# The Merciless Travis Wilde

Sandra Marton

The wild before the storm Travis Wilde doesn’t do love or commitment – but he’d never turn down a willing woman and a king-sized bed! Normally innocence like Jennie Cooper’s would have the same effect as a cold shower, yet her determination and mouth-watering curves have him burning up all over!The clock is ticking and, forced to confront her life, Jennie is determined to cross some major things off her to-do list. Some might be risky – like taking on the renowned Travis Wilde – but Jennie has nothing to lose except the one thing she thought was untouchable…her heart.‘Absolutely fantastic and enough passion to blow your mind away! Thank you Ms Marton!’ – Ven, 40, Hastings

## Jennie blushed. She did that a lot. Travis liked it.

He moved closer, flattening his palms against the cab of the truck so that his arms encased her. He looked into her eyes. Looked at her lips. Gave her a second to figure out what was coming.

Ohmygod, she thought. Oh—my—God!

He lifted her off the ground, one arm around her waist. Her face was on a level with his; he kissed her slowly, caught her lip between his teeth and sucked on her flesh, and—and—

He kissed the place where her neck and shoulder joined.

It was magic.

Her eyes closed; the world went away.

And when he asked her to go home with him she gave him the only logical answer—because, after all, she was nothing if not logical.

She said, “Yes.”

## THE WILDE BROTHERS

Wilde by name, unashamedly wild by nature!

They work hard, but you can be damned sure they play even harder! For as long as any of them could remember, they’ve always loved the same things:

Danger … and beautiful women.

They gladly took up the call to serve their country, but duty, honour and pride are words that mask the scars of a true warrior.

Now, one by one, the brothers return to their family ranch in Texas.

Can their hearts be tamed in the place they once called home?

Meet the deliciously sexy Wilde Brothers in this sizzling and utterly unmissable new family dynasty by much-loved author Sandra Marton!

In August you met

THE DANGEROUS JACOB WILDE

In December were you able to resist

THE RUTHLESS CALEB WILDE?

This month meet

THE MERCILESS TRAVIS WILDE

## About the Author

SANDRA MARTON wrote her first novel while she was still in primary school. Her doting parents told her she’d be a writer some day, and Sandra believed them. In secondary school and college she wrote dark poetry nobody but her boyfriend understood—though, looking back, she suspects he was just being kind. As a wife and mother she wrote murky short stories in what little spare time she could manage, but not even her boyfriend-turned-husband could pretend to understand those. Sandra tried her hand at other things, among them teaching and serving on the Board of Education in her home town, but the dream of becoming a writer was always in her heart.

At last Sandra realised she wanted to write books about what all women hope to find: love with that one special man, love that’s rich with fire and passion, love that lasts for ever. She wrote a novel, her very first, and sold it to Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance. Since then she’s written more than sixty books, all of them featuring sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life heroes. A four-time RITA® award finalist, she’s also received five RT Book Reviews magazine awards, and has been honoured with RT’s Career Achievement Award for Series Romance. Sandra lives with her very own sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life hero in a sun-filled house on a quiet country lane in the north-eastern United States.

Recent titles by the same author:

> THE RUTHLESS CALEB WILDE(The Wilde Brothers)

> THE DANGEROUS JACOB WILDE(The Wilde Brothers)

> SHEIKH WITHOUT A HEART

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

## The Merciless Travis Wilde. Sandra Marton


www.millsandboon.co.uk

## CHAPTER ONE

FOR AS LONG as Travis Wilde could remember, Friday nights had belonged to his brothers and him.

They’d started setting those evenings aside way back in high school. Nobody had made a formal announcement. Nobody had said, “Hey, how about we make Friday evenings ours?”

It had just happened, was all, and over the ensuing years, it had become an unspoken tradition.

The Wildes got together on Fridays, no matter what.

Always.

Okay.

Maybe not always.

One of them might be away on business, Caleb on one coast or the other, dealing with a client in some complicated case of corporate law; Jacob in South America or Spain, buying horses for his own ranch or for El Sueño, the family spread; Travis meeting with investors anywhere from Dallas to Singapore.

And there’d been times one or more of the Wildes had been ass-deep in some bug-infested foreign hellhole, trying to stay alive in whatever war needed the best combat helicopter pilot, secret agency spook, or jet jockey the U.S. of A. could provide.

There’d even been times a woman got in the way.

Travis lifted a bottle of beer to his lips.

That didn’t happen often.

Women were wonderful and mysterious creatures, but brothers were, well, they were brothers. You shared the same blood, the same memories.

That made for something special.

The bottom line was that barring the end of the world and the appearance of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, if it was Friday night, if the Wildes were within reasonable distance of each other, they’d find a bar where the brews were cold, the steaks rare, the music an upbeat blend of Willie Nelson and Bruce Springsteen, and they’d settle in for a couple of hours of relaxation.

This place didn’t quite meet that description.

It wasn’t where the Wildes had planned on going tonight but then, as it had turned out, Travis was the only Wilde who’d been up for getting together at all.

The original plan had been to meet at a bar they knew and liked, maybe half a dozen blocks from his office, a quiet place with deep booths, good music on the speakers, half a dozen varieties of locally-brewed beer on tap and by the bottle, and steaks the size of Texas sizzling on an open grill.

That plan had changed, and Travis had ended up in here by accident.

Once he knew he would be on his own, he’d driven around for a while, finally got thirsty and hungry, stopped at the first place he saw.

This one.

No deep booths. No Willy or Bruce. No locally-brewed beer. No grill and no steaks.

Instead, there were half a dozen beat-up looking tables and chairs. The kind of music that made your brain go numb, blasting from the speakers. A couple of brands of beer. Burgers oozing grease, served up from a kitchen in the back.

The best thing about the place was the bar itself, a long stretch of zinc that either spoke of earlier, better days or of dreams that had never quite materialized.

Travis had pretty much known what he’d find as soon as he pulled into the parking lot, saw the dented pickups with their rusted fenders, the half a dozen Harleys parked together like a pack of coyotes.

He’d also known what he wouldn’t find.

Friendly faces. Babes that looked as if they’d just stepped out of the latest Neiman Marcus catalogue. A dartboard on one wall, photos of local sports guys on another. St. Ambrose beer and rare steaks.

Not a great place for a stranger who was alone but if a man knew how to keep to himself, which years spent on not-always-friendly foreign soil had definitely taught him to do, he could at least grab something to eat before heading home.

He’d gotten some looks when he walked through the door. That figured. He was an unknown in a place where people almost certainly knew each other or at least recognized each other.

Physically, at least, he blended in.

