License to Thrill

by Lori Wilde

  Nothing to worry about. No commitment to fret over. Their mating had been about sex and putting her fears behind her and letting go of her unrealistic expectations about love and romance and intimacy.

  Congratulating herself, she padded into the bathroom and then caught sight of her reflection in the mirror from the flicker of candlelight.

  She stepped closer for a better look. Her eyes sparked, her skin radiated with a satisfied sheen, her hair was a sexy, mussed mess.

  Casual sex looks good on you.

  But bedroom escapades aside, together they mixed like…well… caviar and peanut butter. She’d learned the hard way—thank you very much for that painful lesson, Gregory—the class caste system was alive and well in the good old USA. Hadn’t Maybelline always sworn this was gospel? Mason came from the haves and’ she came from the have-nots and never the twain shall meet.

  Outside of hot sex that is.

  And even if he couldn’t see that, Charlee most certainly could.

  She finished up in the bathroom, blew out the candles, and then tiptoed back to bed. Mason lay on his side facing toward her, his features relaxed in quiet repose. He looked so darned handsome she caught her breath and held it. She studied him a moment. Thick lashes shadowed his cheekbones and strands of short black hair spiked straight up. His tanned skin contrasted sharply with the white cotton sheets and caused her pulse to jump crazily. God, but he was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever had in her bed.

  She felt like a proud huntress who’d brought home the juiciest cut of beef. She felt like Aphrodite churned from the sea. She felt like Venus de Milo with arms.

  She’d claimed her sexuality and liberated her heart. Triumphant, Charlee crawled up into the bed beside him, spooned her fanny against him, and for the sweet short moment before she fell asleep convinced herself that everything was going to be just fine.

  A few minutes later his fingers reached out and he gently caressed her cheek. The fine hairs on the nape of her neck lifted and her body heated as quick as microwaved leftovers. She threw in the towel. After all, they’d already made love once. At this point, how much more damage could another round do?

  A repeated pounding on the door tugged Mason from an exquisite dream about Charlee. He yawned, stretched, rolled over, and collided with a warm, soft body.

  Blinking, he rubbed his eyes and then took another look.

  Charlee. Snoring softly and totally oblivious to the racket outside their room.

  That was no dream. The movie playing over and over in his slumbering brain was the real deal.

  They’d made love.

  Not once.

  Not twice.

  But three incredible times.

  The insistent pounding continued. Probably an overly ambitious member of the Grand Piazza’s housekeeping staff, he decided and slid out on the other side of the bed. If Charlee could sleep through that racket, more power to her.

  Yawning again, he retrieved a plush terry-cloth robe from the bathroom, tied the sash around his waist, and ran his fingers through his hair to tidy it before he went to open the door.

  It took a good two seconds to register that his fiancée-to-be was standing on the other side looking rather disgruntled. Quickly, he moved to block her view of the bedroom and Charlee.

  “Skeet Hammersmitz, I presume,” Daphne said, her voice as cold and sharp as an ice pick.

  Every hair on her head was perfectly arranged. Not a speck of lint dared to rest on her tailored suit. And even at eight thirty-five on a Saturday morning, her makeup was artfully applied.

  “D-Daphne,” he stammered, guilty as sin. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  They just stared at each other, her ice blue eyes the temperature of an igloo.

  “I’m guessing you saw the Newlywed Game.”

  “Are you going to let me in, or do we have to discuss our relationship in the hallway?” Daphne raised one razor-thin eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Mason?” Charlee called sleepily from behind him. “Is that room service? How sweet of you to order breakfast.”

  Ulp.

  Every man’s worst nightmare. The moment when your soon-to-be ex-girlfriend comes face-to-face with the woman you can’t get out of your mind.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new ‘wife’?” Daphne asked in a voice as frosty as a Siberian tomb at the same time Charlee came up behind him tying the sash to her robe.

  “I hope you ordered Belgian waffles. I love Belgian waffles.” Her tone was as light and airy as Daphne’s was heavy and frigid. She touched his waist and peered around his shoulder at Daphne. “Oh,” she said. “You’re not room service.”

