by Raine Miller
“You must be extremely good shots.” Annie’s tone reeked with sexual interest that had to be faked. A Main Line heiress, Annie didn’t date guys like TweedleDumb and TweedleDumbass. She had to be milking them for all they were worth. Her next question confirmed it.
“So was Dominic with you on this little jaunt?”
No, he wasn’t going to throttle her. He was going to spank her. Put her over his knee and smack that gorgeous ass that teased him day in and day out until she begged.
He nearly ground his back teeth into dust at the image.
Damn it, why? Why this woman? Why did she tie him in so many damn knots he couldn’t see straight?
Why couldn’t he want the divorced shop owner down the street? She knew the score, had a great smile and a nice ass.
Annie… Annie was just plain out of his league.
“Nic, man, he was ruthless. Must’ve taken out eight or ten guys by himself. The man’s a machine.”
Okay, now they were really starting to piss him off. There had been nine guys total and he’d only taken down three. Four at the most.
Fuck. He should’ve shut this down the second he realized what was going on.
He’d been waiting in his third-floor apartment, pissed off at her again for…something. Hell, he didn’t even remember what the hell he’d been angry about.
Whatever it was, she’d lashed into him with the icy precision of her tongue and told him exactly what he could do to cool down, which included a part of his anatomy that had no business being anywhere near a meat grinder.
Her anger, on top of the phone call he’d gotten earlier today, had forced him to find a hole to crawl into before he said or did something totally stupid.
So he’d made a strategic retreat to his apartment, figuring it’d be safe to return downstairs to the offices around seven o’clock, fifteen minutes before the Idiot Twins were set to arrive. Annie usually left the office by six. She never stayed later than six-thirty.
At seven, he’d taken the back stairs to the first floor. He’d heard the men’s voices and cursed himself for not realizing they’d try something stupid—like show up early. Then he’d cursed her for picking this one night to stay late.
Now she was trapped in a room with the type of man she despised—men exactly like him.
His first instinct had been to barge in and smack two redneck heads together. Annie shouldn’t have to deal their shit. She was the office manager, not a goddamn babysitter for two assholes who should know better than to harass a woman like her.
Instead, he’d hesitated, trying to wrestle down his inner caveman.
Rationally, he knew she wasn’t in any physical danger. The Idiot Twins might be idiots but they’d never hurt a woman unless she was holding a knife to their balls. And even then, they’d go for the knock-out and not the kill shot.
And he knew if he barged in, Annie would be pissed off at him—again—for thinking she couldn’t take care of herself.
He couldn’t win. Not with her. And he never would.
“So, what can I do for you gentlemen tonight?” she asked.
Bert snorted. “Honey, you’re one of the most beautiful women we’ve seen in ages and there are so many ways I could answer that question but I have a feeling we wouldn’t leave here with all our appendages attached.”
Fuck. White-hot fury made every single one of Nic’s muscles tighten to the point of pain.
He was going to fucking kill them. Just as soon as he got them away from her.
Annie laughed but Nic heard tension creeping into her voice. “Thank you for the compliment but I have no idea why you’d believe I’d have such bloodthirsty designs on your…appendages.”
Nic knew exactly why Bert had said that and, when he had these two guys alone, he was going to—
No. Damn it, just no.
Grabbing hold of his fast-fading control, Nic took a deep breath before easing through his office door, sticking his gun in the back of his jeans where it wouldn’t be visible.
At least, Annie wouldn’t know he had it on him. The Idiot Twins knew different.
Closing the distance to Annie’s office, he stopped to the left of the door, still undetected. Then, reaching for as much patience as he could muster, he put on his game face and walked into the room.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, guys. My office is back here. Why don’t you two come on through?”
The men turned, smirks on their faces. Not at all surprised to see him. Of course, they’d known he was there all the time. There was a reason Nic did business with them.
Of course, if they said another word, Nic was going to have to hurt them. And he didn’t want to do that in front of Annie.
Then both guys broke out in baby-faced grins, looking so much like harmless, cornfed farm boys that Nic wanted to roll his eyes. It helped that they’d been raised on farms before they’d joined the Army. Now they only pulled out that look when it worked to their benefit.
And they’d been using it on Annie.
His gaze tangled with hers and, for a split-second, she looked happy to see him. Every ounce of testosterone in his body flared like hot lava. And all of his blood wanted to rush south and show her exactly what he wanted to do with her.
“Dominic. There you are.” Her tone was light but now her smile held faint disdain. She’d perfected that look in the past six weeks she’d been here. “Your friends were just telling me about one of their adventures. I understand you were part of their little escapade.”
Nic’s head tilted back as he forced down a smile. Damn but he loved the sound of her voice, even when she was putting him in his place. Beneath her shoe.
Bill, the goon nearest Annie, drew himself up to his full six-foot-six height. He towered over her not-inconsiderable five-eleven in stiletto heels that made her legs look amazing.
“Hey, Nic, you up for some fun tonight? Maybe you could convince your pretty little secretary to come with us, yeah?”