He was tall. Six foot three in his bare feet, lean and muscled, the result of years riding and breaking horses growing up on El Sueño, the family’s half-million acre ranch a couple of hours from Dallas. High school and college football had honed him to a tough edge, and Air Force training had done the rest.

At thirty-four, he worked out every morning in the gym in his Turtle Creek condo and he still rode most weekends, played pickup games of touch football with his brothers …

Correction, he thought glumly.

He used to play touch football with Caleb and Jacob, but they didn’t have much time for that anymore.

Which was one of the reasons he was in this bar tonight. His brothers didn’t have much time for anything anymore and, dammit, no, he wasn’t feeling sorry for himself—he was a grown man, after all.

What he was, was mourning the loss of a way of life.

Travis tilted the bottle of Bud to his lips, took a long swallow and stared at his reflection in the fly-specked mirror behind the bar.

Bachelorhood. Freedom. No responsibility to or for anyone but yourself.

Yes, his brothers were giving life on the other side of that line a try and God knew, he wished them all the best but, though he’d never say it to them, he had a bad feeling how that would end up.

Love was an ephemeral emotion. Here today, gone tomorrow. Lip service, at best.

How his brothers had missed that life-lesson was beyond him.

He, at least, had not.

Which brought him straight back to what had been the old Friday night routine of steaks, beer …

And the one kind of bond you could count on.

The bond between brothers.

He’d experienced it growing up with Jake and Caleb, at college when he played football, in the Air Force, first in weeks of grueling training, then in that small, elite circle of men who flew fighter jets.

Male bonding, was the trendy media term for it, but you didn’t need fancy words to describe the link of trust you could forge with a brother, whether by blood or by fate.

That was what those Friday nights had been about.

Sitting around, talking about nothing in particular—the safety the Cowboys had just signed. The wobbly fate of the Texas Rangers. Poker, a game they all liked and at which Travis was an expert. Which was more of an icon, Jake’s vintage Thunderbird or Travis’s ’74 Stingray ’Vette, and was there any reasonable explanation for Caleb driving that disgustingly new Lamborghini?

And, naturally, they’d talked about women.

Except, the Wildes didn’t talk about women anymore.

Travis sighed, raised the bottle again and drank.

Caleb and Jake. His brothers.

Married.

It still seemed impossible but it was true. So was what went with it.

He’d spoken with each of his brothers as recently as yesterday, reminded them—and when, in the past, had they needed reminding?—that Friday was coming up and they’d be meeting at seven at that bar near his office.

“Absolutely,” Caleb had said.

“See you then,” Jake had told him.

And here he was. The Lone Ranger.

The worst of it was, he wasn’t really surprised.

No reflection on his sisters-in-law.

Travis was crazy about both Addison and Sage, loved them as much as he loved his own three sisters, but why deny it?

Marriage—commitment—changed everything.

“I can’t make it tonight, Trav,” Caleb had said when he’d phoned in midafternoon. We have Lamaze.”

“Who?”

“It’s not a who, it’s a what. Lamaze. You know. Childbirth class. It’s usually on Thursday but the instructor had to cancel so it’s tonight, instead.”

Childbirth class. His brother, the tough corporate legal eagle? The one-time spook? Childbirth class?

“Travis?” Caleb had said. “You there?”

“I’m here,” he’d said briskly. “Lamaze. Right. Well, have fun.”

“Lamaze isn’t about fun, dude.”

“I bet.”

“You’ll find out someday.”

“Bite your tongue.”

Caleb had laughed. “Remember that housekeeper we had right after Mom died? The one who used to say, First comes love, then comes marriage …”

Thinking back to the conversation, Travis shuddered.

Why would any of that ever apply to him?

Even if—big “if”—even if marriage worked, it changed a man.

Besides, love was just a nice word for sex, and why be modest?

He already had all the sex a man could handle, without any of the accompanying complications.

No “I love you and I’ll wait for you,” which turned out to mean “I’ll wait a couple of months before I get into bed with somebody else.”

Been there, done that, his first overseas tour.

Truth was, once he’d moved past the anger, it hadn’t meant much. He’d been young; love had been an illusion.

And he should have known better, anyway, growing up in a home where your mother got sick and died and your father was too busy saving the world to come home and be with her or his sons …

And, dammit, what was with his mood tonight?

Travis looked up, caught the bartender’s eye and signaled for another beer.

The guy nodded. “Comin’ up.”

Jake’s phone call had followed on the heels of Caleb’s.

“Hey,” he’d said.

“Hey,” Travis had replied, which didn’t so much mark him as a master of brilliant dialogue as it suggested he knew what was coming.

“So,” Jake had said, clearing his throat, “about getting together tonight—”

“You can’t make it.”

“Yes. I mean, no. I can’t.”

“Because?”

“Well, it turns out Addison made an appointment for us to meet with—with this guy.”

“What guy?”

“Just a guy. About the work we’ve been doing, you know, remodeling the house.”

“I thought that was your department. The extension, the extra bathrooms, the new kitchen—”

“It is. This guy does—he does other stuff.”

“Such as?”

“Jeez, don’t you ever give up? Such as recommending things.”

“Things?”

“Wallpaper,” Jake had all but snarled. “Okay? The guy’s bringing over ten million wallpaper samples and Adoré told me about it days ago but I forgot and it’s too late to—”

“Yeah. Okay. No problem,” Travis had said because what right did he have to embarrass his war-hero brother more than he’d already embarrassed himself? The proof was right there, in Jake using his supposedly-unknown-to-the-rest-of-humanity pet name for his wife.

“Next week,” Jake had said. “Right?”

Right, Travis thought, oh, yeah, right.

By next week, Caleb would be enrolled in Baby Burping 101 and Jake would be staring at fabric swatches, or whatever you called squares of cotton or velvet.

Domesticity was right up there with Lamaze.

Nothing he wanted to try.

Not ever.

He liked his life just the way it was, thank you very much. There was a big world out there, and he’d seen most of it—but not all. He still had places to go, things to do …

Things that might get the taste of war and death out of his mouth.

People talked about cleansing your palette between wine tastings but nobody talked about cleansing your soul after piloting a jet into combat missions …

And, damn, what was he doing?

A flea-bitten bar in the wrong part of town absolutely was not the place for foolish indulgence in cheap philosophy.

Travis finished his beer.

Without being asked, the bartender opened a bottle, put it in front of him.

“Thanks.”

“Haven’t seen you in here before.”

Travis shrugged. “First time for everything.”

“You want somethin’ to eat before the kitchen closes?”

“Sure. A steak, medium-rare.”