  Daphne glared at Mason. “Do we have to do this in the corridor?” she repeated. “You know how I hate a public scene.”

  “What’s happening?” Charlee looked at him, bewildered.

  Mason could not hold her gaze. The consequences of what he’d done whacked him in the gut with the impact of a wrecking ball taking down a Vegas casino.

  Must minimalize guilt, his basic male instinct screamed. Pretend this is normal. Pretend you haven’t just made love with the right woman for all the wrong reasons while you’re almost engaged to the wrong woman for all the right reasons.

  Mason ushered Daphne across the threshold. “Daphne, this is Charlee Champagne. Charlee, Daphne Maxwell.”

  “I thought her name was Violet.”

  “No. It’s a long story.”

  “I’m all ears,” Daphne said.

  “Who are you again?” Charlee asked.

  “How do you do?” Daphne extended her hand to Charlee. “I’m Mason’s fiancée.”

  Since he was intently studying the wainscoting along the ceiling, Mason felt rather than saw Charlee’s jaw drop.

  “F-f-fiancée?”

  He swallowed hard, jammed his fingers through his hair, and forced himself to look at her. The pain he saw reflected in her eyes just about killed him.

  “Daphne and I are not officially engaged,” he denied, knowing he sounded for all the world like a kid who was trying to have his birthday cake and eat it too.

  “We’ve been dating for three years,” Daphne said. “We’ve talked about getting married. We’ve even priced houses together. I call his parents Mother and Father. You, my dear girl, are nothing but a road-trip fling and if you were fantasizing about landing yourself a rich man, then honey, you were sadly mistaken.”

  Mason braced himself for Charlee’s outrage. Would she go for his jugular? Scratch his eyes from his head? Pull out her gun and shoot him? Actually, shooting was too good for him. He’d behaved badly and he knew it. He’d led her on, he’d allowed himself to give into his lust, he’d hurt her and there was nothing he could say or do to alter that fact.

  “You don’t owe me an explanation. I’m just the one-night stand.” She blithely waved a hand.

  “Charlee…” He opened his mouth but he had no idea what he was going to say. He couldn’t promise her anything. His own life was in turmoil. His grandfather was missing and he was more confused than he’d ever been in his life. “You weren’t a one-night stand.”

  “Hey, listen.” Charlee shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I mean, I gotta confess, you took me off guard. You didn’t strike me as the sort of guy to cheat on your fiancée.”

  “Honey,” Daphne said sarcastically, “all men are the sort to cheat on their fiancées.”

  “She’s not my fiancée,” Mason protested feebly.

  “This fight really needs to be between the two of you.” Charlee picked up Violet’s suitcase. She opened it on the bed and started rummaging through the contents. “Last night was great, Mason, I gotta confess. Really righteous. But if you thought it meant more to me than just sex, then you’re dead wrong.”

  On the surface she seemed extremely calm. Impulsive, headstrong Charlee composed and in control?

  That’s when he noticed her hand was trembling
oh-so-slightly. It was eerie to witness and that tiny tremor told him far more than a temper tantrum would have. She was hurt. To the quick.

  He felt sick to his stomach. He disgusted himself.

  She retrieved an outfit from the suitcase and marched into the bathroom to get dressed. Mason watched her go, his heart sinking to his feet.

  Daphne tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to look at her. She pursed her lips in a disapproving frown. He never noticed before how petulant she looked when things didn’t go her way.

  “If you come home with me to Houston right this very minute then I’m willing to forget all this ever happened. Every man deserves to sow his wild oats before settling down.”

  “Daphne, my grandfather is still missing.”

  “Well, that’s not my problem now, is it?” She sank her hands on her hips. “I’ve already booked our return flight. The plane leaves in three hours.”

  “You had no right to do that.”

  “And you had no right to use your grandfather as a excuse for a quickee with trailer trash.”

  Mason fisted his hands. “Don’t you dare call he$$$ that.”

