Jo Leigh - One-Click Buy - September Harlequin Blaze

“I’m sorry, Rose. You’re very attractive and sexy, but you’re just not who I’m looking for right now,” he said. “I’ve done the one night-stand-thing and I’ve had enough of it.”

“Who said anything about one night?” Her words were flippant. Her husky tone was not.

The idea of having more than one night appealed to him. But it didn’t change the basics: she was not the kind of woman he needed to get involved with right now. Not even on a purely sexual basis. “I’m sure there are a hundred guys upstairs who’d take you up on this in a heartbeat.”

“I don’t want any of them,” she murmured. “I want you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t have to know you to want to have sex with you.”

“I’m not wired that way.”

She made a sound of disbelief. “You’ve never had raw, wild, uninhibited sex with someone just for the sake of feeling good?”

“Just to get off, yeah,” he muttered, making no effort to be delicate. “But only because time and expediency demanded it. I don’t operate that way anymore.”

“I could make it so good for you.” She lifted his hand again, this time putting it on her bare hip.

Nick couldn’t help squeezing it. “I don’t doubt it.”

“Let me,” she ordered. “Let’s see how good it can be.”

His jaw stiff, he pulled his hand away. “I know how good it could be. I don’t doubt we could screw ourselves senseless and make each other come a dozen times in an hour.”

Her eyes closed behind the mask. He could see her pulse fluttering in her neck. Still talking in that throaty, sultry whisper, she asked, “And what would be so bad about that?”

Nothing would be so bad about that. In fact, it would be incredible. But he’d feel like shit afterward. He knew it as sure as he knew his brother Mark was never going to let him forget he’d been born twelve minutes before Nick had.

Some things were inarguable.

Like the fact that he couldn’t have sex with this woman tonight and still look Izzie-the woman he sensed could be right for him for all the right reasons-in the eye tomorrow. So glancing at his watch, he found some nugget of resolve and said, “Harry’s waiting for me upstairs. I’ll see you later.”

Without giving her a chance to try to stop him, he turned around and walked out of her dressing room. Judging by the way something went flying in that tiny room once the door was closed behind him, he knew he’d left a very angry woman in his wake.

“SO HOW YOU DOIN’, little brother?” Nick heard a woman’s voice ask as he sat in a booth at Santori’s the next day. It was early Sunday afternoon and the church crowd hadn’t yet shown up for their traditional Sunday big mid-day meal, so he’d taken advantage of the lull to grab some lunch. Glancing up, he saw his sister-in-law, Gloria, Izzie’s older sister.

They didn’t look much alike. Gloria was pretty-especially for a thirty-something mother of three-but she didn’t have Izzie’s flamboyant looks. Her face was sweet, not dramatic. Her mouth soft, not sensual. She didn’t have Izzie’s amazing figure. Nor had she inherited her sister’s desire to escape from here.

Gloria personified the world in which he’d grown up. She’d worked in her parents’ business, gone to high school right here in the neighborhood. Married an Italian boy up the block. Gone to work in his family’s business. And proceeded to produce lots of little Italian babies who looked just like her husband.

Though they were both hard-headed and volatile, and had been known to shout the street down when they got going, Tony and Gloria were absolutely crazy about each other. They had the kind of marriage anyone would want to have. The kind he would be lucky to have…once he figured out if he really wanted it.

Not knowing what he wanted was proving to be a real pain in the ass. Made more painful by the very sexy distraction called the Crimson Rose. He’d been able to avoid her for the rest of last night while working at the club, but every time their eyes met, she reminded him that she knew he was attracted to her.

“Nick?” Gloria prompted. “Everything okay?”

“I’m good, where are the boys?” he asked, looking past her for his two older nephews, or the carriage holding the baby one.

“I came in through the back…Tony Jr. and Mikey are in the kitchen with their father.” She raised her voice, never shifting her eyes toward the swinging door leading into the kitchen. “Who had better not be giving them candy outta Pop’s candy jar if he wants to live another day.”

From the back room came the sound of Tony’s deep laughter. Nick would lay money the boys were already high on Pop’s secret stash of gummy bears. “What about the baby?”

Gloria frowned, glancing toward the door of the restaurant. “He should be here any second. It’s hard enough bringing the boys to mass without Tony there to help me. No way could I handle three of them. So he stayed with Auntie Izzie.” Smiling in relief, Gloria nodded. “Here they are now.”

Something about seeing Izzie pushing a baby carriage into the restaurant made Nick’s stomach twist. Not because she looked like an absolute natural doing it…but because she looked miserable. Uncomfortable as hell.

He had to laugh. The woman was so unlike anyone else around here. Maybe that was why he couldn’t get her off his mind.

“Hey, Iz, how’d you do with my little prince?”

“He puked in my hair. Twice.”

Gloria swooped in and lifted the three-month-old out of the stroller, cuddling him close. “Aww, what’d you do to him?”

“I told him if he puked on me again I’d take him to the zoo and drop him in the bear cage,” Izzie muttered. “What do you think I did to him?”

Gloria patted the baby on his back. “It’s okay, Auntie Izzie’s just grumpy because she doesn’t have a sweet man to cuddle up with…much less four like Mommy’s got.”

Nick almost choked on his water at that one. If Gloria had been facing her sister, she would have seen the death ray that had come from Izzie’s eyes. Apparently she heard him…because suddenly that death ray was sent in his direction.

Nick held up his hands, palms out, in a universal peace gesture. “I’m with you. Don’t drop me in a bear cage.”

Her glare faded and she half-smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Careful, Nick,” Gloria cautioned, still focused on the baby, “our Izzie’s not quite the sweet young thing you remember. You don’t want to tangle with her.”

Oh, yeah, he did want to tangle with her. Tangle his hands in her hair and his tongue in her mouth and his arms around her body and his legs between her thighs. Mostly he wanted to tangle in her life…and tangle her in his. At least enough so she’d give him a chance to win back some of that interest she’d once felt toward him.

Before Izzie could say anything, the door opened and more family members poured in. His parents and his brother Joe-with wife and baby in tow-led the way. Folks from the neighborhood followed. Next came lots of cousins and aunts and uncles, all of whom came to the restaurant every Sunday for a big family meal.

Izzie’s whole body went tense. He could see it from five feet away. She didn’t want to be part of this-didn’t feel a part of this. And Nick, more than anyone else in the room, understood. So without saying a word, he got up, took her hand, and tugged her toward his table.

She resisted. “What…”

“Come on, it’ll be okay,” he whispered as he pulled her down to sit beside him. “I’ll tell you who I recognize, you tell me who you recognize and we’ll get through this together.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, her mouth trembling. Looking for a moment like a trapped deer, she seemed on the verge of fleeing. She appeared unable to deal with something as innocuous-yet painful-as a neighborhood gathering.