“Your money, but the burgers are better.”

“Fine. A burger. Medium-rare.”

“Fries okay?”

“Fries are fine.”

“Comin’ right up.”

Travis tilted the bottle to his lips.

A couple of weeks ago, his brothers had asked him what was doing with him. Was he feeling a little off lately?

“You’re the ones who’re off,” he’d said with a quick smile. “Married. Living by the rules.”

“Sometimes, rules are what a man needs,” Jake had said.

“Yeah,” Caleb had added. “You know, it might be time to reassess your life.”

Reassess his life?

He liked his life just fine, thank you very much.

He needed precisely what he had. Life in the fast lane. Work hard. Play hard.

Nothing wrong with that.

It was how he’d always been.

His brothers, too, though war had changed them. Jake had, still was, battling through PTSD. Caleb carried a wariness inside him that would probably never go away.

Not him.

Sure, there were times he woke up, heart pounding, remembering stuff a man didn’t want to remember, but a day at his office, taking a chance on a new stock offering and clearing millions as a result, a night in bed with a new, spectacular woman who was as uninterested in settling down as he was, and he was fine again.

Maybe that was the problem.

There hadn’t been a woman lately.

And, now that he thought about it, what was with that? He wasn’t into celibacy any more than he was into domesticity and yet, it had been days, hell, weeks since he’d been with a woman …

“Burger, medium-rare, with fries,” the bartender said, sliding a huge plate across the bar.

Travis looked at the burger. It was the size of a Frisbee and burned to a crisp.

Good thing he wasn’t really hungry, he thought, and he picked up a fry and took a bite.

The place was crowding up. Almost all the stools were taken at the bar; the same for the tables. The clientele, if you could call it that, was mostly male. Big. Tough-looking. Lots of facial hair, lots of tattoos.

Some of them looked him over.

Travis didn’t hesitate to look back.

He’d been in enough places like this one, not just in Texas but in some nasty spots in eastern Europe and Asia, to know that you never flinched from eye contact.

It worked, especially because he didn’t look like a weekend cowboy out for a night among the natives.

Aside from his height and build, which had come to him courtesy of Viking, Roman, Comanche and Kiowa ancestors, it helped that he’d given up his day-at-the-office custom-made Brioni suit for a well-worn gray T-shirt, equally well-worn jeans and a pair of Roper boots he’d had for years but then, why would any guy wear a suit and everything that went with it when he could be comfortable in jeans?

The clothes, the boots, his physical build, even his coloring—ink-black hair, courtesy of his Indian forebears, deep green eyes, thanks to his pillage-rape-and-romp European ancestors—all combined to make him look like, well, like what he was, a guy who wouldn’t look for trouble but damned well wouldn’t walk away from it if it came his way.

“A gorgeous, sexy, bad boy,” one mistress had called him.

It had embarrassed the hell out of him—at least, that was what he’d claimed—but, hey, could a man fight his DNA?

The blood of generations of warriors pulsed in his veins, as it did in the veins of his brothers. Their father, the general, had raised them on tales of valor and courage and, in situations where it was necessary, the usefulness of an attitude that said don’t-screw-with-me if you’re smart.

It was a message men understood and generally respected, though there was almost always some jerk who thought it didn’t apply to him.

That was fine.

It was equally fine that women understood it, too, and reacted to it in ways that meant he rarely spent a night alone, except by choice …

“Hi, honey.”

Last time he’d checked, the barstool to his left had been empty. Not anymore. A blonde was perched on it, smiling as if she’d just found an unexpected gift under a Christmas tree.

Uh-oh.

She was surely a gift, too. For someone.

But that someone wasn’t him.

To put it kindly, she wasn’t his type.

Big hair that looked as if it had been shellacked into submission. Makeup she probably had to remove with a trowel. Tight cotton T-shirt, her boobs resting on a muffin-top of flesh forced up by too-tight jeans.

All that was bad enough.

What made it worse was that he knew the unspoken etiquette in a place like this.

A lady made a move on you, you were supposed to be flattered. Otherwise, you risked offending her—

Her, and the neighborhood aficionados who’d suddenly shifted their attention his way.

“Hello,” he said with forced politeness, and then gave all his attention to his plate.

“You’re new here.”

Travis took a bite of hamburger, chewed as if chewing were the most important thing in his life.

“I’m Bev.”

He nodded. Kept chewing.

She leaned in close, wedged one of her 40 Double D’s against his arm.

“You got a name, cowboy?”

Now what? This was not a good situation. Whatever he did, short of taking Bev’s clear invitation to heart, would almost surely lead to trouble.

She’d be insulted, her pals would think they had to ride to the rescue …

Maybe honesty, polite and up-front, was the best policy.

Travis took a paper napkin from its metal holder, blotted his lips and turned toward her.

“Listen, Bev,” he said, not unkindly, “I’m not interested, okay?” Her face reddened and he thought, hell, I’m not doing this right. “I mean, you’re a—a good-looking woman but I’m—I’m meeting somebody.”

“Really?” Bev said coldly. “You want me to believe you’re waitin’ for your date?”

“Exactly. She’ll be here any—”

“You’re waitin’ for your date, and you’re eatin’ without her?”

The guy on the other side of Bev was leaning toward them.

He was the size of a small mountain and from the look in his tiny eyes, he was hot and ready for a Friday night fight.

Slowly, carefully, Travis put down the burger and the napkin.

The Mountain outweighed him by fifty pounds, easy, and the hand wrapped around the bottle he was holding was the size of a ham.

No problem. Travis had taken on bigger men and come through just fine. If anything, it added to the kick.

Yes, but the Mountain has friends here. Many. And you, dude, are all by your lonesome.

The Voice of Reason.

Despite what his brothers sometimes said about him, Travis had been known not just to hear that voice but to listen to it.

But Bev was going on and on about no-good, scumbag liars and her diatribe had drawn the attention of several of the Mountain’s pals. Every last one of them looked happy to come to her aid by performing an act of chivalry that would surely involve beating the outsider—him—into a bloody mass of barely-breathing flesh.

Not good, said the Voice of Reason.

The bloody part was okay. He’d been there before.

But there was a problem.

He had a meeting in Frankfurt Monday morning, a huge deal he’d been working on for months, and he had the not-very-surprising feeling that the board of directors at the ultraconservative, three-hundred-year-old firm of Bernhardt, Bernhardt and Stutz would not look kindly on a financial expert who showed up with a couple of black eyes, a dinged jaw and, for all he knew, one or two missing teeth.

