Bride Of The Bad Boy

All in all, with his expensive Italian clothes so casually thrown askew and his heavy-lidded, deeply sultry gaze, he looked like an ad for Versace in GQ. There was no way—no way—anyone would ever convince her that this man was a sales rep. With all due respect to sales reps everywhere, this guy was just too…too…too…

Too.

That’s all there was to it. But somehow, now that she’d actually interacted with him on a personal level, he didn’t seem like a mobster, either. What exactly he was, she honestly didn’t know, but… Could she possibly be mistaken about him? she wondered. Could there be any way her sources were wrong?

He was still standing before her, silently reaching out to her, and without even thinking about what she was doing, Angie lifted her hand to place it in his. Immediately, he folded his fingers over hers, and her pale, delicate hand was completely swallowed by his dark, rawboned one. His skin was warm and rough, his grip confident and possessive. And it occurred to Angie then that if he ever set his mind to it, he could do or be whatever he wanted in this world.

“Thanks,” she muttered absently as he gave her a gentle tug.

He hauled her easily off the bed, but when she would have halted her progress on the spot where her feet first hit the floor, Ethan Zorn continued to pull her forward, propelling her against his chest.

“Oops,” he said blandly, catching her capably in his arms.

He folded them over her back with much familiarity, and tilted his head down toward hers with what she could only liken to intent. Intent to do what, she hesitated to consider, but intent nonetheless.

“Do you mind?” she muttered as she tried to squirm out of his embrace.

“Not at all,” he assured her, tightening his hold.

She doubled up her fists against his bare chest, trying not to notice the warm vitality and rigid definition of the numerous and well-formed muscles she encountered. Trying, and failing miserably.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said as she began to push herself away again.

But he continued to hold her easily in place, even managed somehow to pull her a bit closer. “Hey, you’re the one who climbed into my bed,” he noted. “I’m just moving things along to their logical conclusion. Shouldn’t I assume you’re as interested in something like this as I am? You yourself said you’ve been admiring me from afar. And you know, it gets pretty lonely sometimes when you’re a traveling sales rep.”

She ceased her struggles for a moment and tipped her head back to glare at him. “You should assume nothing,” she told him. “I have not been admiring you from afar, and I don’t care how lonely you get.”

“But you said you’ve been admiring me from—”

“I lied, okay? Big surprise, right? You admitted yourself you didn’t believe me when I said it.”

He dipped his head lower toward hers and murmured, “I think I’ve decided now that I will believe you after all. You just don’t seem like the dishonest type.”

Angie ignored that, countering instead, “And I did not climb into your bed.”

He cocked one eyebrow in a silent request for clarification, and seeing as how he had sort of found her where he had, Angie supposed she owed him at least some small explanation.

“I climbed onto your bed,” she told him. “Big difference.”

“Not to my way of thinking.” He tightened his hold on her even more and tilted his head ever so slightly to one side, as if he fully intended to kiss her. “You sure you don’t want me to tie you up?” he asked, his voice low and level and completely serious.

Angie’s heart began to beat faster, rushing blood to warm parts of her body that in no way needed warming. His breath fanned her forehead, and his muscular arms were draped around her shoulders and down her back with a familiarity suggesting that was precisely where they belonged. His fingers skimmed against her fanny in a way that might have been casual, but then again, might not have been. And all she could do was stand there letting him get away with it, wondering what it would be like to be very casual indeed with the man.

God help her, she was actually turned on by him, she realized with no small amount of shock. Utterly, irrevocably, turned on. By a mobster. She was responding with a needful, almost visceral desire to mate with a man who—although incredibly good-looking, sexy even, in a strange, he-man kind of way that most self-respecting women would never admit to finding attractive—would just as soon shoot her as make love to her.

She had to start getting out more—that was all there was to it.

“No,” she assured him, only half remembering what it was she was objecting to. Boy, his eyes were amazing.

“No, you don’t want me to tie you up?” he asked softly. “Or no, you’re not sure? Because if you’re not sure, Angel, then maybe we should—”

“No, I don’t want you to tie me up,” she quickly cut him off, the assurance sounding less than convincing, even to her own ears. “And it’s Angie, not Angel.”

