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“My aunt used to say I was a brat. And maybe I was…sometimes. I used to follow her when she didn’t know it. I was too curious about what went on.…There were the most fascinating rumors about her, you see. And I was way too lively just to accept what she said as gospel.” She was silent. “As if anything she could say would be gospel.” Her voice changed. “I am a brat by day…and brave…but by night…I’m afraid of the dark.”
“You chose an odd line of work, considering that fear.”
“Ha! You don’t listen any better than—”
“And you’re afraid of me.”
She shook her head. “Not of you…”
She didn’t fool him. If she wasn’t afraid, why did she keep glancing from him to the bed? Why was she pressing herself against the wall?
He advanced upon her, to prove his point. “Feel better after your bath?” he asked silkily.
But she didn’t back away as he’d expected. “My brain still feels…weird.…Like the thoughts are drifting…not connecting.”
“Why don’t you get some sleep then,” he suggested.
“What will you do?”
“Watch over you.”
“Just watch?”
“Disappointed?” he inquired softly.
She blushed. “Do you ever stop with the sex talk?”
“That might be hard…with you around. I can’t seem to forget I found you higher than a kite tied to a bed.” He picked up the red polka-dotted dress. “This little number was shrink-wrapped to your body.” He wadded it up and threw it at her. “What kind of girl wears black mesh hose and a dress like this two sizes too small?”
Unfolding the suggestive garment, her eyes rounded. She jiggled the dress and made the flounces bounce. “Oh, my!”
“Not much dress. Lots of girl,” he said.
“It isn’t mine!” She threw it at him and stalked toward the bed away from him.
“You were quite…fetching in it,” he taunted darkly.
Another blush. She sank into a chair.
“You want me to be some idiot you can fool with your fake blushes and little-girl smiles and sly glances.”
“I know about you, too. You brought me here…because you thought I was that kind of girl. That’s why you won’t let me go. I wonder…If I did what you wanted, would you let me go then?”
He stared at her, scared to the quick and yet darkly thrilled, too, by her tantalizing suggestion.
She shut her eyes. “It’s all so extraordinary…like a bad dream.” Her hollow, fearful tone floated to him. “Brand said he’d marry me. At least I think he did. But…”
She rubbed her forehead, her eyelids and strained to think. “Only…only…maybe he did ask me to put that awful rag on. I thought he took me to Mexico to get married.”
“Some wedding dress.”
She stared about the room as if seeing ghosts, seeming to hear and see him only vaguely. “He gave me…Oh, dear…No…He couldn’t have drugged…” Frowning, she stared at the dress he’d dropped on the floor.
“What?”
“Was I really wearing that?”
He nodded.
“Brand loved me.”
A low moan rose in her throat. Her hand went to her belly. Then her face changed as if she’d come to a decision. Big blue eyes widening on his strong face, she looked up at Luke. There was something so proud, so desperate and so responsible in her gaze. He felt a fierce, insane need to protect her.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, feeling ridiculous.
“If Brand did that…” She rubbed her temples. “He wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t even listen. He won’t stop now, either.…He’s very determined. He’s rich, powerful.…”
“So am I.”
She stared at him. Her eyes lit up, as he’d known they would at the mention of his fortune.
“You have to help me. I have to get out of Laredo away from Brand—tonight.”
“No way.”
“I can’t let him find me.” For an instant she looked on the verge of panic.
He remembered his old friend, the pregnant law student who’d felt she had to run away from Baines.
As this girl studied him, she seemed to regain a bit of control. After a while, she even forced a slow, sexy smile. “What if…if I was the kind of woman you think I am…and you want me to be…the girl of your most lurid comic book dreams?”
He sucked in a breath. Here we go.
“We’re alone. In your hotel room.” Her gaze drifted suggestively to the bed. “What if I’d do anything? Absolutely anything? Would you help me?”
Anything. Pictures of women playing in provocative love games flipped in his mind. The pictures changed. Every face, every lewd position was of her.
Heat spiraled inside him. “One minute you play a whore, the next a virgin. Don’t tempt me unless you mean it.”
“Or the big tough, rich guy will grab me?” She trembled, hugging herself. Her blue eyes grew even more enormous. Then she licked her mouth with her tongue. “Anything,” she purred.
The imaginary pictures of her flipped again. He had a fleeting sensation of shame. She was in some sort of trouble. What kind of heel took advantage of a desperate woman, even a whore, who needed his help?
