself on making it through her bachelorette party intact. The next she’d been living the made-up fantasy she’d shared with Jena and Marie earlier in the night.

Well, it hadn’t been completely made up, but the elevator part of it had been. But, oh boy, what she had been missing out on with that little addition.

“This is crazy. Absolutely, stark raving, lunatic mad.”

She could still see Quinn’s sexy grin as he emerged from the bright blinding light of orgasm to stare down at her. Then reality had dawned and her eyes had widened—and his sexy grin had turned into a distinct expression of disappointment. Dulcy couldn’t have moved fast enough, far enough as she shakily tried to put herself in order while she released the emergency button.

They’d reached his floor first. “I’m in room 613 if you change your mind,” he’d said, just before the doors closed.

Was it possible to love one man and want to marry him, but want a completely different man only eight days before her wedding?

Well, that was certainly a stupid question, wasn’t it. For if there was one thing she had just proven, it was that.

Pushing from the bed, she stormed into the bathroom and turned on the shower full blast. Refusing to look at herself in the mirror, she stepped back into the other room to where her overnight bag rested on the table, and had to take out nearly everything else before she found her nightgown. For several moments she stood there, staring down at the familiar material—the familiar, boring material. The expensive, light blue cotton nightgown with the little satin ties at the throat. The sound of the shower echoed in the bathroom. But she could concentrate on nothing but the steady pulse of her heartbeat. The smell of her sex, their sex, filling her nose. The throbbing of her womanhood and the hunger that remained. She knew she should undress and head for the shower.

Instead she moved toward the door. Whatever happened, she knew she had to see this thing through to its natural conclusion. And that meant having sex with Quinn until the hunger that raged inside her was satisfied. Or until something other than her own needs clamored for attention. The rest of it…well, the rest she’d figure out later. All she could think about was having Quinn’s tongue in her mouth. His hot hands grasping her breasts to the point of pain, his fingers rubbing her nipples. His long erection stroking her inside and out, edging her to a place she had never visited before but curiously wanted to stake a claim on. Now. For as long as he could physically manage it. Until she couldn’t walk. Until neither of them could stand the sight of the other. Until she’d cried out in orgasm again…and again…and again.

Or until one her friends hunted her down and tore her away from him.

INCREDIBLE…

Quinn slowly drew the very tip of his finger along the sweat-dampened valley of Dee’s back, then down farther until he rested between the sweetly shaped cheeks of her bottom. She moaned in her sleep, instinctively rocking against his touch. He curved his fingers around her swollen sex and squeezed. Even in sleep she responded to him in a way that touched the most fundamental part of him.

He lay back beside her, thinking over the past four hours and wondering if he’d ever view the world the same way again. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to see her straddled across him, her face full of decadent wonder as she watched his flesh disappear into hers; or under him, her arms stretched up above her head, allowing him to take control; or with her tush grinding back against him, the mingling of her pale pubic hair with his dark, sheer ecstasy on her face when she reached climax again…and again…and again.

He glanced down to find his member pulsing back to life against his bare stomach. Of course, he’d essentially had an erection ever since she’d landed in his lap earlier. He had the feeling that if they continued for the next two days, he wouldn’t go limp. And he didn’t think his reaction had anything to do with his teenage tutelage in the hands of his older next-door neighbor, who had taught him the finer points of tantric sex. He’d simply never wanted someone as much as he wanted Dee. Which should have puzzled the hell out of him considering that normally he would be lying next to his latest conquest planning his escape route. Then again, he didn’t think he’d ever had sex with a woman who dropped off to sleep as quickly as Dee had. The action implied trust. And he found himself extending it to her, as well. He hadn’t encountered much of that in his thirty-four years. If the women he usually bedded weren’t making sure he didn’t sneak out, they were trying to come up with inventive ways to get him to stay.

Not that Quinn thought he was such a great catch. No. As he’d gotten older, so had his bedmates. And he was coming to notice a certain desperation in his partners where there had once been only a warm afterglow. He gazed at Dee leisurely, thinking he’d love to see all that pale hair and skin of hers resting against his black satin sheets. See her toned, turned-on body against the backdrop of his bedroom instead of a cold hotel room. He lazily drew his finger up along Dee’s side, over her breast, then her left arm. She shivered in her sleep, then shifted, bringing her side against his and draping her arm across his chest. He watched as her slender fingers tunneled through the hair there, then stilled. The rock on her ring finger seemed to flash at him in the dim light from the balcony door. He’d noticed it earlier in the bar. Engaged? He suspected so. He also suspected that the gathering with her friends wasn’t a birthday party, but was instead a bachelorette party. Which meant that the wedding wasn’t that far off. Might even be this weekend.

A pang of something he couldn’t immediately identify skated through his stomach. He couldn’t identify it simply because he’d never encountered it before. Jealousy. Pure and biting. The thought that the incredibly sexy woman lying next to him was about to marry another man filled him with a heat that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with possessiveness. Which confounded him even more.

