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She felt the flush of embarrassment stain her cheeks and for the first time since entering Patrick’s office, was grateful the power was out.
“I don’t see a thing funny in any of this,” Denise said through her teeth. Especially, she added silently, her body’s reaction to him.
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose you do.” As he finished speaking, his hand moved up her rib cage, slipped beneath her sensible linen blazer and strayed dangerously close to her breast.
“Okay, that’s it,” she muttered, wrenching violently to one side. She wasn’t about to lie on the floor being mauled by a virtual stranger...no matter how much her body seemed to enjoy it.
“You son of a—” Denise gave a furious heave and wrenched one hand free of his grasp. Curling her fingers, she drew her arm back and then let it fly. A fist too small to do any damage clipped him across the chin.
Immediately, he released her and Denise rolled far away from him. Scrambling to her feet, she tugged at her wrinkled, pin-striped business suit until she felt back in control. Then she lifted her gaze to his and glared at him.
The bastard had the nerve to laugh at her?
Rubbing his chin with one hand, he nodded at her slowly. “Not a bad right, for a girl.”
“I’m not a girl. I’m a woman.”
“Oh yeah, honey.” His gaze swept over her. “I noticed.”
The overhead lights flared back into life and Denise blinked, momentarily blinded by the unexpected brightness. When her vision had cleared again, she looked at the man standing so casually just a foot or two away from her.
A relaxed, half smile curved his well-shaped mouth as he watched her. His nose looked as though it had been broken more than once—no doubt by some furious female, she told herself. The whisker stubble on his face gave him a wicked, untamed look, which she was somehow sure he cultivated purposely. His too long black hair hung down on either side of his face and lay across the collar of his jacket. As she looked at him, he reached up with both hands and slowly pushed the mass back out of his way.
Tall and muscular, he wore a spotless white T-shirt beneath the leather jacket that seemed to suit him so well. His worn, faded jeans rode low on his narrow hips and hugged his long legs with an almost indecent grip. Scuffed, square-toed black boots completed the picture of modern day pirate.
She lifted her gaze back to his face and saw sharp green eyes assessing her. It was as if he knew what she was thinking. Amusement flickered in those eyes and she wanted to smack him. Again.
No one should be that sure of himself.
In an instant, his gaze swept over her, mimicking the inspection she’d just given him. Instinctively, she pulled the edges of her navy blazer together and balanced herself carefully on her one good heel.
When his gaze lingered a bit longer than necessary on the fullness of her breasts, Denise shifted uncomfortably. She could almost feel his touch on her body. Her traitorous mind wandered down a dangerous path and imagined what it would feel like to have his fingers caressing her bare flesh. At that thought, another onslaught of heat raced through her, leaving her unexpectedly shaky.
“Well,” Mike said as he eased down to perch on the edge of his brother’s desk. “I’ve got to say, I’ve never been hit by anyone as pretty as you.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
He chuckled again and folded his arms across that magnificent chest.
Good Lord, she groaned silently. Magnificent?
“Most woman don’t find me as...distasteful, as you do, Denise.”
The sound of her name, spoken in that voice, made her knees weak. Instantly, she wished heartily that she was already in the elevator on the way to the parking lot.
“What do you say we try it again?” he asked.
“What?”
“Oh,” he nodded congenially at her. “I’ll let you hit me again too, if it makes you feel better about enjoying my touch.”
“I can’t believe you!” Another flush rose up in her cheeks, but this time, she was sure it was just as much anger as embarrassment.
“You can believe me, honey. I never lie to my women.”
“I am not one of your women.”
His gaze raked over her slowly, deliberately, before coming back to stare deeply into her eyes.
“Yet,” he said simply.
“You’re incredible!” She gasped and fought to ignore the surge of heat flooding her. Something flashed in his eyes and was so quickly gone, she couldn’t identify it. But it had almost looked like a teasing glint.
“So I’ve been told.” He pushed away from the desk and took a step toward her “What do you say, honey?” He rubbed his chin with two fingers and said softly, “That little punch of yours was worth it, you know. To touch you again, I just might be willing to put up with anything.”
Her stomach dropped to her feet and her heartbeat hurtled into high gear. She limped backward a step, never taking her eyes from him. She wasn’t frightened. At least not of him.
Whether he was teasing her or not, she knew she wasn’t in any physical danger from him. He hadn’t had to let her go. She knew as well as he did that her fist hadn’t done the slightest bit of damage to him.