  “What? The truth hurts? You go slumming, darling. $$$ you have to expect to acquire a few fleas.”

  Charlee popped back out of the bathroom wearing another one of Violet’s short skirts, a very tight T-shirt embossed with the word “Hellraiser,” and her own neon$$ blue cowboy boots. Mason’s eyes were immediately drawn to her long, shapely legs and his heart hitched when he saw her knees were trembling too.

  What had he done?

  “Good-bye you two.” Charlee flung her purse over her shoulder. “Have a nice life.”

  “Charlee, wait.” Mason started after her, totally forgetting he was in his bathrobe. “You can’t go out there alone. Remember the armed men in the Malibu.”

  “If I can handle a night with you, I can handle those two,” she said flippantly and tossed her hair over her shoulder.

  Her casual dismissal sliced into him and left him hemorrhaging. Had he meant nothing more than a sexual conquest? And why did that thought upset him so? Wasn’t it what he thought he’d wanted?

  No, he realized miserably. It wasn’t what he wanted. Not at all. He wanted more. So much more he couldn’t keep all the thoughts in his head at once.

  He had to talk to her. Tell her what he was feeling. Hash this thing out.

  “Come back here,” he demanded.

  She ignored him, squared her shoulders in that defensive little gesture of hers, and sashayed out the door. Mason grappled for the clothes he’d worn the day before, snatching Skeet’s beige walking shorts up off the $oor and trying to stuff both legs in at the same time. He ended up losing his balance and toppling over into the bed. The sheets still smelled erotically of the sex he had shared with Charlee.

  “If you follow her,” Daphne threatened, “not only is it over between us, but I’m pulling strings with Birkweilder. I have the influence to get him to cancel his account with Gentry Enterprises and you know it.”

  Mason met Daphne’s cold, calculating stare. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Oh, just try me. My contacts got you the deal, I can pull it whenever I want.”

  He clenched his teeth, surprised to discover he utterly did not care. “Do whatever you think you have to do, Daphne. I’m sorry, but it’s over between us.”

  CHAPTER 16

  She’d done it again. She’d fallen for another wealthy, long-legged, brown-eyed, handsome man.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Would she ever learn her lesson? Was she doomed to keep tumbling for the wrong guys? What in the hell was the matter with her?

  The tears she’d managed to hold at bay back there in the hotel room tracked miserably down her cheeks. Angrily, Charlee scrubbed at them with the back of her hand.

  Last night she’d deluded herself. Pretending that it was just physical between them, that she could keep her feelings in check, when she had simply been repeating her same old destructive patterns of getting involved with unobtainable men.

  Secretly she had allowed herself to believe that Mason was different from the other men she had known and now she’d found out the truth. He was worse than the rest. The man was engaged.

  Well, not officially, protested a tiny voice in the back of her head. The same stupid voice that had led her willy-nilly into his bed.

  It didn’t matter. He was a cheat and a liar. And he’d used her. Just like Gregory had.

  Bastard.

  Ahem, you seduced him.

  Yeah but she’d been drunk on champagne.

  Excuses, excuses.

  She stalked down the palm-tree-lined street, her boot heels smacking against the sidewalk.

  A group of guys in a Jeep drove by, honking at her and issuing crude catcalls, but she ignored them. Her anger was finely focused.

  Jerk. Nimrod. Dillhole.

  Her first impression of Mason had been the right one. Ruthless heartbreaker.

  More tears streamed down her face. Dammit. Why couldn’t she stop crying?

  Because you fell in love with him.

  No way. Nuh-huh. She was not in love with him.

  In lust? Yes. Oh, baby, was she in lust. But she did not love him. She couldn’t love him. She wouldn’t let herself. She was not going through that kind of heartache again.

  Not after being disappointed by her father and then treated badly by the likes of Tommy Ledbetter and Vincent Keneer and Gregory Blankensonship.

  She was through. Done. Finished with men. Maybelline had the right idea all along. Men were worthless scoundrels, the lot of them.