He’d bedded a couple of married women. Even an engaged one. On the day of her wedding. Was he proud of it? No. But, hey, sex was sex. And women committed to other men understood that more than single women. When he spotted the ring, he knew from the get-go that his time with the woman would be a one-shot deal. Which was all he was in the market for. The women from whom he’d wanted more had been few and far between. And they had always been single. New to him, however, was the desire to have a woman who already belonged to another man.

Dee murmured something. He shifted his head to watch her sleeping features. Her damp blond hair curled wildly around her heart-shaped face, her full, pink lips were swollen from his kisses, and when the tip of her tongue dipped out to lick the corner of her mouth, he nearly groaned. Oh, the incredible things she could do with that mouth. Just remembering made his blood surge through his veins triple time and his erection grow to painful proportions. He put her hand to rest on the bed and turned onto his side. If this was all they were to have, this one night, he was going to take his fill of her. And, he hoped, give her a memory she wouldn’t soon forget.

With a languid hand, he trailed a path down over one curved cheek, then slid it into the crevice beyond. She made a soft whimper as he flicked his thumb over her swollen bud. He reached down and nudged her thighs open, baring her sex to his gaze for only a moment before he positioned himself there, between her legs. Within moments he was sheathed with a condom and he rested the tip of his erection against her engorged portal. He grit his teeth against the desire to thrust into her to the hilt. Slow. Nice…and…slow.

He fit the tip inside her slick flesh, then withdrew. She murmured again and turned her head, but still didn’t awaken. Gently grasping her hips, he slid his hands under her and slowly began to stroke her from the other side. He entered her again, this time a few millimeters deeper.

He knew the instant she awakened from her low, blood-stirring moan. She looked over her bare shoulder, her eyes sleepy and full of desire. He thrust again, this time even deeper. Her back arched, bringing her sex directly against his. Quinn stretched his neck and groaned as she began straining against him, seeking a deeper, more meaningful meeting. He was only too glad to oblige. Grasping her hips, he plunged in all the way, the explosion of light behind his eyes astounding him as he reached the edge of orgasm faster than he ever imagined possible.

4

DULCY JUGGLED HER BRIEFCASE along with her “grande” cup of Starbucks coffee and a small pot of African violets she’d picked up on Saturday—the day she was supposed to pick out china patterns. Instead, she’d lingered in the open-air market, choosing fruit she usually didn’t keep around the house and buying violets. There was something about the flowers’ raw beauty, their vivid colors, that drew her to them, although she told herself she simply thought they would look good on her desk. She turned the lock and shouldered open the glass-and-chrome door to Lomax, Ferris, McCade and Bertelli, Attorneys-at-Law. Monday morning. Two whole days since she’d kissed Quinn goodbye at the door to his hotel room…twice. The first time, she’d never made it into the hall. No promises. No regrets. No lingering what-ifs. She mentally braced herself, waiting as she’d been waiting all weekend, for one of the three to hit her. They didn’t. She sighed, wondering what, if anything, that said about her.

The door whooshed shut behind her and she took in the neat, rustic waiting area of the law offices. A colorful southwestern area rug covered the pine floor while rough-hewn furniture sat off to the right, including a coffee table that had legs as thick as tree trunks. In fact, they were tree trunks.

A glance at the empty secretary’s desk told her that Mona wasn’t in yet. Instantly, Dulcy relaxed her shoulders. Good. She’d been dreading coming to the office for fear that there was something…different about her. Something the no-nonsense fiftyish secretary would immediately home in on and identify. And the last thing she wanted right now was anyone scrutinizing her. Not when she was having a hard time figuring herself out.

She stepped toward the first office to the right that bore her name on a brass plate.

“Happy Monday, Miss Ferris.”

Dulcy gave a little squeak and nearly dropped the violets as she swiveled around to face Mona, who’d stepped out of Jena’s office. The older woman immediately narrowed her gaze. Dulcy bit the inside of her cheek. Well, how did you like that for keeping things normal? The first voice she hears and she nearly jumps out of her skin.

“’Morning, Mona.” She swung her door inward and laid her briefcase along with her coffee on the filing cabinet just inside. No matter how many times she’d asked, the older woman refused to call her by her first name. “Early this morning, aren’t you?”

Mona fingered through the folders in her arms. Jena had once asked the ageless secretary if she had an entire closet full of navy skirts and plain white blouses. Dulcy had balked at the personal attack. But since then Mona had begun varying the color of her skirts, though they were all cut the same. Straight. Long. Basic. Much like the woman herself.

“I was just going to make the same comment about you,” said Mona.

Dulcy waved her free hand, trying to come up with something witty to say, anything to divert the woman’s attention, but failing miserably. Instead, her gaze focused on the violets in her hand. She glanced back at the secretary. “Here—I brought these for you.”

Mona’s face immediately brightened, making the fact that she wore no makeup almost a nonissue. She put down the files and accepted the small pot. “For me?”

