Jule McBride - Naughty By Nature

For the endless moment his gaze held hers, she tried not to notice the sleek black curls dancing around his face and how sharp his cheekbones looked under taut skin. “I thought it was Lucy.”

“It,” she whispered, wishing she didn’t sound so miserable. “Do you think I’m an it?”

He blew out an exasperated sigh. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Do you really like Lucy?” It was horrible to ask, but after feeling how he’d made love, Vanessa had to know. Hovering by the door, she held on to the toga knot and waited.

He gave a very male grunt. “No, I don’t like Lucy.”

“Maybe that’s even more offensive.” She couldn’t help but say it. After all, Lucy was Vanessa’s best friend, had been since they were babies. Feeling the toga slip, Vanessa curled a hand more tightly over the knot between her breasts and hiked up the sheet. “Anyway, what does that mean? Do you usually sleep with people you don’t like?”

Looking annoyed, he placed his palms on rock-hard thighs, rose from the bed and moved toward her, stopping when he was close enough that her every breath was drawing in a fresh, wind-in-the-pines scent. “Watch it.” She couldn’t help but taunt him, holding out her flattened palm. “If you come any closer, I might bite. And if I trip over a sheet and almost break my neck, like I did a minute ago, you definitely shouldn’t help me out. Heaven only knows what could happen to you if you did.” She paused for effect. “You might turn into a gentleman.”

He ignored the gibes. “I do not sleep with people I don’t like,” he assured her. “And I do think last night you could have stopped me.”

What was she supposed to do now? For a second, she was so stunned she forgot she was standing there looking like an idiot with green goop in her hair. “When? When I was half asleep and you climbed into bed with me? When you undressed me?”

“In anticipation of my visit,” he reminded her, his voice growing husky in a way she would have found arousing under any other circumstance, “you weren’t wearing much.”

“I was in bed when you called! You woke me up!” He was acting as if she’d worn a sexy nightie just for him. “If I was calculating,” she said, “I would have washed this stuff out of my hair.”

“Good point,” he conceded, making her feel even more ridiculous. “Still…”

“What was I supposed to do?” she asked, her jaw slackening. “Manacle your hands when they…” Her voice trailed off at the memories of what those hands had done. Suddenly starting, she forged on. “Muzzle you when you kissed me like a man possessed?”

When his gaze lingered a second too long on the mouth he’d plundered so senselessly, she fantasized him grinning and saying, “You think I kiss like I’m possessed, huh?” Instead, he said in a deliciously smooth baritone, “Look, the sooner we forget all this, the better, Ms. Verne.”

Whichever poet said hell had no fury like a woman scorned was probably right. She was definitely getting testy. “That’s a far cry from passion that keeps people together forever,” she retorted dryly.

Looking perturbed at having his words used against him, Morgan glanced toward the stairs and cocked his head, listening to her father and Lucy. “Sounds like your father’s leaving now.”

The words stung. For weeks, she’d flirted with Morgan, and when he’d climbed into bed with her, Vanessa had naturally assumed he’d succumbed to her charms. Sure, she’d tried to trick him into bed—she could admit that much—but he was acting almost as if she’d knowingly pretended to be Lucy. For Morgan Fine, she’d stoop, but never that low.

“Last night,” she began, feeling forced to defend herself, “I thought you knew it was me.” And their joining had been so perfect and complete she’d felt sure there would be a future for them. Or at least a formal date. Or maybe just a wild, passionate fling. “I thought you didn’t flirt because you were working, and since you were going back to headquarters today…” Her voice trailed off. “I thought you knew Lucy snuck out at night to see Bjorn—”

His eyes dropped over her. “How would I know that?”

Wishing she wasn’t feeling body heat seep from beneath the shirt she’d torn from his chest, she tried not to gape at him. “Because you’re from the Secret Service, that’s how.”

“We don’t know everything.”

Her tone stopped just shy of acid. “Obviously.”

There was a long silence. While she hated striking a nerve by attacking his competence, she suddenly couldn’t fight the urge to get a rise out of him. She’d like to evoke enough reaction that he’d tumble back into that big, warm, mussed bed, taking her with him. She couldn’t help it. She’d never felt anything like what they’d experienced last night, and now he looked like a man emerging from a seedy bar after a wild drunken night—his clothes wrecked, his hair sticking straight up and thick dark stubble coating his jaw. Every rakish inch of him was making her knees turn to jelly.

“A lot of men find me charming,” she added. In case he didn’t quite get all the implications, she continued, “Men have slept with me, knowing it was me.”

He murmured, “So I’ve heard.”

Her fingers tightened anxiously around the sheet. “Heard what, exactly?”

Assessing eyes glinted with what might have been male need, and during another prolonged silence, she heard the tick of a clock and muted dialogue as Lucy marshaled her father from the kitchen. Devastating and liquid, Morgan’s eyes were traveling over her with such hungry, bold possessiveness that she was sure he was going to take it all back. He was going to say he’d known it was her, not Lucy, all along….

“Let’s forget what happened,” he said.

“Last night’s not the kind of thing most people forget.”

“True,” he admitted. “But we’re not most people, are we?”

He made things sound so reasonable, but she wanted to protest, to say she’d never forget their hours of pleasure. “I just want to know one thing.”

“What?”

“Well…you said we owe it to ourselves to be honest.”

Looking miffed at having his words used against him again, he edged aggressively closer. “Okay,” he muttered, his eyes lashing into hers. “I’ll be honest. Perfectly honest. What do you want to know?”

With him so close, her heart started hammering. She hated humbling herself, but after last night, she agreed with him that they had no choice but to be honest. “Why?” she asked. “What’s wrong with me? Why are you sorry it was me, not Lucy?”

He seemed unaware he’d gripped her arm and was using a thumb to rub deep circles on her bare skin—or that he did so until she felt so hot, she was half convinced she was wearing an electric blanket instead of a sheet. “I know what you’re thinking,” he finally said. “You’re smart, you’re rich, you’re gorgeous, right? So, why shouldn’t the hired help be happy to do whatever you want?”

Including sleep with her? As much as she appreciated the back-door admission that she was smart, rich and gorgeous, she instinctively backed away—only to pull him with her. “You’re wrong,” she managed to say as her back hit the wall. “And I’m no snob.”

“If anything—” he agreed with a readiness that fueled her temper “—maybe you’re too undiscriminating.”

She thought of how brazenly her tongue had swirled over every inch of him. “You’ve got a point there,” she admitted shakily. She’d certainly never shared her body with somebody who didn’t even like her. “I definitely should have gotten to know you better before—before…” She couldn’t force herself to say the words before we made love. “Before, well, you know.”