It would not impress them at all if he explained that he’d done his fair share of damage. More than his fair share, because he surely would manage that.

Dammit, where were a man’s brothers when he needed them?

“The lady’s talkin’ to you.” The Mountain was leaning past Bev. God, his breath stank. “What’s the matter? You got a hearin’ problem or something, pretty boy?”

Conversation died out. People smiled.

Travis felt the first, heady pump of adrenaline.

“My name,” he said carefully, “is not ‘pretty boy.’”

“His name is not pretty boy,” The Mountain mimicked.

Bev, sporting a delighted smile, slid from her stool. Maybe he’d misjudged her purpose. Maybe setting up a fight had been her real job.

Either way, Travis saw his choices narrowing down, and rapidly.

Bev’s defender got to his feet.

“You’re making a mistake,” Travis said quietly.

The Mountain snorted.

Travis nodded, took a last swig of beer, said a mental “goodbye” to Monday’s meeting and stood up.

“Outside,” he said, “in the parking lot? Or right here?”

“Here,” a voice growled.

Three men had joined the Mountain. Travis smiled. The next five minutes might be the end of him.

Yeah, but they’d also be fun, especially considering his weird state of mind tonight.

“Fine,” he said. “Sounds good to me.”

Those words, the commitment to the inevitable, finalized things, sent his adrenaline not just pumping but racing. He hadn’t been in a down-and-dirty bar brawl in a very long time. Not since Manila, or maybe Kandahar.

Yes, Kandahar, his last mission, death all around him …

Suddenly, pounding the Mountain into pulp seemed a fine idea, never mind that deal in Frankfurt.

Besides, nothing short of a miracle could save him now …

The door to the street swung open.

For some reason Travis would never later be able to explain, the enraptured audience watching him and the Mountain turned toward it.

A blast of hot Texas air swept in.

So did a tall, beautiful, sexy-looking, straight-out-of-the-Neiman-Marcus-catalogue blonde.

Silence. Complete silence.

Everybody looked at Neiman Marcus.

Neiman Marcus looked at them.

And blanched.

“Well, lookee there,” somebody said.

Lookee, indeed, Travis thought.

Sanity returned.

There she was. His salvation.

“Finally,” he said, his tone bright and cheerful. “My date.”

Before anyone could say a word, he started toward the blonde and the door with the confidence of a man holding all four aces in a game of high stakes poker.

She tilted her head back as he got closer. She was tall, especially in sexy, nosebleed-high stilettos, but she still had to do that to look up at him.

He liked it.

It was a nice touch.

“Your what?” she said, or would have said, but he couldn’t afford to let things go that far.

“Baby,” he purred, “what took you so long?”

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

Travis grinned.

“Only if you ask real nice,” he said, and before she could react, he drew her into his arms, brought her tightly against him and covered her mouth with his.

## CHAPTER TWO

AN HOUR BEFORE she walked into Travis Wilde’s life, Jennie Cooper had been sitting in her ancient Civic, having a stern talk with herself.

By then, it had been close to nine o’clock, the evening wasn’t getting any younger, and she still hadn’t put her plan into action.

Ridiculous, of course.

She was a woman with a mission.

She was looking for a bar.

Really, how difficult could it be to find a bar in a city like Dallas?

Very.

Well, “very” if you were searching for just the right kind of bar.

Dallas was a big, sprawling town, and she’d driven through so many parts of it that she’d lost count.

She’d started with Richardson and though there were loads of bars in that area, it would have been foolish, better still, foolhardy to choose one of them.

It was too near the university campus.

So she’d headed for the Arts District, mostly because she knew it, if visiting a couple of galleries on a rainy Sunday qualified as “knowing” a place—after eight months, she was still learning about her new city—but as soon as she got there, she’d realized it, too, was a bad choice.

The Arts District was trendy, which meant she’d feel out of place. A laugh, really, considering that she was going to feel out of place no matter where she went tonight, but it was also a neighborhood that surely would be popular with university faculty.

Running into someone who knew her would be disaster.

That was when Jennie had pulled to the curb, put her wheezing Civic in neutral and told herself to think fast, before her plan fell apart.

What other parts of Dallas were there?

Turtle Creek.

She knew it only by reputation, and that it was home to lots of young, successful, rich professionals.

Well, she’d thought with what might have been a choked laugh, she was young, anyway.

Rich? Not on a teaching assistant’s stipend. Successful? Not in Turtle Creek terms, where the word surely referred to attorneys and doctors, financial gurus and industrialists.

What kind of small talk could she make with a man who was all those things, assuming such a man would look twice at her?

Assuming there’d be any small talk because, really, that wasn’t what tonight was all about.

The realization sent a bolt of terror zinging along her nerve endings.

Jennie fought against it.

She wasn’t scared.

Certainly not.

She was—she was anxious, and who wouldn’t be? She’d spent weeks and weeks, planning this—this event.

She wasn’t going to add to that anxiety by going to a bar in a place like Turtle Creek on a Friday night when—when singles mingled.

When singles hook up, Genevieve baby, her always-until-now-oh-so-logical alter ego had suddenly whispered.

“They mingle,” Jennie had muttered. “And my name is not—”

Except, it was. For tonight. She’d decided that the same time she’d hatched this plan.

Good. You remembered. You’re Genevieve. And you’re trying to pretty things up. Tonight is not about mingling, it is about—

Jennie had stopped listening.

Still, there was truth to it.

Nobody could pretty this up.

Her plan was basic.

Find a bar. Go inside. Order a drink. Find a man she liked, flirt with him …

Forget the metaphors.

What she wanted was to find a man she liked enough to take home to bed.

Her teeth chattered.

“Stop it,” she said sharply.

She was a grown woman. Twenty-four years old just last Sunday. That she had never slept with a man was disgraceful. It was worse than that.

It was unbelievable.

And the old Stones song lied.

Time wasn’t on her side, which was why she was going to remedy that failing tonight.

“Happy birthday to me,” she said, under her breath, and her teeth did the castanet thing again, which was ridiculous.

She had thought about this for a long time, examined the concept from every possible angle.

This was right. It was logical. It was appropriate.

It was how things had to be done.

No romance. This wasn’t about romance.

No attachment. That part wasn’t even worth analyzing.

She didn’t have time for attachment, or emotion, or anything but the experience.

That was what this was all about.

It was research. It was learning something you’d only read about.

It was no different from what she’d done in the past, driving from New Hampshire to New York before she wrote her senior paper so that she could experience what had once been the narrow streets where Stanton Coit had established a settlement house for immigrants long before there were such things as social workers, or the trip she’d planned to see the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in Chicago …

Her throat constricted.

