Leslie Kelly - Wickedly Hot

“Jenny,” she whispered, still missing her only sibling.

Her sister had gone off to try to be a star on the stage in New York City, against the family’s wishes and to Mama’s utmost horror. She’d landed on the stage, all right—a raised platform in a diner where she served chicken noodle soup and pastrami on rye between showstopping numbers.

She’d seemed happy enough, though, at least until last week when she’d come home for Mama’s wedding. Jenny had been crying about a man she’d met at the restaurant. She’d fallen hard as only a vulnerable, lonely twenty-one-year-old could. The stranger had swept her off her feet then dropped her flat.

Ryan Stoddard, aka the bastard.

It was time for him to pay. If Aunt Lula Mae found out, she’d likely want to punish him herself. And it still might come to that. If Jade couldn’t publicly humiliate him, she just might have to get some of his hair and let Lula Mae do what she did best—curse him so he’d never be able to, uh, perform again.

But not until she’d given it a shot. Her way.

Which meant Ryan Stoddard was in for the most embarrassing night of his life.

RYAN HADN’T EXPECTED her to be so beautiful.

She stood out like an exotic jungle flower among a bunch of daisies. Her silky-looking dark hair was nearly black, skimming over her shoulders and down her back until it was lost against the color of her dress. A soft, red scarf draped loosely across her shoulders provided a dramatic contrast that drew the eye again and again.

Her skin was smooth and perfect, a warm tanned color like fine coffee full of rich, sweet cream. She was taller than most of the men who’d been eyeing her all evening, and held her slender jaw slightly up, indicating confidence and perhaps a bit of arrogance.

Though in a crowd, she seemed alone. Her detached attitude was enticing because of its mysterious quality, but off-putting because of her disinterest in her surroundings.

Her body was sin, her face was flawless, her eyes were wicked.

How appropriate for a thief.

“Mr. Stoddard, are you enjoying yourself?”

Mamie Brandywine, the owner of the bed-and-breakfast and museum, joined him. She briefly pulled his attention off his target, the woman he’d come to Savannah to find. Jade Maguire.

“Very nice, thank you.”

“And you’re finding your tours of the local plantation homes helpful in your research?”

“Absolutely,” he said, trying to get his mind off the seductive, deceitful temptress and back on his job. Something he’d been putting on the back burner for the past few weeks while trying to get retribution for what had been done to his grandmother. Fortunately, his quest for justice had led him here, to the very city he needed to visit while writing an article on the architecture of the Old South.

“I’m truly enjoying the tours you’ve set up. Thanks so much for arranging for me to stay in some of the local inns,” he added, trying to find some basic element of charm—or at least cordiality—within himself. It had been buried beneath a layer of anger for weeks.

That anger had increased the moment he’d seen Jade Maguire. She should have looked like a thief, a crone, a crook.

But she didn’t. She looked like every man’s fantasy. The kind of woman he’d always imagined but never found—mysterious, sultry, intelligent, almost unattainable. God, Ryan couldn’t resist a challenge. And Jade Maguire screamed, “Look, but don’t touch,” a challenge no man could resist.

To his eternal shame, he wanted her in spite of knowing what she’d done. Wanted her with instant avarice and a healthy dose of anger. He wanted her under him, crying for mercy even as she cried out in passion and begged him to take her.

He’d never felt the heady mix of passion and anger before. Never understood its power, though he’d heard of it affecting other men.

Now he got it. It was nearly painful to be in the same room with a woman he’d desired on sight, but who’d swindled a valuable family heirloom from a helpless elderly woman.

Well, he could concede, his grandmother was not exactly helpless. She had a steel spine beneath her high-necked blouses—which made it even more imperative for him to get the painting back as soon as possible. The elderly woman was so embarrassed at having been tricked by the deceitful con artist that she’d refused to bring the police in on the case. She’d also forbidden him to tell Grandfather she’d let the painting be stolen. She’d concocted some story about it being on loan for an exhibit to keep the old man from asking any questions. She was relying on Ryan to bring it back before she could get caught.

“I can’t tell you how pleased we are that Architectural Digest is going to devote an article to the construction of our fair city,” Mamie said, interrupting his heated thoughts about the woman across the room.

The article. The reason Ryan was getting the red-carpet treatment here in Savannah. What perfect timing that he’d come here for an annual meeting, after being solicited to write a piece for the journal. He’d kill three birds with one stone.

The conference. The article. And the thief.

“Savannah has paved the way for other cities to save their historic treasures,” he replied, completely in earnest. “Anyone who wants to preserve treasured buildings of the past would look to your city as a fine example.”

The pudgy woman preened and not very subtly smoothed her hand over the low, tight neckline of her unattractive, fluffy green dress. Very tight. Very low cut. The wares were nearly spilling out, which was apparently what she wanted.

Ryan stiffened ever so slightly and took a small step back. His stance grew a bit more formal as he sent out a silent message that he hoped she’d get. He didn’t want to have to flat-out turn her down and risk alienating the woman who owned the inn he’d be sleeping in tonight. Particularly because he imagined she had keys to all the rooms.

He had a sudden mental flash of a fleshy woman creeping into his bed in the dead of night. Talk about your basic nightmares. He’d had flings with older women—his university guidance counselor came to mind—but never decades older.

Then the picture in his oversexed brain changed, and it wasn’t the proprietress face he imagined entering his room in the dark of night. He saw the thief—Jade—lovely and deceptive. Graceful and conniving. Intoxicating and completely ruthless.

The image of her dark black hair against his white sheets made him gulp a big mouthful of his drink.

“Are you all right, Mr. Stoddard?” Mamie asked as he coughed a bit into his fist.

“Fine,” he murmured. “Just…went down the wrong way.”

Everything about this situation had gone down the wrong way, from the minute his grandmother had told him she’d been robbed. First, tracking the wrong J. Maguire from Savannah, he’d wound up meeting the younger sister, Jenny, up in New York. He’d realized within hours that she wasn’t the right woman. Thankfully, he’d only taken her out to lunch once. So she wouldn’t have had any reason to mention him to her sister.

The second detective he’d hired—a better one—had found Jade, and his grandmother had confirmed the description. Ryan had taken the information and come to Savannah determined, in charge, using the cover of the convention and the article to get where he wanted to be—close to her.

Everything had gone fine. Right up until the moment he’d actually seen the woman he was after.

He could be in over his head with this one. It was somehow exciting, rather than disturbing, to imagine the sexy brunette sneaking into his room. Trying her tricks on him, creeping in to take something that belonged to him. Taking him.