Nic’s gaze never left Annie. Pretty didn’t cut it. She was beautiful. And he didn’t just mean run-of-the-mill pretty. He meant Grace-Kelly-perfect beautiful.
Her white-blond hair, normally constrained in a tight twist on the back of her head, hung around her shoulders in loose waves tonight. It framed a face that, when taken in pieces, was just a little off: her mouth too wide, her eyes too large, nose too straight. But when you put them all together, they equaled knockout.
And she had the pedigree to go along with the looks. Annie was an honest-to-God descendent of British royalty whose family had settled in America about the same time as Ben Franklin. Her family had ties to Carnegies and duPonts and Rockefellers and her grandfather had made his own fortune in real estate, most of which he’d left to Annie.
She was nearly ten years younger than he was and worth about two-hundred times what he could hope to make in his lifetime. And he’d been trying to convince himself for years that he couldn’t think of Andrea Reed as anything other than unattainable.
Leaning against the doorjamb, he ignored commonsense and let himself look, even though he knew it would piss her off even more. “Looks like she’s got other plans.”
She’d changed sometime in the past two hours, and he was having a hard time keeping his tongue in his mouth.
Normally, she wore suits to work—suits with too-short skirts and little lacey things under the jackets. God forbid she ever wear a real shirt.
Now, she wore a dancer’s black bodysuit, cut low over her small breasts and molded to every curve from shoulders to knees, and a filmy, pale-pink skirt that didn’t hide an inch of her mile-long legs. And the pink, half sweater she’d tied under her breasts emphasized instead of covering.
Was she still taking the ballet lessons that had been her passion in high school? He’d seen her dance once. At a recital with his sister, Janey. She’d been eighteen and he swore he’d had a hard-on until he’d been shipped out to Afghanistan a few weeks later.
“She looks pretty hot to me.”
Bert leered, trying to straighten his height-restricted body to at least five-nine. And failing by an inch. “You’re up for a good time, aren’t you, honey?”
With her gaze still holding his, Annie blinked once, and Nic swore he felt her shiver, even though he stood two yards away.
She was furious but you had to know her to see the signs. To the other men, she appeared cool as ice—a thoroughbred who should be attending some charity function instead of working in a private investigators’ office in center-city Philadelphia. Instead, here she stood, nose stuck in the air, staring him down.
Furious he could handle. If she ever looked at him with anything resembling lust—
Hell, it would never happen.
Her smile nearly cracked her lips with the strain. “Thank you for such a kind offer but I really have to be going.”
“Yeah, you need to be in early tomorrow.” Nic couldn’t help but needle her. “Can’t be late again, sweetheart.”
His taunt had exactly the effect he’d intended. Her eyes widened at his challenge.
“Actually, I’m meeting someone in about…” She lifted a graceful arm to peer at the diamond-studded watch on her wrist, “twenty minutes. I wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”
He frowned then quickly wiped it away. Janey had told him Annie was dating some attorney who worked in an old family firm in Society Hill. Someone more suited to her position.
Jesus, the positions he’d like to put her in…
Asshole. Never gonna happen.
He knew he should keep his mouth shut. And lost the battle before it began.
“Especially not little rich boys with lots of money, hmm?”
Her lips curled just the slightest bit at the corners. “Especially those. They don’t get as cranky as old men when they don’t get their way.”
Nic didn’t know whether to laugh or strangle her. Before he could do either, Bill took his life in his hands.
“Oh, honey, I think you know ole Dominic here pretty damn well. Seems he hasn’t changed much since the last time we saw him.”
He knew he should take offense to that but Annie had started walking toward him. And he couldn’t see or hear anything but her.
His breath froze in his lungs, his body tense at the mere thought that she was coming closer. She was so fucking dangerous to his health but, Jesus, she was stunning. Had been since she’d turned eighteen and grown into that long, lean body.
He hadn’t allowed himself to touch her then. Now, she’d rip out his eyes if he tried.
But damn, it might be worth it.
“I’ll just say goodnight then.”
Stopping mere inches away, she barely had to tilt her head back to look him in the eyes. With those heels, she was only a couple of inches shorter than him. She never dropped his gaze and he didn’t have a clue what she was up to when she leaned forward.
“Sleep on this, Dominic.”
Before he could move, she stretched up on her toes and whispered her lips across his.
The light touch lasted only a second and their bodies touched nowhere else.
But his lips burned from the heat of hers and his blood bubbled. Her scent, sexy and spicy and designed to drive him mad, flooded his senses and made him want to grab her and flatten her against him so he could shove his nose in her neck and breathe her in. And when he couldn’t hold onto his control any longer, he’d bend her back and kiss the living hell out of her.
Instead, he stood still as stone.
Then she walked away, leaving him with a hissing roar in his ears.
Holy hell. She’d kissed him.
Annie hadn’t voluntarily touched him in at least seven years. Definitely not since she’d grown into the poised woman who ran this office so efficiently, better even than his sister.
A long, low whistle from Bert drew him back to reality.