A man who came from the gutter. A man who used every opportunity for his own gain. A saint would have been tempted by her, and he was no saint.
She was so damn pretty she made every male sense knife sharp. His bones melted. His weaker nature won. Down in hell his name on that list blazed brighter. “Anything?”
She nodded.
“What do I have to do?”
“Money. And I need a ride north.”
“How much money?”
Her eyes locked on his. “A lot.”
“Undress.”
“Cash…before I—I begin—”
“Strip first.”
Meekly lowering her lashes, she gulped in a deep breath. For courage, he thought. Then she slanted her eyes at him as her fingers fumbled with the sash of his robe.
“Take your time,” he said with a touch of irony.
Untying the rope of blue cloth, she coiled the sash between her fingers.
He appraised what he could see of her body, watched her fingers stroke blue cloth. “So, I was right about you?”
Her wounded eyes stung him. She flung the sash full-force at his face.
That temper of hers turned him on. He caught the sash, recoiled it and plunged it inside his pocket. “Take it all off.”
She paled.
He grinned. “Act like you’re having fun.”
She brought a hand to her throat protectively. “You better hope I’m never in the position to exact revenge.”
“You said anything.”
“A gentleman would help a lady for nothing.”
“Gentlemen are an extinct breed.”
She gave him the once-over. “How right you are.”
“Nor does the term lady apply to any female in this room.”
“Ha! Someday I’ll make you regret this.”
“You blame me…for your idea!”
“It’s always the man’s fault.”
“Right,” he said.
With a little shrug, she flashed him an infectiously warm smile, covering it with fluttery fingertips. Then she squared her shoulders and blew him a kiss. The next thing he knew she winked and began to hum a ribald burlesque tune.
While he watched, she mimicked a stripper’s high-stepping strut, moving fast as was her custom, peeling the terry cloth back and giving her full, shapely breasts a little jiggle for him.
Lust arced through him. He began to burn.
His response paralyzed her. Her quick steps faltered; her humming paused in midnote. Her outstretched leg hung suspended in the air. She stared at it in openmouthed astonishment as if she were terrified to find it there.
Long seconds passed in which each was too aware of the other. Then she recovered, threw her head back, cupped her breasts as if to offer them to him.
She looked so damn cute, so eager, holding her breasts like that.
Available. She was like a fantasy in a dream. Only she was real.
She let the robe slide from her slim, rounded shoulders, down the length of her voluptuous body. His heart thundered.
His sea-gray gaze flicked over full, soft breasts, her narrow waist, and the fullness of her hips…and those incredible legs that went forever.
She blushed, as if stunned by what she was doing, and then quickly averted her gaze to the blue pool of terry cloth at her feet. Her modesty only enhanced her charm and beauty. He wanted to grab her, take her.
“You won’t say no again…just when things get interesting?” he rasped, taking a step toward her. When her smile froze, her fingers falling from those voluptuous lips, and she shrank back an inch or two instinctively, he softened his tone. “You didn’t answer me.”
She bowed her head, her cheeks crimson in shame. “I won’t say no…if you make me go through with this.…”
His eyes narrowed. He moved in for the kill, took her chin in his callused hand before she could escape. “How much?”
“W-what?”
He studied her slender neck, her swollen mouth. “How much do you charge…for this little dance…for all the rest?”
He loathed himself when she looked from him to the bed and began to shake. Then he saw the tears glistening in her eyes. “A thousand dollars,” she snapped. “But you have to take me with you…tonight.” Her strangled voice was so low and hot with that temper of hers he could barely hear her. “Like I said, I need a ride.”
“You’re gonna get the ride of your life.”
Hot color crept up her throat, warming the skin beneath his fingertips.
“You like thinking of me as an object, a toy you can play with, don’t you? But if you give me the money…and help me…” She shut her eyes. “I—I’ll try not to let myself care what you think.”
She was so soft. His blood pumped at an alarming rate. His breathing was so shallow and quick, he couldn’t get enough air.
“I want my thousand dollars now.”
“A thousand dollars. You’d better be good. You’d better do—anything.”
“Oh, dear.” Then she said, “You got it!”
He pulled out his wallet, counted ten bills and laid them across her open palm. She took her time, folding them. In slow motion, she set them down one by one on the table.
That done, she lifted her gaze from the ten green bills. Squaring her shoulders, she faced him, wild emotion flaring in her pale face. “Go ahead,” she whispered, fighting to keep her voice steady. Her body went stiff.