  Charlee was so busy mentally berating men in general and Mason Gentry in particular, she blocked out all external stimuli. She didn’t hear the seagulls cawing overhead. She didn’t smell the scent of coffee and pastries from the bakery she passed. She didn’t taste the salt of her tears as they slipped over her lips. She didn’t feel the breeze lifting the hairs on her arm.

  And she didn’t see the white Chevy Malibu slinking down the street behind her.

  Mason tore out of the Beverly Hills Grand Piazza as if his hair had been dipped in kerosene and set ablaze. Charlee had a good three-minute lead on him. He swiveled his head right, then left, staring down the street in each direction for as far as he could see.

  No sign of her.

  Ah hell. Which way had she gone?

  “Are you looking for your wife, Mr. Hammersmitz?” asked the ponytailed valet.

  “Yes, yes. Did you see her?”

  “Cute chick in the coolest blue boots and hot black T-shirt.”

  “That’s her. Which way did she go?”

  The valet held out his palm, the universal signal for you-want-information-it’s-gonna-cost-you.

  Mason stuck his hand in his pocket in search of a twenty-dollar bill to press into the man’s greedy fist before remembering he was penniless.

  “I’m sorry, man. I don’t have any money on me.”

  The valet shrugged. “Dude, maybe I was mistaken. Maybe it wasn’t her after all.”

  He was accustomed to money greasing wheels, making life easier. He’d never really thought much about it in his daily life. Money had always been a tool and he’d used it freely. It spoke for him so he didn’t have to speak for himself.

  The valet turned away.

  Anger spurted through Mason. Anger at the system he had helped to engender. Anger at the blasé valet. Anger at Daphne.

  But most of all, Mason was angry with himself.

  Without even thinking, he did something he would never have done even four days earlier. The dark wildness he’d kept hidden for so long burst free in an unstoppable torrent and he turned into a complete and utter Neanderthal protecting his own.

  He grabbed the impertinent valet by his lapel, lifted him off his feet, and slammed him against the brick building. “Tell me which direction my wife went and tell me now,” he growled with so much intensity he startled even himself.

  “Hey, man, ok
ay, okay.” The valet’s eyes rounded with fear. “Don’t have an aneurysm. She was headed toward Rodeo Drive.”

  “Appreciate the information.” Mason let go of the man’s jacket.

  As he hurried away he heard the valet mutter, “White trash.”

  His gut constricted and he managed to keep himself from whirling around and giving the guy an earful by reminding himself Charlee was in jeopardy. She was out there on the streets of Beverly Hills alone with those two goons who had followed them from Vegas. He had to get to her before they did.

  He took off at a dead sprint and turned right. A woman walking her dog glared at him. He jumped over a hedge to avoid her, got caught in the spray from a sprinkler system and kept on running without missing a beat.

  Dread filled his mouth and he knew with a horrible certainty Charlee was in trouble.

  And then he saw her.

  Relief washed through him. Thank God, she was all right.

  She was a football field length ahead of him, marching with her head held high. Her coal black hair swaying provocatively just above her gorgeous butt. Those jaunty cowboy boots blazing a neon blue path across Beverly Hills as defiantly as a nose thumbing.

  Something pinched inside his chest. Something tight and heavy. The stab of pain came not from running but from the very sight of her. Damn, he loved those neon blue cowboy boots.

  And he loved the way that little skirt flounced sassily over her thighs. Since he was coming clean with himself, he might as well admit it. He loved a lot of things about her.

  He loved her passion, her directness, her power. He loved the way she grabbed life in both fists and truly lived each moment to the fullest. But most of all he loved the way she made him feel like a better man for simply having known her.

  Mason slowed to catch his breath, his heart thudding perilously loud in his ears. Charlee, Charlee, Charlee, his blood seemed to strum.

  Mason was so compelled by the sight of her, his eyes feasting upon her luscious body, he didn’t see the Chevy Malibu creeping along behind her until the back door was flung open.

  “Charlee,” he yelled.

  But he was too late.