Sandra Marton - Guardian Groom

She didn’t get very far. This time, she didn’t so much stumble as drop to her knees.

“Oh,” she said in surprise.

“Give me a break,” Grant said wearily, stooped, and swung her up into his arms.

“Hey,” she said, “what are you doing?”

Being a glutton for punishment, Grant thought as he carried her toward the building where Horace Blackburn’s office was located. Hell, he thought grimly, at least he was getting closer to that damned meeting.

“You put me down!”

She was beating her fists against his shoulder, but Grant ignored her. At some later point, he thought with bemused detachment, he’d probably laugh at all this, especially at how a woman who felt so soft and smelled so good could land such solid, uncompromising punches.

Right now, all he could hope was that none of the passersby tossing amused smiles in his direction was Horace Blackburn.

Grant shouldered open the lobby door and made for a marble planter that held a scrawny rubber tree trying to survive. With a grunt, he dumped his burden unceremoniously on the planter’s edge.

“No couch,” he said briskly as he knelt down before her. “But then, you can’t have everything in this life, can you?”

“Let me alone,” she snapped as he reached for her foot.

“I’m checking to see what you’ve done to yourself.”

“What I’ve done? You’ve got to be kidding! You ran me over, you called me a swindler, you—you kidnapped me—”

“I told you,” he said pleasantly as he grasped her ankle. “Sue me. But first you’re going to have to take this boot off.”

“Not on your life! Dammit, I didn’t ask you to—” The furious words ground to a halt. “What’s so funny?”

“You won’t need an ambulance or an orthopedist.” Grant looked up at her, his lips twitching. “What you will need is a shoe repair shop.”

Crista frowned as she leaned forward. “What?”

“It’s your heel. It broke when you—when we—collided. That’s why you had trouble keeping your balance.”

Crista shut her eyes as the man began to chuckle. But she couldn’t blame him. What a fool she’d made of herself, starting the minute they’d bumped into each other and going straight through to that performance she’d put on as he carried her inside this lobby.

She was in a terrible mood, angry at herself and the world, but he had no way of knowing that. He was just a stranger and she’d let it all out on him.

She took a deep breath. “Look,” she said, and opened her eyes…

The apology died on her lips. He was still holding her foot, but he wasn’t smiling any longer. Instead, he was taking a slow, steady inventory, that topaz gaze of his sweeping up the length of her inch by inch.

Crista knew, with awful certainty, what he was seeing. The T-shirt. The ridiculous leather skirt. The stupid boots…

Those incredible boots, Grant thought. They were the sexiest things he’d ever seen. And that skirt—it was leather, like the boots, and it barely came to midthigh. Above it, a wide belt cinched an impossibly slender waist and above that…

Oh yes. Above that, her breasts rose in exquisite fullness, rounded and high and encased in a pale pink cotton shirt that had been dampened by the rain. He could see the outline of her nipples so clearly defined that the need to reach out and touch them, to stroke them until they hardened in need, was almost overpowering.

“Well?” Her voice was low pitched, controlled, and very cold. “Have you had a good look, little boy?” She pulled her foot free of his hand and, with a lurch, got to her feet. “Then run home to Mama and I’ll be on my way.”

Grant rose, too. Her eyes had gone from violet to plum. She was angry at him again, which was laughable—almost as laughable as her pretended outrage when she’d thought he was coming on to her a few minutes ago.

Why would a woman dress this way unless that was exactly what she wanted from every man she met?

“Of course,” he said silkily. “I wouldn’t want to keep you. An appointment with your—ah—your attorney, isn’t that what you said?”

Crista drew her raincoat around her. “You go to hell,” she said. With as much dignity as she could manage, considering the broken boot heel, she turned and walked toward the door.

Damn him, she thought, trying not to tremble. And damn herself even more for letting him do that to her. It was a long time since she’d cared how men looked at her in this awful outfit.

But this man, the arrogant bastard, had more than wanted her. He had judged her. Not that she was surprised. Even soaked to the skin, he wore his money and his breeding like a badge of office. People who didn’t meet his hard-hearted standards, who didn’t measure up to some rigid set of rules of his own making, were beneath his contempt.

He didn’t even believe her story about having a meeting to attend. Well, for all she knew, she didn’t. She was so late now that…

Crista stopped as the directory on the wall caught her eye. Blackburn, Blackburn, and Katz were located in this building, on the twentieth floor.

She spun around. There were two elevators, and the doors of both were just shutting. The man might be in either one.

So what?

“Hey,” she yelled, “wait!”

The doors jerked, stopped, then slid open. Crista hurried into the car. There were two occupants. A middle-aged woman with a briefcase—and him.

Crista shot him a cold look, then turned and folded her arms across her breasts. The elevator climbed slowly. At the third floor, the doors opened. The woman with the briefcase stepped out, and the doors closed again.

Crista counted silently as the car moved upward again. At the sixth floor, it stopped. She turned and glared at the man, who was leaning back against the wall, his feet crossed at the ankles.

“Sorry,” he said with a contemptuous smile. “I’m not getting out yet—but feel free to choose any floor you like.”

Crista’s jaw tightened. “Don’t I wish I could!”

“Following me is pointless. I don’t know what you want, but—”

“Don’t flatter yourself, mister! I have as much right to be here as you do. I have—”

“An appointment. Sure.”

Crista heard the disdain in his words. She told herself it didn’t matter, that the opinion of this stranger meant less than nothing to her—but she was already swinging toward him.

“Has anybody ever told you what an absolutely vile human being you are?”

His eyes narrowed. “Listen, lady. You’ve pushed your luck about as far as it goes. If I were you—”

“You are the most—the most arrogant, insolent, coldhearted, unfeeling son of a bitch—”

She cried out as he grabbed her and drew her to him. Her hand flew toward the control panel but he slammed his fist against it first.

The car shuddered to a halt.

“Hell,” he growled, “I’ve taken just about enough from you!”

Deep inside, Grant could hear a cold, rational voice warning him that he was going over the edge—but he wasn’t listening. No woman who looked like this should blame a man for looking at her, for wanting her—for needing to silence her in the most primitive way.

Grant gave up the battle and plunged into a time when men fought saber-toothed tigers.

He pulled her into his arms, ignoring the beat of her fists against his chest, his mouth dropping to hers in a kiss that demanded not just repentance but submission.

Crista offered neither. When he lifted his head, she spat a name into his face that the voice inside him assured him he more than deserved.

Let her go, Grant told himself. Dammit, man, let her go.

But the darkness reached for him again.

His hands fisted in her hair and his mouth descended toward hers. Again, he kissed her, branding her with his anger. Again, she fought back.