скачать книгу бесплатно
With This Fling
Jeanie London
Harley Prince had definitely gotten on the wrong side of someone. That's the only explanation for being assigned to go undercover with Mac Gerard.He's everything she doesn't want in a man–spoiled, rich and entirely too hot for her own good. Too bad he's too tempting to resist. Looks as if she'll have to hit the sheets with him to get him out of her system!Mac knows he's resorting to unfair tactics to get Harley in his bed. But she is one challenge he has no intention of backing away from. How could he know that an affair with her would involve more than just his libido? Now he's facing an even bigger obstacle–convincing Harley that with this fling he wants forever!
“You’re beautiful,” he said in a throaty voice that sounded like sex
Harley braced herself for Mac’s next move, expecting to feel his hard body against hers. But he stood, tugged her up and lifted her into his arms. She was forced to hang on, to bury her face against his shoulder, as much to avoid their reflection in the mirrors as to avoid that hungry, almost gentle expression on his face.
She could stand up to his challenges, but it had only taken a few orgasms to learn she couldn’t bear up under his tenderness. At least not when she was feeling so raw herself.
“I’m no threat, Harley.”
But he was a threat. A bigger threat than she was prepared to admit. She said nothing.
Mac carried her to the bed and lay her out before him wearing nothing but his bracelet and his wedding band. He stood above her, so terribly handsome with his hair gleaming in the candlelit darkness, his expression so intense.
“What happens now?” she asked, needing to hear a voice, even her own, to fill the silence.
He sank to the edge of the bed, all fluid muscle and grace.
“I find more ways to pleasure you.”
Dear Reader,
All too often the path to love turns out to be a bumpy jaunt down a pothole-filled street rather than a smooth ride over new asphalt. But sometimes those bumps can help us learn things about others that teach us important things about ourselves.
Harley and Mac travel such a rocky road. She’s a woman who faces life with her chin squared and her eyes fixed on the future. But it’s learning about her past that helps Mac see how much he must grow to win this special woman’s heart. And realizing he has the strength of character to take an honest look inward helps Harley find the courage to trust him, and herself.
Blaze is the place to explore red-hot romance, and I’m delighted to be among the ranks of the wonderful Harlequin authors who share their journeys to happily ever after. I hope With This Fling brings you to happily ever after, too. Let me know. Drop a line in care of Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9, or visit my Web site at www.jeanielondon.com.
Very truly yours,
Jeanie London
With This Fling
Jeanie London
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my mom, Bonnie-Jean Hickman, for always being a wonderful example and an inspiration… a Cinderella story without the mice.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Prologue
THE INSTANT MAC GERARD touched her, he knew he’d made a big mistake. Awareness caught him fast and hard like a sucker punch, and he didn’t want to walk away from their argument as much as he wanted to kiss her.
So, God help him, he did.
Her eyes widened a split second before his mouth came down on hers and he steeled himself for her reaction—knowing this woman, she’d likely draw her gun and shoot him.
But something happened, some thing he’d never felt before.
Not run-of-the-mill desire. Not even hot-under-the-collar passion. This was need. Sharp. Potent. Consuming. He wanted to absorb her, press their bodies close until they fused into one.
He didn’t seem to be the only one experiencing the phenomenon, either, because she didn’t go for her gun, she melted against him, all her curves catching him in exactly the right places. Her lips parted on a gasp and she slipped her arms around his neck to pull him harder into their kiss.
Mac caught the taste of her with his mouth, drank in her scent on a breath. He kissed her with an urgency that was closer to making him lose control than any argument they’d ever had at work. And that was saying a lot. He wanted to inhale her through his pores, feel her body unfold around him, underneath him, with an intensity that shocked him to the core.
This was Harley Price…the gun-toting, karate-kicking, too-competent private investigator who’d been making his life hell ever since he’d walked through the door of his new job.
Then it hit him, and Mac finally understood the real problem between them. It wasn’t just a clash of personalities or a power struggle between two strong wills.
They were attracted to each other, big time.
And as the feel of her body imprinted itself on his, as the taste of her sweet mouth filtered through his senses, Mac knew he was in more trouble than he’d ever been in his life.
Because the only way he could fix the problem was to get this woman naked in bed.
1
“WITH THIS RING, I’d be dead,” Harley Price whispered to no one in particular.
She’d once heard that the best reason to get married was the promise of around-the-clock orgasms. While she understood the appeal, an orgasm would have to register double digits on the Richter scale before she’d suffer this kind of torture.
This torture was the reception line at a wedding. As one of the very last guests to pass through, she greeted the new Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Sinclair, side by side in their first official performance as husband and wife.
They looked giddy. Every happy cliché she’d ever heard applied to them, from the way they seemed to be floating on air to the way they glowed. They smiled in unison and acted as though every guest at their wedding was a close friend.
The fact that the new Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Sinclair looked as though they’d stepped off the cover of a romance novel might have had something to do with the impression, too. They’d dressed in costumes reflecting the fashion of two centuries earlier. Admittedly, the costumes worked with the surroundings, as this wedding was taking place at an antebellum plantation.
“Best of luck,” Harley said, wishing the newlyweds a lifetime of around-the-clock bliss. Technically she wouldn’t have even come to this wedding if her boss hadn’t insisted she make an appearance as a professional courtesy. But she’d come. She’d wished them well. Now she was out of here.
Moving beyond the reception line, Harley unscrewed her smile and fled for the nearest exit. Veering away from the tables, where gleaming china and exquisite floral arrangements beckoned guests, she slipped out of the ballroom.