Clenching his hands at his sides, Nic willed away the sense of disorientation. He couldn’t afford it. Damn it, it should take a hell of a lot more than a kiss from a woman to make his head spin.
The bang of the front door closing with more force than normal jolted through him.
Holy hell, she’d kissed him.
The desire he’d kept shoved in a dark hole in his gut for years began to bubble through his blood.
He wasn’t going to spank her. He didn’t trust himself to touch her because if he did, he didn’t think he’d ever let her go.
No, he needed to scare the hell out of her so she wouldn’t come near him again.
But first…
He narrowed his gaze on the men in front of him. Bert and Bill got quiet so fast, it would’ve been comical if he’d been in a laughing mood.
“Now,” he said. “We have business.”
*** * *
“That man is a menace to society. I just want to smack him.”
Annie quelled the impulse to stomp her foot in frustration, settling instead for tossing her hair over her shoulders as she held out her arms to her partner. “He just pushes and pushes and pushes until I break. He’s a Neanderthal.”
“Is this going to make sense soon? Or are you going to rant all night?”
Colin Travers smirked at her, laughter in his blue eyes as he swept her into a rumba. Perfectly matched for size, they danced together as if they’d been made for each other but Annie couldn’t concentrate on the music throbbing through the open space. She couldn’t find her rhythm because her head still reeled from that kiss.
Well, you couldn’t really call it a kiss. More like an almost-kiss. She hadn’t even meant to touch him. She’d only meant to tease, show him what he was missing and what he’d never have.
Well, that backfired royally, didn’t it?
Why the hell had she done it? For the past seven years, she hadn’t laid so much as a finger on him. Tonight …
God, tonight she might have done something irrevocable.
Not that Nic cared, of course. He hadn’t felt a thing, she was sure.
“I am not ranting.” She sniffed. “Well, maybe a little. He just…makes me so angry.”
And that was dangerous. Anger meant he was getting to her and that was not an option. Never again.
Colin changed direction and did a spot turn into a samba. “Are you actually going to tell me why you’re so angry or do I just have to guess?”
No way would she say anything about that kiss. “He met some friends at the office tonight.” She made an awkward transition into a forward progressive walk and shook her head. “Some very distasteful friends.”
Colin’s left brow rose as they continued around the empty floor. The Broad Street dance studio was deserted by nine on Wednesday nights, so they could practice in solitude.
“You mean women.”
Her teeth set with a click. “That wouldn’t have bothered me.” Liar. She spun on her toe and lay back. “No, these were two men who should be relegated to a prison somewhere in the future. They reminded me of guys from that movie you made me watch. You know, the one with Kurt Russell.”
“Escape From New York.”
“Yes.” She shook her hair back as he lifted her out of the dip. “They gave me the most incredible creeps.”
They’d stared at her like she’d been a meal spread out for their benefit and they were going to enjoy every last crumb. But they hadn’t scared her. Not with Nic there. She knew Nic would never let anything happen to her.
And Nic didn’t scare her either. She refused to consider what she did feel for him—
Colin gave her the signal for another dip and she quickly positioned her feet before she fell.
“Jesus, Colin, are you trying to drop me on my ass tonight?”
Colin brought her upright and released her, giving her a look she knew so well. The look that made her want to cringe. “You’re making it pretty easy tonight, doll.”
She bit back a response because, damn it, he was right. She was the one with the problem. One wrong move and she could injure them both and they couldn’t
afford that, not so close to the competition. “Sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, my mind’s not on this tonight. I’m just so furious with him.”
“I think I got that the first time.” Colin grinned, taking her in his arms again and leading her effortlessly across the floor in a series of intricate footwork. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this worked up over a guy.” He slowed to a waltz and stared at her until she looked away. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen you expend this much energy on anyone. What does this guy look like, anyway? You’ve never told me.”
Like a Roman God. The sexiest man on the planet. The only man I’ve ever really wanted.
She bit back the words before they escaped. Colin would never let her live them down. And then he’d want her to do something about it.
And that wasn’t going to happen.
Even if Nic was the most handsome man she’d ever met.
Broad, handsome features and intense navy-blue eyes that burned when he was angry. Like tonight. He’d been pissed. But at her or his friends, she wasn’t sure.
He’d been trying to keep the anger from getting away from him but the faint scars on his forehead and cheek whitened slightly when he suppressed his anger. Those scars didn’t detract from his appeal at all. They only added to it.
As did the raven-black hair that curled as it reached his shoulders. She wondered if it was as soft as she remembered from the one and only time she’d kissed him before. The mustache and beard framing his lush mouth had rasped against her skin, seductively rough, and she’d wanted to feel it brushing against her skin on other parts of her body.
For seven years after that kiss, she’d made a point to go out of her way to avoid him.
And tonight, she’d walked up to him and brushed her lips against his.
What the hell had possessed her?
She hadn’t meant to stay so late but, when she’d taken over as office manager of DeMarco Investigations, she’d committed to doing the best job she could. She wouldn’t let the DeMarcos down. They were just as much her family as her mother. Sometimes even more so—