Jeanie London - With This Fling

Harley braced herself for Mac’s next move, expecting to feel his hard body against hers. But he stood, tugged her up and lifted her into his arms. She was forced to hang on, to bury her face against his shoulder, as much to avoid their reflection in the mirrors as to avoid that hungry, almost gentle expression on his face.

She could stand up to his challenges, but it had only taken a few orgasms to learn she couldn’t bear up under his tenderness. At least not when she was feeling so raw herself.

“I’m no threat, Harley.”

But he was a threat. A bigger threat than she was prepared to admit. She said nothing.

Mac carried her to the bed and lay her out before him wearing nothing but his bracelet and his wedding band. He stood above her, so terribly handsome with his hair gleaming in the candlelit darkness, his expression so intense.

“What happens now?” she asked, needing to hear a voice, even her own, to fill the silence.

He sank to the edge of the bed, all fluid muscle and grace.

“I find more ways to pleasure you.”

Dear Reader,

All too often the path to love turns out to be a bumpy jaunt down a pothole-filled street rather than a smooth ride over new asphalt. But sometimes those bumps can help us learn things about others that teach us important things about ourselves.

Harley and Mac travel such a rocky road. She’s a woman who faces life with her chin squared and her eyes fixed on the future. But it’s learning about her past that helps Mac see how much he must grow to win this special woman’s heart. And realizing he has the strength of character to take an honest look inward helps Harley find the courage to trust him, and herself.

Blaze is the place to explore red-hot romance, and I’m delighted to be among the ranks of the wonderful Harlequin authors who share their journeys to happily ever after. I hope With This Fling brings you to happily ever after, too. Let me know. Drop a line in care of Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9, or visit my Web site at www.jeanielondon.com.

Very truly yours,

Jeanie London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my mom, Bonnie-Jean Hickman, for always being a wonderful example and an inspiration… a Cinderella story without the mice.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

THE INSTANT MAC GERARD touched her, he knew he’d made a big mistake. Awareness caught him fast and hard like a sucker punch, and he didn’t want to walk away from their argument as much as he wanted to kiss her.

So, God help him, he did.

Her eyes widened a split second before his mouth came down on hers and he steeled himself for her reaction—knowing this woman, she’d likely draw her gun and shoot him.

But something happened, some thing he’d never felt before.

Not run-of-the-mill desire. Not even hot-under-the-collar passion. This was need. Sharp. Potent. Consuming. He wanted to absorb her, press their bodies close until they fused into one.

He didn’t seem to be the only one experiencing the phenomenon, either, because she didn’t go for her gun, she melted against him, all her curves catching him in exactly the right places. Her lips parted on a gasp and she slipped her arms around his neck to pull him harder into their kiss.

Mac caught the taste of her with his mouth, drank in her scent on a breath. He kissed her with an urgency that was closer to making him lose control than any argument they’d ever had at work. And that was saying a lot. He wanted to inhale her through his pores, feel her body unfold around him, underneath him, with an intensity that shocked him to the core.

This was Harley Price…the gun-toting, karate-kicking, too-competent private investigator who’d been making his life hell ever since he’d walked through the door of his new job.

Then it hit him, and Mac finally understood the real problem between them. It wasn’t just a clash of personalities or a power struggle between two strong wills.

They were attracted to each other, big time.

And as the feel of her body imprinted itself on his, as the taste of her sweet mouth filtered through his senses, Mac knew he was in more trouble than he’d ever been in his life.

Because the only way he could fix the problem was to get this woman naked in bed.

“WITH THIS RING, I’d be dead,” Harley Price whispered to no one in particular.

She’d once heard that the best reason to get married was the promise of around-the-clock orgasms. While she understood the appeal, an orgasm would have to register double digits on the Richter scale before she’d suffer this kind of torture.

This torture was the reception line at a wedding. As one of the very last guests to pass through, she greeted the new Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Sinclair, side by side in their first official performance as husband and wife.

They looked giddy. Every happy cliché she’d ever heard applied to them, from the way they seemed to be floating on air to the way they glowed. They smiled in unison and acted as though every guest at their wedding was a close friend.

The fact that the new Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Sinclair looked as though they’d stepped off the cover of a romance novel might have had something to do with the impression, too. They’d dressed in costumes reflecting the fashion of two centuries earlier. Admittedly, the costumes worked with the surroundings, as this wedding was taking place at an antebellum plantation.

“Best of luck,” Harley said, wishing the newlyweds a lifetime of around-the-clock bliss. Technically she wouldn’t have even come to this wedding if her boss hadn’t insisted she make an appearance as a professional courtesy. But she’d come. She’d wished them well. Now she was out of here.

Moving beyond the reception line, Harley unscrewed her smile and fled for the nearest exit. Veering away from the tables, where gleaming china and exquisite floral arrangements beckoned guests, she slipped out of the ballroom.

She emerged in the hall, an octagonal rotunda that rose three stories above her, all curving staircases and high-luster balustrades. A crystal chandelier graciously illuminated her way to the exit and she measured her paces so her heels didn’t tap loudly across the wooden floor.

She hadn’t made the front exit when a female voice called out, “I told Josh you’d run for it if we took our eyes off you.”

Harley groaned at the sight of the red-sequined bridesmaid emerging from the ballroom. Unfortunately, this wasn’t just any bridesmaid—this was Lennon Eastman, her boss’s wife.