Never mind all that.

Her days of academic research would soon be meaningless.

What she needed now was reality research, and if there wasn’t such a branch of study, there should be.

And she was wasting precious time.

Jennie checked both rearview mirrors, put on her signal light and pulled away from the curb.

She headed south.

After a while, the streets began to change.

They grew narrower. Darker. The houses were smaller, crammed together as if huddled against a starless Texas night.

The one good thing was that there were lots of bars.

Lots and lots of bars.

She drove past them all.

Of course, she did.

None passed muster.

One didn’t have enough vehicles parked outside.

One had too many.

One had the wrong kind.

Jennie’s alter-ego gave an impolite snort. Jennie couldn’t blame her. That made three out of three.

What was she, Goldilocks?

Okay. The very next bar would be The One. In caps. Definitely, The One.

She’d park, check her hair, her makeup—she’d never used this much makeup before and, ten to one, it was smeared …

BAR.

Her heart thumped.

There it was. Straight ahead. A bar called, appropriately enough, BAR. Well, no. That wasn’t its name—she was pretty sure of that—it was simply a description, like a sign saying “liquor” outside a liquor store, or one that said “motel” outside a motel, or …

For God’s sake, Genevieve, it’s a bar!

She slowed the car, turned on her signal light, checked the mirrors, waited patiently for an approaching vehicle a block away to pass before she pulled into the parking lot.

It was crowded.

The last available empty space was between a shiny black behemoth of a truck and a battered red van.

She pulled between them, opened her door, checked the faded white lines, saw that she hadn’t managed to center her car, shut the door, backed up carefully, shifted, pulled forward, checked again, backed up, checked one last time, saw she’d finally parked properly and shut off the engine.

Tick, tick, tick it said, and finally went silent.

Too silent.

She could hear her heart thudding.

Stop it!

Quickly, she opened her consignment-shop Dior purse, rummaged inside it, found her compact and flipped it open.

She’d spent twenty minutes this afternoon at Neiman Marcus, nervously wandering around among the endless cosmetic counters before she’d finally chosen one mostly because the clerk behind it looked a shade less unapproachable than the others.

“How may I help you, miss?” she’d said. “Foundation? Blusher? Eyebrows? Eyes? Lips? Hair? Skin?”

Translation: Sweetie, you need work!

But her smile had been pleasant and Jennie had taken a deep breath and said, “Do you do makeovers?”

Almost an hour later, the clerk—she was, she’d said, a cosmetician—put a big mirror in her hands and said, “Take a look.”

Jennie had looked.

Nobody she knew looked back.

Who was this person with the long, loose blond waves framing her face? When had her pale lashes become curly and dark? And that pouting pink mouth, those cheekbones …

Cheekbones?

“Wow,” she’d said softly.

The cosmetician had grinned.

“Wow, indeed. Your guy is gonna melt when he sees you tonight.”

“No. I mean, that’s just the point. I don’t have—”

“So,” the cosmetician had chirped, “what do we want to purchase?”

“Purchase?” Jennie had said, staring at the lineup of vials, bottles and tubes, the sprays, salves and brushes, even an instruction sheet about how to replicate the magic transformation. Her gaze had flown to the woman. “I can’t possibly …” She’d swallowed hard, pointed to a tube of thirty-dollar mascara and said, “I’ll take that.”

Nobody was happy. Not the cosmetics wizard. Not Jennie, whose last mascara purchase had cost her six bucks at the supermarket.

Had all that time and money been worth it?

It was time to find out.

Even in the badly lit parking lot, her mirror assured her that she looked different.

It also assured her that she was wearing a mask.

Well, a disguise. Which was good.

It made her feel as if she was what she’d been trained to be, a researcher. An observer. An academic who would spend the next hours in a different kind of academia than she was accustomed to.

Jennie snapped the compact shut and put it back in her purse.

Which was why she was parked outside this place with the blinking neon sign.

Upscale? No. The lot was full of pickup trucks. She knew by now that pickup trucks were Texas the same way four-wheel drives were New England, but most of these were old. There were motorcycles, too.

Weren’t motorcycles supposed to be sexy?

And there were lots of lighted beer signs in the window.

Downscale? Well, as compared to what? True, something about the place didn’t seem appealing.

It’s a bar, the dry voice inside her muttered. What are you, a scout for Better Homes and Gardens?

Still, was this a good choice? She’d worked up logical criteria.

A: Choose a place that drew singles. She knew what happened in singles bars. Well, she’d heard what happened, anyway—that they were where people went for uninhibited fun, drinking, dancing … and other things.

B: Do what she was going to do before summer changed to autumn.

C: Actually, it had not occurred to her there might be a part C. But there was.

Do Not Prevaricate.

And she was prevaricating.

She put away her compact. Opened the door. Stepped from the car. Shut the door. Locked it. Opened her purse. Put her keys inside. Closed the purse. Hung the thin strap over the shoulder of her equally thin-strapped emerald-green silk dress, bought from the same consignment shop as the purse, the Neiman Marcus tag still inside.

Assuming you could call something that stopped at midthigh a dress.

She knew it was.

Girls on campus wore dresses this length.

You’re not a girl on campus, Jennie. And even when you were, back in New Hampshire, you never wore anything that looked like this.

And maybe if she had, she wouldn’t be doing this tonight. She wouldn’t have to be looking for answers to questions that needed answers, questions she was running out of time to ask …

“Stop,” she whispered.

It was time to get moving.

She took a breath, then started walking toward the entrance to the bar, stumbling a little in the sky-high heels she’d also bought at the consignment shop.

She was properly turned out, from head to toe, to lure the kind of man she wanted into her bed. Somebody tall. Broad-shouldered. A long, lean, buff body. Dark hair, dark eyes, a gorgeous face because if you were going to lose your virginity to a stranger, if this was going to be your One and Only sexual experience, Jennie thought as she put her hand on the door to the bar and pushed it open, if this was going to be It, you wanted the man to be …

Was that music?

It was loud. Very loud. What was it? She had no idea. Telling Tchaikovsky from Mozart was one thing. Telling rock from rock was another.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

Maybe she was making a mistake.

Yes, the place was far from the university. She wouldn’t see anyone she knew, but what about the rest? Was it a singles

bar? Or was it—what did people call them? A tavern? A neighborhood place where people came to drink?

Such a dark street. Such an unprepossessing building. That neon sign, even the asphalt because now that she’d seen it, close-up, she could see that it was cracked …

That’s enough!

She’d talked herself out of a dozen other possibilities. She was not talking herself out of this one.

