Leslie Kelly - Wicked & Willing

“Your lips are pursed, as if you’re thinking of being kissed. Of kissing back,” he continued. “Of using your mouth for something other than talking….”

“Pursed lips can also be a sign of attitude,” Venus countered weakly.

He nodded. “Oh, honey, there’s no question you’ve got miles of attitude. But it’s not your attitude at work when your lips are full and ripe and parted like that. It’s another part of Venus altogether.”

Yeah. The empty, aching part that needed to be filled by him. She closed her eyes, desperately trying to relax.

“Even your legs are shaky,” he teased, running his fingers along her thigh.

Her eyes flew open. “I didn’t think touching was part of this demonstration,” Venus said between ragged breaths.

“It’s not. I don’t have to touch you to know how badly you want me.” He moved his hand again, the tips of his fingers scraping ever so delicately across the curls concealing her womanhood. “Though if I did, I think we’d find out quickly just how much you do….”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to THE BAD GIRLS CLUB! I think every romance reader has come across a book that has a great “bad girl” secondary character—a woman whose story they’d like to read. But it sometimes seems difficult to envision that slightly outrageous, possibly shady best-friend type as a heroine. Thankfully, in Temptation, anything’s possible!

I loved writing about Venus Messina in my March 2002 book, Into the Fire, and many readers apparently loved the plucky redhead, too. The problem was finding just the right hero to be her match. When I finished writing my June book, Two To Tangle, I realized I’d found that hero—Troy Langtree. Because who better to bring down a very wicked woman than an even more wicked man?

This book was such fun to write. Venus is my kind of woman—gutsy, strong, funny, sexy and yet, believe it or not, I think she’s the most vulnerable heroine I’ve ever written. And what can I say about Troy? I adore him, wicked rogue that he is. The icing on the cake was working with two of my other favorite Temptation authors—Julie Elizabeth Leto and Tori Carrington. The “bar scene” in Wicked & Willing should give you a little taste of what’s to come.

Hope you enjoy hanging with the bad girls….

Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Julie, Lori and Tony…

terrific writers, even more terrific friends!

Thanks for making this project

such a wonderful experience.

And to my readers. Thanks for hanging in there

with me for another wild ride.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

“WHAT WOULD YOU SAY if I told you it’s possible you’re the long-lost granddaughter of a millionaire?”

Venus Messina snorted as she twisted the cap off a bottle of Bud, then flipped it into the trash with her thumb. She didn’t even look over her shoulder at the uptight old windbag whom she’d dubbed Mr. Collins—Tom Collins—since that was his drink of choice. He sat at the end of the bar and had been trying to engage her in conversation since the moment he arrived.

Granddaughter of a millionaire. Right.

Lemme guess…my Granny is Miss Manners. Cause everyone can see I’m just like her. She chuckled under her breath.

The man persisted. “…and his direct heir?”

Though his voice grated shrilly over the noisy chatter in the crowded room, nobody even glanced over in curiosity. It was late into Happy Hour on a hot Friday night in June, and everyone knew Friday nights in an Irish pub were as good a place for outrageous stories and high drama as any movie theater.

Tonight was the third time this week the man had parked himself here at Flanagan’s, her foster uncle’s bar, where she’d been working until she could find a full-time job. The first night, the man had been so quiet she almost hadn’t heard his drink order. He’d looked as out of his element as a nun in a strip club. Not so much in the way he dressed, though. After all, Flanagan’s catered to a lot of ambitious, wealthy businesspeople who spent their days bowing down to the almighty dollar in one of the many huge office buildings in downtown Baltimore.

No, he didn’t look out of place because of his pricey dark suit, which even Venus could tell probably cost more than she made in a month—or more than she had made in a month when she’d actually been employed full-time. Instead, it was his stiffness, the upturned tilt of his pointy chin, the way his nose flared in that irritating way when somebody stepped too close. The way he combed one long strand of graying hair over the top of his head to hide a bald spot, because, after all, rich people were much too refined to ever wear something as gaudy as a toupee.

Nope, she couldn’t say she liked Mr. Collins, even if he was a damn good tipper.

“Are you even going to answer me, young lady?”

The imperious tone said he’d given up on easy friendliness, something he’d tried last night and failed at miserably. Mr. Collins’s face looked like it was going to crack from his smile—obviously he didn’t use it very often.

Tonight he’d skipped friendly and gone for nosy. He’d been trying to engage her in conversation and had been asking way too many personal questions—none of which she’d answered, of course. After she’d spent the past hour ignoring everything he said that wasn’t prefaced by the standard, “Bartender, get me a…,” he’d finally blurted out his ridiculous millionaire comment.

“Well?” he prompted, impatiently tapping his perfectly manicured fingers on the top of the pitted, sticky bar.

Sliding the bottle of Bud and a Fuzzy Navel—a disaster of a drink if ever there was one—to the yuppie couple seated at the bar, she muttered, “I’d say somewhere a village is seriously missing its idiot.”

Yuppie man grinned. His date, with the pisspoor taste in drinks, gave Venus a quick frown, warning her away from spoken-for territory. As if, lady. Guys in ties were definitely not Venus’s bag these days. As a matter of fact, she’d lately sworn off all men in general. Her last relationship had burned her—badly—leaving her not only brokenhearted, but jobless to boot.

Besides which, Venus had decided thirty was too old to keep playing the field. She looked forward to her thirtieth birthday the way a condemned prisoner looked forward to the executioner.

Thirty. Less than a year away. Now, doesn’t that suck?

Venus didn’t so much mind the number. She did mind not being where she’d thought she’d be by age thirty—in a great job, a stable relationship, a house, maybe even with a couple of rugrats running around. Her upbringing had made her desire The Brady Bunch life as an adult.

At the rate she was going, she’d be lucky with The Os-bournes.

“It would behoove you to take a brief break and speak with me,” Mr. Tom Collins said, still red in the face from her previous comment.

“Behoove?” She paused to finish pulling a draught of Guinness, complete with the requisite “G” swirl of foam on top. She pushed it toward the waitress, and grinned as Janie rolled her eyes behind the annoying man’s back. “It would also behoove me to earn my paycheck, don’tcha think, Janie?”

The woman snorted. “You call what that cheapskate Joe pays us a paycheck?” Venus took no offense. Janie was Joe’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. This week they were off-again.