The only thing worrying her now was her reaction to him. Mike and Patrick Ryan were more different than she had at first thought. Oh, they looked alike, there was no denying that.
But she had never experienced this sizzling rush of desire for Patrick. Not once had she imagined rolling around on the floor of his office with him...burying her fingers in his hair...feeling the scrape of his whiskers against her skin.
As those images rocketed around in what was left of her brain, she took another uneven step back in self-defense. What in the world was happening to her? Only moments ago, she had been fighting him, sure that he was some maniac out to destroy her. Now, she trembled at the thought of being kissed senseless by that same maniac?
Oh, she was in big trouble.
Mike smiled. A slow, seductive smile that told her he knew where her thoughts were going.
And that he approved.
Short, shallow breaths shot in and out of her lungs.
She grabbed at the remaining bulk of her shoulder bag and clutched it in front of her as though it were a magic shield, designed to keep lechers at bay. Her fingers worked the leather, locating her wallet and car keys. One corner of her mind realized just how much of her stuff she’d thrown onto the floor. Her purse only weighed about half as much as usual.
The hell with it, she thought, keeping one eye on the man opposite her. She could get the rest of her things later.
“I’m leaving now,” she said and took another hobbling step. “I assume, since you’re Patrick’s brother, you’re not here to rob the place?”
“Good assumption,” he countered and moved a bit closer.
“Then why are you here, anyway?”
“How about we go get a drink and get acquainted?” Mike asked and took another step toward her. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know about me.”
All she wanted to know was why he had such a strange affect on her. But she wasn’t about to ask him that.
He smiled at her again.
Run, her brain screamed. Run now, before it’s too late.
It was the rational thing to do.
It was the only thing that made sense.
So why did a part of her want to stay?
“What do you say?” he repeated. “A drink?”
He reached out one hand toward her.
Denise looked from that hand to his eyes and shook her head, more disgusted with herself than she was him. She mentally shoved her raging hormones aside. “Ryan,” she said slowly and distinctly, “if this was the Sahara and you had the only map to the last Oasis in existence, I still wouldn’t have a drink with you.”
Then she turned and clomped inelegantly from the room and down the hall with as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances.
As the elevator doors slid soundlessly closed behind her, she heard him laughing.
Two
Mike stood in the doorway looking after her for a long moment, then turned around to stare at the mess strewn across his brother’s office. In her hurry to find her pepper spray, Denise Torrance had thrown the contents of that huge purse of hers all over the room.
He snorted another laugh and shook his head. Next time he volunteered to fix his twin’s air conditioner, he’d make sure to find out if there was going to be a pint-size tornado dropping by.
Of course, if the tornado happened to have short blond hair, wide blue eyes and a dusting of frekles across her nose, he wouldn’t work too hard to avoid her.
From down the hall, he heard the discreet hum of the elevator as it carried her farther away. He’d thought about chasing after her, but then realized that he didn’t have to.
He’d see her again.
As he bent and scooped up some of her belongings to stack them neatly on the desk, he muttered, “She has to come back. Hell, she left half of her life behind.”
Quickly, he went around the room, snatching up the items she’d tossed. As he grabbed the can of pepper spray, he winced and told himself it was a damn good thing he was quicker than she was. He almost set the can with everything else, to be returned to her, then thought better of it and stuffed it into his jacket pocket instead. No sense in arming the woman, he told himself.
He placed the last of her things on the desk and took a long look at them. Everything from a hairbrush to a tube of toothpaste and a neatly capped toothbrush sat atop the mahogany surface. Shaking his head, he noted the foil-wrapped sandwich, a package of Ding Dongs, a screwdriver set and a package of bandages. But then his gaze fell on the jumbo-size bottles of aspirin and antacid tablets, two black eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.
Ms. Denise Torrance apparently led a very stressful life.
Even as he wondered why, he told himself that it was none of his business. He made it a point never to know too much about anyone. With knowledge, came caring. With caring, came pain.
A small, shiny object on the floor caught his eye and he leaned over to pick it up. His long fingers turned the key over and over as he studied it. A smile crept up his features and he glanced at the wall of file cabinets across the room from him.
The only way she was going to get back into this office was with a key. And she’d left hers with him.
Folding the key into his palm, he pocketed it, then walked back to the faulty air-conditioning unit in the corner.
Whistling softly, he told himself that just because he wasn’t going to get involved, that didn’t mean he had to avoid her completely. Besides, anyone so stressed out that they carried enough medication to dose a battalion was desperately in need of some relaxation.