Chin up, back straight—okay, one last hand smoothing her hair, one last tug at her dress and she really should have chosen one that covered her thighs …

Jennie reached for the door, yanked it open …

And stepped into a sensory explosion.

The music pulsed off the walls, vibrated through the floor.

The smell was awful. Yeasty, kind of like rising bread dough but not as pleasant, and under it, the smell of things frying in grease.

And the noise! People shouting over the music. What sounded like hundreds of them. Not really; there weren’t hundreds of people at the long bar, at the handful of tables, but there were lots of them … And they were mostly male.

Some were wearing leather.

Maybe she’d made a mistake. Wandered into a gay …

No. These guys weren’t gay. They were—they were unattractive. Lots of facial hair. Lots of tattoos. Lots of big bellies overhanging stained jeans.

There were a few women, but that didn’t help. The women were—big. Big hair. Big boobs. Big everything.

People were looking at her.

Indeed they are, Genevieve. That’s what people do, when a woman all dressed up walks into a place like this.

Oh, God. Even her alter-ego thought she’d made a mistake!

Her heart leaped into her throat. She wanted to turn around and go right out the door.

But it was too late.

A man was walking toward her.

Not walking. Sauntering, was more accurate, his long stride slow and easy, more than a match for his lazy smile.

Her breath caught.

His eyes were dark. His hair was the color of rich, dark coffee. It was thick, and longer than a man’s hair should be, longer, anyway, than the way men in her world wore it, and she had the swift, almost overwhelming desire to bury her hands in it.

Plus, he was tall.

Tall and long and lean and muscled.

You could almost sense the hard delineation of muscle in his wide shoulders and arms and chest, and—and she was almost certain he had a—what did you call it? A six-pack, that was it. A six-pack right there, in his middle.

A middle that led down to—down to his lower middle.

To more muscle, a different kind of muscle, hidden behind faded denim …

Her cheeks burned.

Her gaze flew up again, over, what, all six foot two, six foot three of him. Flew up over worn boots, jeans that fit his long legs and narrow hips like a second skin, a T-shirt that clung to his torso.

Their eyes met.

Tall as she was, especially in the stilettos, she had to look up for that to happen.

He smiled.

Her mouth went dry. He was, in a word, gorgeous.

“Baby,” he said in a husky voice. “What took you so long?”

Huh?

Nobody knew she’d been coming here tonight. She hadn’t even known it herself, until she’d pulled into the parking lot.

“Excuse me?”

His smile became a grin. Could grins be sexy and hot? Oh yes. Yes, they could.

“Only if you ask real nice,” he said, and then, without any warning, she was in his arms and his mouth was on hers.

## CHAPTER THREE

TRAVIS LIKED WOMEN.

In bed, of course. Sex was one of life’s great pleasures. But he liked them in other ways, too.

Their scent. Their softness. Those Mona Lisa smiles that could keep a man guessing for hours, even days.

And all the things that were part of sex …

He could never have enough of those.

He knew, from years of locker-room talk, that some men saw kissing as nothing but a distraction from the main event.

Not him.

Kissing was something that deserved plenty of time. He loved exploring a woman’s taste, the silken texture of her lips, the feel of them as they parted to the demand of his.

Women liked it, too.

Enough of them had mingled their sighs with his, melted in his arms, parted their lips to the silken thrust of his tongue to convince him—why not be honest?—that he was a man skilled at the act.

Tonight, none of that mattered.

The blonde was attractive—the ruse wouldn’t work if she weren’t—but there was nothing personal involved.

Kissing her was a means to an end, a way to get him out of a confrontation in a Dallas dive to a boardroom in Frankfurt without looking as if he’d gone ten rounds in a bar exactly like this one.

The key to success? He’d known he’d have to move fast, take her by surprise, kiss her hard enough to silence any protest.

With luck, she’d go along with the game.

Far more exotic things happened in bars everywhere than a man stealing a kiss.

Besides, a woman who looked like this, who walked into a place like this, wasn’t naive.

For all he knew, she was out slumming.

A kiss from a stranger might be just the turn-on she wanted.

And if she protested, he’d play to his audience, pretend it was all about her being ticked off at him for some imagined lover’s slight.

Either way, he wasn’t going to give her, or them, a lot of time to think about it.

He’d kiss her, then hustle her outside where he could explain it had all been a game and either thank her for her cooperation or apologize for what he’d done … or maybe, just maybe, she’d laugh and what the hell, the night was still young.

Bottom line?

Kissing her was all he had to work with, so he flashed his best smile, the one that never failed to thaw a woman’s defenses, reached out, put his arms around her, gathered her in …

Her eyes widened. She slapped both hands against his chest.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Travis showed her.

He captured her lips with his.

For nothing longer than a second, he thought he was home free. Sure, she stiffened against him, said “Mmmff” or something close to it, but he could work with that.

The problem?

She went crazy in his arms.

It would have done his ego good to think she’d gone crazy with pleasure.

But she hadn’t.

She went crazy the way he’d once seen his sister Em do when she’d bent down to pick up what she’d thought was a compact and found herself, instead, with a handful of tarantula.

The blonde in his arms jerked against him. Pounded his shoulders with her fists. Said that “Mmmff” thing again and again and again …

Somebody laughed.

Somebody said, “What the hell’s he doin’?”

Somebody else said, “Damned if ah know.”

What Travis knew was that this was not good.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he snarled, his mouth a breath from Blondie’s.

“Mmmff!”

She struggled harder. Lifted her foot. Put one of those stiletto heels into his instep and it was a damn good thing he was wearing boots.

He put his lips to her ear.

“Lady. Listen to what I’m saying. I’m not—”

Big mistake.

“Help,” she yelled, or would have yelled—he could see her lips forming the sound of that “h”—so, really, what choice did he have?

He kissed her again.

This time, her knee came up.

He felt it coming, twisted to avoid it, then hung on to her for dear life.

The crowd hooted.

Jeez, was he going to be the night’s entertainment?

“Lady sure do seem happy to see you, cowboy,” the Mountain shouted.

Everybody roared with laughter.

Okay.

This called for a different approach.

Travis thrust one hand into Blondie’s hair, clamped the other at the base of her spine, tilted her backward over his arm just enough to keep her off balance and brushed his lips over hers.

Once. Twice. Three times, each time ignoring that angry Mmmff.

“Don’t fight me,” he whispered between kisses. “Just make this look real and I swear, I’ll let you go.”

No mmmff that time. Nothing but a little sighing sound …

And the softest, most delicate whisper of her breath.

“Good girl,” Travis murmured, and he changed the angle of his mouth on hers …

God, she tasted sweet.

