Jo Leigh - One-Click Buy - September Harlequin Blaze

She seemed to encapsulate all the things he longed for, but feared he could never have. Good breeding, perfect manners, high-born status. A genuine sense of fun.

Did she have any idea how impossibly beautiful she was, with that silky smooth skin, long, swanlike neck and the cutest little overbite. Did she have a clue as to how many men would give their right arm to be with her?

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said as he approached, but then felt like a total idiot for saying something so stupid and clichéd. Smooth move from the guy dubbed Boston’s most eligible bachelor of the year by Young Bostonian magazine.

She turned and the minute she saw him, her face lit up, warming him from the inside out. “Liam.”

Their gazes met and he saw such a melancholic expression come into her eyes that it made him pause.

What was she so sad about?

His gaze drifted to the pet-shop window. There was a cocker-spaniel puppy in the window, paws pressed against the glass, eyeing Katie with total puppy love. A feeling he understood well.

“Friend of yours?” He smiled.

“I drop by to see him every day on my lunch hour. Sometimes I even go in to pet him. Honestly, I can’t understand why he hasn’t been adopted. Isn’t he the most adorable thing?”

“Yes, he is,” Liam said, but he was looking at her, not the puppy. “Why don’t you buy him?”

“Me? Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I can’t even keep goldfish alive.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone in my family.” She chuckled. “Just ask them.”

“I’m not asking everyone in your family,” he said. “I’m asking you.”

Katie shrugged. “My apartment doesn’t allow pets.”

“Oh, is that it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

His gaze caught lazily on her lips. “Would you like to take him for a walk?”

“We’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”

“I’m the client. I can delay the meeting if I want to. Would you like to take the puppy for a walk?”

“We could do that?”

He shrugged. “When you’re Boston’s most eligible bachelor…”

“You can do anything,” she finished for him, and grinned.

“You’ve got it.”

“But what’s Max going to say?”

“Let me take care of Max.” Liam pulled out his cell phone and gave Max Kruger a call to tell him he was commandeering his employee and pushing the meeting back for half an hour. “We’re all set.”

Five minutes later, Liam and Katie left the pet shop with the exuberant puppy, headed for the nearby park. The sun was warm, the breeze cool and the smell of autumn crisp and fresh. The puppy tugged hard on the leash, happy to be out of the window and exploring the world.

“Did you ever have a dog when you were growing up?” Liam asked.

“Once, but I wasn’t allowed to keep him. Brooke turned out to be allergic. You?”

He shook his head. “We couldn’t afford the food and vet bills.”

“Poor us. We’ve been so deprived.” She laughed; a soft melodic sound that lit him up inside.

You can say that again.

“Look at the way his hair flows, so soft and silky.”

“I’m looking,” he said, but his eyes weren’t on the cocker spaniel.

“He’s so proud and proper, the way he holds his head up and prances.” Katie tilted her own head. “I wonder if he has a pedigree.”

“Why do you think I had to put down a three-hundred-dollar deposit just to take him for a walk?”

She graced him with a beatific smile. “Thank you for that.”

“You could change apartments, you know?”

“What?”

“If you wanted to buy him, that is. You could always move.”

“It’d be a big commitment,” she hedged.

“Yeah,” he said.

“I’m not ready to tackle such a long-term obligation.”

“If you were ready, what would you name him?”

“Something befitting his nobility. Duke, perhaps. That’s what I named the puppy that was mine for a weekend.”

“It suits him.” He nodded.

“Oh, look,” she said, “an ice-cream vendor. Want some?”

Without waiting for an answer, she and Duke took off toward the ice-cream vendor pushing his cart through the park. Liam tagged along, enjoying her enthusiasm.

She bought an orange push-up. Liam hadn’t seen one since he was a kid. It was orange-flavored ice cream on a stick wrapped up in a cardboard container festooned with cartoon characters. You were supposed to push up the ice cream as you ate it. The theory was the cardboard kept sticky confections off messy children.

“Mmm, wanna bite?” She pushed up the orange ice cream and offered it to him.

“No, that’s okay. You go ahead.”

“Come on. It’s great.” She waggled it under his nose. “I dare you.”

He smiled, shook his head.

“What? Are you afraid I’ll give you girl cooties?”

Cooties. Something else he hadn’t heard since childhood.

“I’m not afraid of girl cooties.”

“Prove it,” she goaded.

She had no idea of the craving ripping and clawing through him as he looked at her lips, dotted with a spot of ice cream, or she wouldn’t tempt him so glibly. If she had the slightest idea about the appetites he kept tightly leashed, the hunger that even now, in this park, in the bright light of the noonday sun, stressed every atom of his self-control, she would run for her life.

Liam didn’t want to eat ice cream. He wanted to eat her.

“Come on,” she cajoled.

Impulsively, he bit off a bite of her push-up. She was right. It tasted delicious.

He thought he might scare her with his abrupt about-face, the slippage of his control. But, no, she wasn’t the least bit fazed. Her tongue flicked out and she licked the part he’d just bitten into.

“Mmm.” She winked seductively. “Now I have boy cooties. Guess we’ll have cooties together.”

“I guess so,” he smiled, turned on by her antics.

Duke whimpered.

“Don’t worry,” Katie said, pushing up the remainder of the ice cream for the puppy to lick, “we haven’t forgotten you.”

A few minutes later, they rounded a corner and came upon a pond where a group of picnickers were feeding bread to a flock of hungry ducks.

The minute Duke caught scent of the waterfowl, he went berserk. The cocker spaniel jerked on the leash, almost yanking Katie off her feet.

Liam grabbed for her elbow but she was already gone, pulled toward the water by the feisty Duke, who no longer looked so regal with his teeth bared, issuing a bark so commanding it sounded as if it could have come from a Doberman.

The picnickers gawked.

The ducks scattered.

Katie tried pulling on the leash, but apparently Duke held an entrenched hatred of ducks. The mild tugging on his neck wasn’t enough to stop his forward motion.

Liam sprinted after them.

Duke hit the water with a loud smack.

Katie teetered on the bank, holding tightly to the leash.

“Let go,” Liam called.

But his warning came too late. The heel of her right boot was wedged between two pathway stones. She jerked backward in an attempt to extract herself, but the dog was swimming in the opposite direction.

The next thing Liam knew, a bootless Katie was tumbling headfirst into the water.

KATIE CAME UP sputtering. She shoved wet hair from her eyes and looked up to see Liam on the bank laughing his ass off.

“Very funny,” she growled.

“It’s kind of funny,” he said, but at least he made an effort to stop laughing.

“I’m soaking wet.”

She raised an arm. It was only then, as she watched Liam’s gaze hone in on her breasts, that she realized when wet, her sweater was practically transparent. Instantly, she crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her silhouetted breasts.