As he pried the metal cover off the unit, he smiled. It would be his distinct pleasure to introduce Denise Torrance to a little fun.
In the soft morning light, Denise stood outside the brick-and-glass building and stared at the foot-high letters painted on the front window.
Ryan’s Custom Cycles.
That unsettled feeling leapt back into life in the pit of her stomach and she sucked in a gulp of air, hoping to quiet it. It didn’t work.
Her fingers clenched and unclenched on the soft, brown leather of her shoulder bag. It hadn’t been hard to locate Mike. Patrick had once mentioned his twin’s motorcycle shop, so a quick glance through the yellow pages had been all the help she had needed.
Denise’s stomach lurched and she laid one palm against her abdomen in response. “Stop it,” she muttered. “He’s just a man.” And, her mind quietly jabbed, the Statue of Liberty is a cute little knick-knack.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She admonished herself as she started across the parking lot. She didn’t have all day. Her first meeting of the morning started in less than forty minutes. Her father, as president of the firm, would be there and he wasn’t the kind of man to accept excuses for tardiness.
Denise groaned. Just thinking about having to face her irate father this early in the morning was enough to churn up the acid in her stomach. Rummaging in her purse, she yanked out a small roll of colored tablets and popped two of them into her mouth.
As she chewed, she told herself that she didn’t have much choice in this. She had to see Mike again. “Of course,” she said under her breath, “if I hadn’t let him bully me into running for cover last night, this wouldn’t be happening.”
But she had allowed it. Not until she was halfway home had she remembered that she’d left behind Patrick’s spare key and the files she had needed. She had also forgotten about the things she’d thrown out of her purse in her wild search for pepper spray.
“Pepper spray, self-defense classes,” she grumbled in disgust. “A fat lot of good they did me.”
Too late to worry about that, though. She stopped in front of the sparkling clean glass door and took a deep, calming breath. Then she pushed the door open and stepped into another world. A world where she obviously didn’t belong.
The showroom was immense.
Her gaze flew about the room, trying to take it all in at once. Blond pine paneling covered the long wall behind the room-length counter. On the side wall, glass-fronted shelves displayed everything from helmets to gauntlet-style black gloves to black leather pants and boots. The opposite wall appeared to have been designated an art gallery. Against the soft, cream paint were bright splashes of colored signs, proclaiming the name, Harley-Davidson. Beneath those signs, stood racks of clothing. T-shirts, jackets, chaps, even ladies’ nightgowns, all with the same Harley-Davidson logo.
But the most impressive display were the motorcycles themselves. Gleaming wood floors mirrored the chrome surfaces of the almost elegant-looking machines parked atop it. Sunshine filtered through the front and side windows, sparkling off the metal, glinting against the shining paint jobs.
Denise shook her head, dazzled, in spite of herself. Somehow, she had expected a find a dirty, oil-encrusted garage where beer-swilling mechanics scratched their potbellies and traded dirty jokes.
A long, low whistle caught her attention and her head snapped around.
“How did you slip in here, honey? Are you lost?”
The big man in worn jeans and a flannel shirt scratched at his full beard and grinned at her.
She tugged at the front of her sea green blazer and tightened her grip on her purse. All right, so maybe she did look out of place. She glanced around the room again, noting the sprinkling of customers for the first time.
Only a handful of people were in the store and none of them were in a green silk business suit. Except of course, Denise. And, they were all staring at her as though she’d just been beamed down from the planet Stuffy.
Apparently, she thought, as the people went back to what they had been doing when she entered, jeans and black leather were the preferred costume of motorcycle enthusiasts Even for the women, she told herself as she spotted the only other female in the room.
A pang of envy rattled around inside her as she noted the tall blond woman’s long, straight hair and skintight jeans. Without benefit of a shirt, her black leather vest looked provocative. Dismally, Denise acknowledged that even were she to wear the same outfit, the results would be very different. A quick glance down at her own, less than impressive bustline confirmed the thought.
“Looking for a bike, lady?”
She turned toward the first man again. “No.” She cleared her throat and told herself to remember why she was there. It didn’t matter if she would look terrible in a leather vest, since she had no plans to acquire one. “Actually, I’m looking for Mike Ryan.”
He nodded, then said wistfully, “Too bad.” Jerking his head toward the door behind the counter, he added, “Mike’s in the service bay. He’ll be back in a minute.”