He smiled, but made no other concession to her correction. “Well, like I said. Maybe some other time.”

But he still didn’t release her. And for one long, lingering moment, Angie didn’t even try to struggle or insist that he let her go. In fact, for one long, lingering moment, all she did was stand there letting him hold her, wishing way back in the very back of her brain that he really was a sales rep for the Cokely Chemical Corporation, and that she was head of the Endicott Chamber of Commerce.

Then she could do something with him right now that some dark, delirious part of her really wanted to do, and she could tell herself it was only for the good of the community, something that would create jobs and boost the local economy, something that was in fact her civic duty.

And that was when it occurred to her that there really must be something to that one myth about Bob. Naturally, she’d witnessed for herself that the comet made people say and do things they’d never do under usual circumstances. But now, as ridiculous as it seemed, she was beginning to believe that other myth, too, and thinking that maybe Bob really did create love relationships between people who would normally never be attracted to each other.

Damned comet.

While Angie was still pondering that, Ethan Zorn dipped his head lower to rest his forehead against hers. “You know,” he murmured, his voice a quiet caress, “I oughta call the cops and have you arrested for breaking into my house.”

Helplessly, Angie slanted her own head so that her mouth lay only inches away from his. “But you won’t,” she said with a soft sigh, “because you’re connected to the mob, and you don’t want to have any more to do with the cops than you have to. Even the local boys.”

He shook his head slowly, a gesture that brought his lips even closer to hers. “No,” he whispered, “I won’t call them because it’s just not worth my time.”

“Oh, sure, that’s your excuse.”

“For that, maybe,” he said. “But I have no excuse for this.”

And before Angie could object—not that she necessarily wanted to, anyway—Ethan Zorn kissed her. Just lowered his head to close up those last few millimeters that separated them, and covered her mouth with his.

She responded instinctively and without thinking, tipping her head back to afford him better access, lifting a hand to thread her fingers easily through his hair. For a single, thoughtless instant, she succumbed to her feelings instead of her reason, and in that single, thoughtless instant, she got the ride of her life.

A hazy, liquid warmth filled her, traveling to every extreme in her body, bubbling through her veins to effervesce in her heart like a natural spring of emotion. His lips barely grazed hers, a soft brush of heat against heat, over and over and over, but Angie felt the repercussions of his caress to the very depth of her soul. And all she could do was marvel that such a man could be so utterly gentle, so tentative and tender.

And then she ceased to wonder at all, because she wanted to focus instead on the feel of him surrounding her.

Ethan was too busy enjoying himself to wonder much about anything, especially about what had come over him to kiss Angie the Angel the way he had. Although some vague part of him knew that what he was doing was the height of stupidity, he simply couldn’t quite bring himself to put an end to it just yet. She responded to him in a way that no other woman had before, opening to him completely, fully trusting him to do the right thing.

Bastard, he berated himself. You should be ashamed of yourself, taking advantage of a nice girl like her.

But his conscience was in no way chastised. It simply reminded him that Angie the Angel had been in his bed, after all, and she wasn’t exactly shoving him away and shouting, “Masher!” now, was she?

Nevertheless, he forced himself to end the kiss before they could carry it too far, then made himself take a step away from her. He watched as she blinked a few times, then seemed to adjust her focus back to the task at hand. He had expected her to be outraged by what he had done. Instead, she seemed to be disappointed that he had stopped. But she said nothing to confirm either reaction.

“Yeah, maybe next time,” he said softly, “we can try that tying-up business. For now, though…” He paused meaningfully, took a step forward again to bring his body up flush with hers and lifted his hand to trace her lower lip with his thumb. “For now, maybe we should just get to know each other a little better.”

Angie Ellison only stared at him in complete bemusement for a moment, then he thought she nodded just the tiniest bit.

“I need to get going,” she finally said, as if the two of them had just been out on a date, and she hadn’t, in fact, been breaking and entering and accusing him of being a mobster looking to further his drug trade.

Ethan nodded. “I’ll call you.”

She nodded back. “Okay.”