She emerged in the hall, an octagonal rotunda that rose three stories above her, all curving staircases and high-luster balustrades. A crystal chandelier graciously illuminated her way to the exit and she measured her paces so her heels didn’t tap loudly across the wooden floor.
She hadn’t made the front exit when a female voice called out, “I told Josh you’d run for it if we took our eyes off you.”
Harley groaned at the sight of the red-sequined bridesmaid emerging from the ballroom. Unfortunately, this wasn’t just any bridesmaid—this was Lennon Eastman, her boss’s wife.
And just her luck, her boss filed out the door right behind her. Josh was scowling and Harley scowled back, disliking his wife intensely at the moment—no easy feat considering Lennon was an absolute doll. Well-bred, confident and poised, she was also tall, blond and beautiful—as close to Harley’s ideal of society perfection as any woman could possibly get.
And there was nothing like standing in the shadow of a socialite to make her feel underdressed, no matter how stylish her gown.
“You didn’t drive all the way down here to sit through the wedding and miss the fun?” Josh asked.
“You told me to attend the wedding. I did.”
Josh exchanged a glance with his wife and Harley knew trouble when she saw it. As a licensed private investigator, her observation skills were more developed than most, but she could have been blind in one eye and still recognized that these two meant business. The big question was why? What difference did it make if she showed up at the reception or not?
Better not to ask. She was already treading thin ice with her boss. A dark-haired man in his mid-thirties, Josh Eastman seemed more at home getting down and dirty with the bad guys than he did tuxed up in his Garden District persona. At least to her, anyway. Harley had known him for nearly seven years—long before she’d come to work for him.
The investigative agency she’d contracted with after college had been the one he’d used for additional manpower, and she’d been assigned to him while learning the ropes. Josh had impressed her with his do-whatever-it-takes investigation technique. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty and that had earned him her respect.
She’d apparently earned his, too, because he’d requested her services regularly and after he’d married Lennon and expanded his operation, he’d offered her full-time work. She’d accepted, thinking luck had been going her way…until he’d brought their newest investigator into the fold.
The thought of Mac Gerard reminded her that she’d pushed her luck enough for one day.
“All right, I’ll rethink my plans,” she said.
Josh only inclined his head, but Lennon grabbed her arm and led her back toward the ballroom. “You’ll have fun. I had Ellen seat you at a table where you’ll know some of the guests.”
“Thanks.” She tried to force some enthusiasm into her voice. “But shouldn’t you be dancing with the wedding party?”
“We got out before the dancing started,” Josh said. “Lucky thing Lennon saw you slip out when she did.”
Lucky? That was a matter of interpretation. Especially when Lennon motioned to a table across the room.
“Your seat is over there,” she said, looping her arm through her husband’s and steering him onto the dance floor.
Harley took one look at the empty seat at her table and knew she’d been set up. Sitting right beside that empty space was the one man she didn’t want to see again in this lifetime.
Mac Gerard.
She couldn’t have missed him if she’d tried. Even among three hundred-plus guests, Gerard stood out. She wasn’t sure what it was…perhaps the superior attitude that screamed, Here I am! or his deep-throated laughter that commanded the attention of everyone within earshot.
Maybe it was how the custom-cut suit sat on his broad shoulders. Or the masculine features that were so sculpted he almost didn’t look real. Especially with the way his thick brown hair and tanned skin combined to make his quicksilver eyes look startling in his face.
This man was too damned attractive to be allowed, and that was his biggest flaw as far as Harley was concerned. Appearances could be so deceiving. Gerard looked as if he should be Mr. Wonderful—intelligent, sexy and charming. If he hadn’t been so ridiculously gorgeous, it might not come as a shock that he was such an idiot.
And she got to sit beside him today. Lucky her.
Sweeping toward the table, she slipped into her chair before Gerard could clear his and do something civilized like stand. Mr. Blue Blood was nothing if not socially graceful and she wouldn’t give him an edge when he already had a clear advantage—the world of upscale social events was his, not hers.
Along with Josh, Lennon and the groom, Gerard was one of “the Garden District Gang,” a group of friends who’d been reared together in the exclusive neighborhood along New Orleans’s Rue St. Charles. Though the Garden District wasn’t far from where Harley had grown up, the city blocks had separated her upbringing from these blue bloods like a galaxy.
“Heard you couldn’t get a date,” she whispered.
His quicksilver gaze caught hers, eyes so clear beneath a thick fringe of black lashes that Harley felt his glance as a nearly physical pull straight to her toes.
“You’re wearing a dress, Harley. And a tight one. Where’d you hide your gun?”
“No place you want to know about.”
“Don’t be so sure. I didn’t bring a date because Lennon mentioned you weren’t bringing one.”
Now that wasn’t what Harley had expected. But then, when did this man ever do what she expected? “What difference does it make whether or not I brought a date?”
“This is the first social event we’ve been at together since we attended the corporate training.”
“So?”
He flashed her a smile that made her heart race on cue. This man’s looks really were his greatest flaw. “I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to socialize with you. I can handle you differently when we’re not at work.”
“You can’t handle me at all.”
“Wrong. I’m looking forward to handling you.” He leaned in close and whispered for her ears alone, “We need to figure out how we’re going to deal with being attracted to each other. Today’s the perfect opportunity to discuss the problem.”
Before she could respond to that, Gerard sat back, turned to the other guests and introduced her, cutting off any reply and making her feel stupid in the process. She supposed she should have acknowledged the others when she first sat down.
Several guests had attended the same corporate training session as they had, so she forced a smile. The others at the table were strangers, except one—Stuart, Gerard’s grandfather.