Dulcy smoothed her hair and checked the simple twist at the nape of her neck—a nervous gesture she hadn’t used for at least five years. She frowned and forced her hand back to her side, fisting it to make sure it stayed put. “Yes. I was, um, at the market the day before yesterday and thought they’d look nice. You know, on your desk.”

There it was again. The gaze.

Dulcy wasn’t sure if it was the severe way Mona pulled her salt-and-pepper hair back into a bun, or the fact that she’d worked in a law office for so long, but Mona Lyndell had a stare that any prosecuting attorney would envy. And under which any witness would cave.

And Dulcy would do well to remember her own advice to clients. Less was more when it came to answering questions.

A door from the opposite side of the offices opened and Barry Lomax’s substantial frame filled the empty space. “I thought I heard your voice. How’s my girl doing this morning?”

Dulcy’s tense smile relaxed into a genuine one. She crossed the area rug and fondly kissed Barry’s cheek. He’d always reminded her of a cross between Kirk Douglas and Sean Connery in his bearded days. And he always made her feel good about the choices she’d made in her life.

Barry had a large hand in her ever making it as a practicing attorney, and was the sole reason she, Jena and Marie had been able to form their own partnership. At sixty-seven, the renowned trial attorney was long overdue for retirement. But with no children of his own and his original partners having retired long ago, he wanted to guarantee that everything he’d built up wouldn’t disappear along with him. When Dulcy, Jena and Marie signed on as partners six months ago, they’d done so with the express stipulation that the firm would always hold Barry’s name. In return, they received a boatload of wealthy, established clients, a swanky downtown address and the best working environment they could have hoped for.

Her smile widened. “You know, you’re going to have to watch that ‘girl’ and ‘honey’ stuff from here on out. We wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea,” she admonished.

Thrice divorced—twice to women who had started as paralegals at the firm—Barry wasn’t a newcomer to the gossip mill. He pulled at the waist of his slacks, a habit he’d picked up a while ago after dropping twenty pounds. “Actually, I think that’s more incentive to keep calling you ‘girl.’ There are worse things I can think of than having everyone believe there’s a little hanky-panky going on behind the scenes here.”

Dulcy crossed her arms. “Oh, that’s just what I’ve always aspired to. To have everyone think I slept my way to the top.” She laughed. “Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking about. If you call me those cute little endearments in public, the entire legal establishment will be calling me ‘girl’ in no time flat. I can hear it already. I’m arbitrating an important case and the opposing attorney asks, ‘Is that all, honey?”’ She shuddered. “No, thank you.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You could try what you did with me the first time I slipped and called you ‘honey’ in public.”

Dulcy’s face went hot as she recalled the incident. She’d been all of twenty-one, participating in a mock trial. With solid ties to University of New Mexico School of Law, Barry had been visiting counsel and had agreed to sit in as the judge. “Any more questions, honey?” he’d asked. She’d bristled, then shot back, “No, I think that about covers it, pookems,” and the entire room had erupted in laughter. Including Barry.

It was the beginning of a mentor-student relationship and, even more important, a friendship that Dulcy cherished.

“Can I get you two some coffee?” Mona asked.

Dulcy uncrossed her arms. “Thanks, but I can get it myself,” she said as she had nearly every morning for the past six months.

Barry held out his white handmade ceramic cup with a real antler as the handle. “Mighty fine of you to offer, Miss Lyndell.”

The instant Mona had taken the cup and disappeared down the hall, Dulcy lowered her voice. “I still think she has the hots for you.”

Barry’s deep laugh boomed through the room. “And I still think you’re off your rocker, Dulc. Mona’s been my secretary for thirty years. Don’t you think I’d know if she had the slightest bit of interest in me?”

Dulcy patted the front of his starched shirt. “I don’t think you’d notice if the woman stripped down naked right in front of you.”

“Which would never happen.”

She started to walk toward her office. “How would you know? You never look up from your latest case file long enough to see if it already has.”

Another chuckle. “Did I know what I was letting myself in for when I signed you gals on as partners?”

Dulcy winked. “Actually, I still suspect you did it just to give half your clients a heart attack.”

“Speaking of partners in crime, where are yours this morning, anyway?”

Dulcy glanced at her watch. “I’d say Marie’s doing the parking spot hunt outside the county courthouse right about now. And Jena…” She smiled. “Well, Jena’s probably running late, as usual for a Monday morning.”

Which was exactly what Dulcy had been counting on. She hadn’t dared breathe a word to either of her friends about what had happened two nights ago. And, thank God, neither of them had pursued the matter. From what she understood, Jena and Marie had closed the club down. By the time they’d made their way upstairs and knocked on her door, they’d figured she was dead to the world and had let her be. After all, everyone knew Dulcy was as boring as they came.

If they only knew… She tightened her hand on the door frame. Yes, well, if she had a say in the matter, they would never find out.

The recollection of her reckless behavior sent a shiver shimmying down her spine. She didn’t even know Quinn’s last name. And he didn’t know hers. Which was the way she’d wanted it, wasn’t it? She worried the back of her engagement ring with her thumb. After all, she was a scant five days away from marrying someone else.

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