Susan Mallery: In Bed With The Devil

“You’re no different.”

“True, but we’re not talking about me. As a guy, you have different standards to live up or down to. If you have money, then you can be a total loser and you’ll still get the girl. But for me it was different. Hence the surgeries.”

“You had more than one?” he asked, frowning slightly. He knew only about her nose.

She sat up and leaned toward him. “Breasts,” she said in a mock whisper. “I had breast implants.”

His gaze involuntarily dropped to her chest. Then he jerked his head to the right and focused on the weight bench next to him.

“Why?” he asked, determined not to think about her body and especially not her breasts, which were suddenly more interesting than he wanted them to be.

“After I lost weight, I discovered I had the chest of a twelve-year-old-boy. I was totally flat. It was depressing. So I got implants. I went for a jumbo B-which seemed about right for my newly skinny self.”

She stood and turned sideways in front of the mirror. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I should have just gone for it and ordered the centerfold breasts. What do you think?”

He told himself not to look, but it was like trying to hold back the tide. Against his will, his head turned and his gaze settled on her chest. Meri raised her tank top to show off her sports bra.

“Are they okay, Jack?”

A guy walking by did a double take. “They’re great, honey.”

She dropped her shirt and smiled. “Thanks.”

Jack glanced at the guy and instantly wanted to kill him. It would be fast and relatively painless for the bastard. A quick twist of the neck and he would fall lifeless to the ground.

Meri dropped her shirt. “I love being a girl.”

“You’re still playing me. I’m going to ignore you.”

“I’m not sure you can,” she teased. “But you can try. Let’s change the subject. We can talk about you. Men love to talk about themselves.”

He grabbed a couple of weights and sat on a bench. “Or we could focus on our workout.”

“I don’t think so.” She lay on her back and did chest presses. “What have you been up to for the last ten years? I know you went into the military.”

“Army,” he said between reps.

“I heard it was Special Forces.”

“That, too.”

“I also heard you left and started your own company dealing with corporations that want to expand into the dangerous parts of the world.”

Apparently he wasn’t the only one who had done some research.

“It’s impressive,” she said. “You’ve grown that company into quite the business.”

“I’m doing okay.” Five hundred million in billing in the past year. His accountants kept begging him to go public. They told him he could make a fortune. But he already had more than he needed, and going public meant giving up control.

“Are you married?” she asked.

He looked over at her. She’d shifted positions and was now doing bicep curls. Her honey-tanned skin was slick with sweat, her face flushed, her expression intense. She was totally focused on what she was doing.

Would she be like that in bed? Giving a hundred percent, really going for it?

The thought came from nowhere and he quickly pushed it away. Meri could never be more than Hunter’s baby sister. She could dance around naked and beg him to take her-they were never going there.

“Jack? You gonna answer the question?”

Which was? Oh, yeah. “No, I’m not married.”

“You’re not gay, are you? Hunter always wondered.”

He ignored her and the question. If he didn’t react, she would get tired of her game and move on to something else.

She sighed. “Okay, that was funny only to me. So there’s no wife, but is there someone significant?”

“No.”

“Ever been anyone?”

“There have been plenty.”

She looked at him. “You know what I mean. A relationship where you’re exchanging more than bodily fluids. Have you ever been in love?”

“No,” he said flatly. Women tried to get close and he didn’t let them.

“Me, either,” she said with a sigh. “Which is deeply tragic. I want to be in love. I’ve been close. I thought I was in love, but now I’m not so sure. I have trust and commitment issues. It’s from losing my mom when I was young and then losing Hunter. Isn’t it interesting that knowing what the problem is doesn’t mean I can fix it?”

He didn’t know what to say to that. In his world, people didn’t talk about their feelings.

“You lost a brother when you were young,” she said. “That had to have affected you.”

No way he was thinking about that. He stood. “I’m done. I’m going to take a shower.”

She rose and moved close. “Want to take one together?”

He had an instant image of her naked, water pouring over her body. How would she feel? His fingers curled slightly, as if imagining cupping her breasts.

Damn her, he thought. She wasn’t going to win. It was time to stop playing nice.

He moved forward, crowding her. She stepped back until she bumped into a weight bench, then she dropped into a sitting position. He crouched in front of her.

“You do not want to play this game with me,” he told her in a low voice. “I’m not one of your brainy book guys. I have seen things you can’t begin to imagine, I have survived situations you couldn’t begin to invent. You may be smart, but this isn’t about your brain. You can play me all you want, but eventually there will be consequences. Are you prepared for that, little girl?”

“I’m not a little girl.”

He reached behind her and wrapped his hand around her ponytail, pulling just hard enough to force her head back. Then he put his free hand on her throat and stroked the underside of her jaw.

Her eyes widened. He sensed her fighting fear and something else. Something sexual.

He knew because he felt it, too. A pulsing heat that arced between them. Need swirled and grew until he wanted to do a whole lot more than teach her a lesson.

Then she smiled. “I’m getting to you, aren’t I?”

He released her. “In your dreams.”

Back at the house, Meri went up to her room to change clothes. She didn’t offer to help Jack with his. After their close encounter at the gym, she needed a little time to regroup.

There had been a moment when Jack had touched her that had if not changed everything then certainly captured her attention. A moment when she’d been aware of him as being a powerful man and maybe the slightest bit dangerous.

“I’m not impressed,” she told herself as she brushed out her hair, then slipped into a skimpy sundress that left her arms bare. “I’m tough, too.” Sort of.

Jack was right. He’d been through things she couldn’t begin to imagine. While they’d both changed in the past eleven years, she wondered who had changed more on the inside. Was the man anything like the boy she’d both loved and hated?

Before she could decide, she heard the rumble of a truck engine. A quick glance at her watch told her the delivery was right on time.

“It’s here! It’s here!” she yelled as she ran out of her room and raced down the stairs. “Jack, you have to come see. It’s just totally cool.”

She burst out of the house and danced over to the truck. “Were you careful? You were careful, right? It’s very expensive and delicate and I can’t wait until you set it up. You’re going to calibrate it, right? You know how? You’ve been trained?”

The guy with the clipboard looked at her, then shook his head. “You’re a scientist, aren’t you?”

“Yes. How’d you know?”

“No one else gets that excited about a telescope.” He pointed back at the compact car parked behind the truck. “He calibrates it. I just deliver.”