Slowly he drew her erect. Put both hands into her hair. Kissed her a little harder.

She tasted like sunshine on a soft June morning, smelled like wildflowers after a summer rain.

His arms went around her; he gathered her against the hardness of his body, felt the softness of her breasts and belly against him.

The crowd cheered.

Travis barely heard them.

He was lost in what was happening, the feel of the woman in his arms, the race of her heart against his.

An urgency he’d never felt before raced through him.

He was on fire.

So was she.

She was trembling. Whimpering. She was—

Sweet Lord.

The truth hit. Hard. She wasn’t on fire for him, she was terrified.

She hadn’t acquiesced to his kisses, she’d stopped fighting them.

What kind of SOB did this to a woman? Scared the life out of her, and all to save his own sorry ass?

All at once, the trip to Frankfurt lost its meaning. He was a financial wizard but what he really was, was a gambler. He’d lost money before; he’d lose it again.

Millions were on the line.

So what?

When had winning become so important he’d use someone—not just “someone” but a woman—to make sure the dice rolled the way he wanted?

He lifted his head. Looked down into the face of the woman in his arms.

His gut twisted.

Her skin was pale, the color all but completely drained away. Her breathing was swift; he could see the rapid pulse fluttering in her throat. Her eyes—her eyes, he knew, would haunt him forever. They were beautiful eyes, but now they had turned dark with fear.

“Oh, honey,” he said softly.

She shook her head. “Don’t,” she said in a tiny whisper. “Please. Don’t—”

He kissed her again, but lightly, tenderly, his lips barely moving against hers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never meant to frighten you.”

There was a whisper of sound behind him. He was giving the game away. Screw it. Screw whatever would happen next. All he wanted was to get that look of fear off the blonde’s lovely face.

“Lovely” didn’t come close.

That cloud of silken hair. The dark blue eyes. The soft, rosy mouth.

She was still shaking.

No way was he going to let that continue.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I never intended to hurt you.” Her face registered disbelief, and Travis shook his head. “It’s the truth, honey. This was never about you. Not the way you think.” He framed her face with his hands, raised it just a little so he was looking directly into her eyes. “I ran into a problem. With some people here.”

“Damn right,” the Mountain growled.

Travis heard him hawk up a glob of spit, heard it hit the floor.

The blonde looked past his shoulder, her eyes widening. She looked at Travis again. Two slender parallel lines appeared between her eyebrows.

“See, I told them I was waiting for my date—”

“Thass what he said,” one of the Mountain’s pals said. “But we knew he was lyin’—an’ we know what to do with liars.”

A loud rumble of assent greeted the proclamation.

The blonde’s gaze swept past Travis again. Her eyes filled with comprehension.

“And then,” Travis said, ignoring the interruption, “then, the door opened and you walked in. One look and I knew that you were right for me, that you were perfect, that you were—”

“The woman you’d been waiting for,” the blonde said, very softly.

He smiled, a little sadly because there was no question how this was going down. The only thing he needed to do now was get her safely out of here because however she’d come to be at this bar tonight, she was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Exactly right, honey. You were just the woman I’d have waited for, and—”

The blonde put her finger over his lips.

“Of course I was,” she said, her voice louder now, loud enough to carry to the men behind Travis. “How foolish of you to think that I wasn’t going to keep our date, just because I showed up a bit late.”

This time, Travis was the one whose eyes widened.

“What?”

“I was angry, I admit. That quarrel we had last week? About—about me thinking you’d been with another woman?” She smiled. “I know I was wrong. You wouldn’t cheat on me, not ever.”

For mercy’s sake, man, say something!

“Uh—uh, no. I mean, you’re right. I wouldn’t. Cheat on you. Ever.”

She nodded.

“But I couldn’t just admit that.” Another smile, this one half-vixen, half-innocent. “It’s against all the precepts of male-female genetically-transmitted courtship behavior.”

The what?

“So I decided to keep you waiting tonight. Let you cool your heels a little, kind of wonder if I was going to show up.” Another smile, this one so hot and sexy Travis felt his knees go weak. “And you did wonder, didn’t you? About me and how I’d deal with our date this evening.”

Travis tried to answer. Nothing happened. He cleared his throat and tried again.

“Yes. Right. I surely did. Wonder, I mean, about how you’d deal with our—”

“And you reacted to perfection! Every single DNA-coded response was in evidence. Machismo. Dominance. Aggression. Even an attempt at territorial marking.”

Territorial marking. Wasn’t that about male dogs peeing on trees?

“I am so pleased,” she said, “that you’ve proved the tenets of my paper.”

“Your paper.”

“Oh, yes, exactly! The way you reacted on seeing me, the way you dealt with my less-than-warm greeting …”

There was a hum behind him. Whispers. Snorts. Laughter.

It was, without question, time to move on.

Travis nodded. “That’s great. It’s terrific. But I really think we should discuss the rest of it out—”

“Why, sugar,” the blonde all but purred, “don’t tell me you’re upset by learning you’ve helped my research!”

Not just laughter, but a couple of deep guffaws greeted that pronouncement.

Definitely time, Travis thought, holding his smile as he took the blonde by the elbow and marched her to the door.

Halfway there, Jennie’s alter-ego snickered.

Should have quit while you were ahead, Genevieve, it said.

Indeed, Jennie thought. She should have.

The stranger who’d kissed her was hurrying her toward the door.

Maybe she’d taken this a bit too far.

She had, if the look on the man’s face was any indication.

His eyes were cool. Slate-cool, and a little scary. His mouth—she knew all about his mouth, the warmth of it, the possessive feel of it, the taste—his mouth was curved in what was surely a phony smile, and he was hustling her along at breakneck speed.

Still, he’d deserved that last little jibe.

Saving him from being torn apart by that bunch of—of stone-age savages was one thing, but she couldn’t just let him get away with what he’d done.

He’d scared the life half out of her, grabbing her, kissing her, dragging her up against his body.

And, yes, she’d come out tonight for—for that knowledge of men, of kisses, of hard bodies but she’d wanted it done on her own terms, at her own pace, with her doing the choosing of the man who’d—who’d complete her research.

A man in a suit. A successful executive, someone who could be trusted to be gentle with a woman. Not a—a rough-and-ready cowboy in boots and a T-shirt and faded jeans.

Stop complaining. You wanted gorgeous, and gorgeous is what he is.

Yes. But still—

“Y’all come back soon,” a voice called.

A roar of laughter followed the words.

She felt the cowboy stiffen beside her. His fingers dug into her elbow hard enough to make her gasp.

“Hey,” she said indignantly, “hey—”

He flung the door open, stepped outside, but he didn’t let go of her. Instead he frog-marched her through the parking lot to the enormous black pickup parked next to her Civic.

“Mister. I am not—”

“Are you okay?”

Jennie blinked. There was concern in his voice, and it wasn’t what she’d expected.

“No. Yes. I guess …”

“That was a close call. You were doin’ fine, until the end.” He grinned. “Had to zing me a little, right? Not that I blame you.”

“You? Blame me?” Indignation colored her voice. “Listen, mister—”

“Truth is, we probably got out just in time.”

So much for indignation, which didn’t stand a chance against confusion.

“In time for what?” Jennie said. “What was going on back there?”

“It’s kind of complicated.” The cowboy smiled. This time, that smile was real. “Thanks for digging me out of a deep, dark hole.”

“Well, well, you’re welcome. I guess. I just don’t understand what—”

“It’s not worth going into. It was a mix-up, was all.”

He smiled again. Jennie’s heart leaped. Did he have any idea how devastatingly sexy that smile was?

She told herself to say something. Anything. Gawking at him wasn’t terribly sophisticated. But then, what would he know about sophistication? The boots, the jeans, the hard muscles …

Everything about him was hard.

The muscled chest. The taut abdominals. The—the male part of him that she’d felt press against her belly just before he’d stopped kissing her …

That’s the girl, her alter ego said.

Jennie swallowed dryly.

Her brain was going in half a dozen directions at once.

“You—you really had no right to—to just walk up to me and … and—”

“—and kiss you?”

She felt herself blush.

“Yes. Exactly. Even in the most highly sexualized primitive cultures, there’s a certain decorum involved in expressing desire …”

His smile tilted.

“Is there,” he said.

It wasn’t a question—it was a statement. And the way he was looking at her …

She took a quick step back.

Or she would have taken a quick step back, but the shiny black truck was right behind her.

“The point is,” she said, trying to focus on why she was angry at him, “you shouldn’t have done what you did.”

“Kissed you, without so much as a ‘hello.’”

“Right. Precisely. The proper protocol, prior to intimacy—”

Jennie stopped in mid-sentence. She sounded like an idiot. Even her alter-ego had crept away in embarrassment.

“Never mind,” she said quickly. “It’s late. And I—”

“Travis,” he said. “Travis Wilde.”

She stared at him. “Pardon me?”

He smiled. Again. And her heart jumped again.

“My name.” His voice had gone low and husky. “I’m introducing myself. That would have been the proper protocol, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“And your name is …?”

“Oh.”

She swallowed hard. Again. She was not good at this. At male-female banter. At any of it.

“I could call you Blondie.” He reached out, caught a strand of her hair between his fingers, smoothed its silken length. “Or Neiman Marcus.”

“What?” Jennie looked down at herself. “Is the dress tag show—”

“That’s how you look,” he said softly. “As if you just stepped out of their catalogue. Their Christmas catalogue, the one that always has the prettiest things in it.”

Her knees were going to buckle.

His voice was like a caress.

His eyes were like hot coals.

He was—he was just what she’d been looking for, hoping for—

“But I’d rather call you by your real name, if you’ll tell it to me.”

“It’s Jen … It’s Genevieve,” she whispered. “My name is Genevieve.”

“Well, Genevieve, you did a foolish thing tonight.”

God, she could feel herself blushing again!

“Listen here, Mr. Wills—”

“Wilde. Travis Wilde.”

“Listen here, Mr. Wilde. I only let you kiss me after I realized you were going to get killed if I didn’t!”

He chuckled.

Even his chuckle was sexy.

“I was talking about you going into that bar in the first place.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, for sure. You have any idea what kind of bunch you were dealing with back there?”

“I—I—” Jennie sighed. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. But it’s lucky for me you walked in.”

“It certainly is,” she said, lifting her chin. “Or you’d be just another stain on that already-stained floor.”

He grinned. “Yeah, but a happy stain.”

“That’s so typical! Men and their need to assert power through dominance—”

“Men and their need to save their tails, honey. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have bothered, but I have something going down Monday, and the last thing I need is to show up lookin’ like the winner of a bare-knuckles fight.”

“You couldn’t have won. There were too many of them.”

“Of course I could have won,” he said, so easily that she knew he meant it.

A little tremor went through her.

She’d come out tonight in search of a man. And she’d found one. But he was—he was more than she’d anticipated.

More than handsome.

More than sexy.

More than macho.

And more than everything you’d want in bed, her alter-ego purred.

Jennie tried to step back again.

“Well,” she said brightly, “it’s been—it’s been interesting, Mr. Wilde. Now, if you don’t mind—”

“About those protocols,” he said, his voice low, his tone husky, “have we met them all?”

“The what?”

“The protocols. The ones needed before any kind of intimacy.”

The woman named Genevieve blushed.

Again.

She did that, a lot.

Travis liked it.

Would her face and breasts turn that same shade of soft pink during sex? Would her eyes lock on his the way they were now, dark and wide but filled with passion instead confusion?

Crazy as it was, the fate of the world seemed to hinge on learning the answer.

“Because if we’ve met those protocols,” he said, moving closer, flattening his palms against the cab of the truck so that his arms encased her, “I’d like to take the next step.”

“What next—what next—”

He looked into her eyes. Looked at her lips. Gave her a second to figure out what was coming.

“No,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said, and in what seemed like slow motion, he, lowered his head to hers and took her mouth.

Her lips parted. His tongue slipped between them. Her heart banged into her throat. The taste of him, the feel of him inside her mouth …

Ohmygod, she thought, oh—my—God!

He groaned.

His arms went around her.

Hers rose and wound around his neck.

She pressed herself against him. And gasped.

He was hard as a rock.

She wanted to rub against him. Wanted to move her hips against his. Wanted to—to—

He lifted her off the ground, one arm around her waist, the other just below her backside. Her face was on a level with his; he kissed her slowly, caught her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked on her flesh, and—and—

A dazzling jolt of pure desire shot through her, the same as it had for one amazing moment in the bar, when her fear and indignation had given way to something very, very different. Something she’d refused to admit, even to herself.

“Wait,” she whispered, but he didn’t and she didn’t want him to wait, didn’t want anything to wait even though this wasn’t going according to plan.

He set her down, slowly, on her feet.

Don’t stop, she thought.

He didn’t.

He put his hands on her.

On her hips, bringing her, hard, against his erection.

On her breasts, oh, on her breasts, his thumbs dancing with tantalizing slowness over her nipples.