Читать книгу The Inconvenient Bride - Anne McAllister, Anne McAllister - Страница 8

SURE. WHY NOT?

As if it were that easy.

It wasn’t—as Dominic well knew. He’d tried it once twelve years ago, and had regretted it ever since.

He’d had nightmares for years about that disastrous day—that sunny June morning in the Bahamas when he’d been left at the altar in front of two hundred avidly curious onlookers.

He knew he could never do it again. Knew he couldn’t face a huge production, a mob of people, a bride he had to count on, a wedding he had to wait for.

Well, he hadn’t had to wait for this one.

He’d accomplished the whole thing, start to finish, engagement to ceremony, in a matter of hours.

And now he was married.

To a purple-haired woman with raccoon eye-shadow eyes.

What had he done?

The words reverberated in his head almost as insistently as Sierra’s bright, “Sure. Why not?” But he glanced at his watch and knew he didn’t really have time to think about it now.

Finn kissed the bride. “How about we take you out for a champagne toast?”

“Sure,” Izzy seconded. “It’s the least we can do on such short notice.”

“Great!” Sierra said brightly.

But Dominic shook his head. “Thanks, but we can’t. Another time. We’ve got to meet my father for dinner.”

And with a quick handshake and a few more words of thanks, he spirited Sierra away.

“What do you mean, we’re meeting your father?” she protested as he steered her toward the elevator. “Your father’s in town and you didn’t even invite him?”

“You think he’d have stood there with his mouth shut, then wished us well?”

Sierra opened her mouth, then shut it again.

Dominic nodded grimly. He’d made his point. She’d met his father when her sister had married his brother. She’d had a glimpse of Douglas then. Not much, but he was fairly sure his trying to commandeer the wedding party and drive them to the reception in his Lincoln Town Car instead of the cars they’d arranged had made an impression.

They rode down in the elevator in silence. Sierra staring at the doors, Dominic at the top of her purple head.

What had he done?

He’d got married, that was all. Exactly what the old man had wanted.

But to Sierra Kelly, of all people!

Sierra Kelly with her purple hair and her Day-Glo spandex, with her clunky boots and ribbed black leggings. Yes, but, as he well knew, that wasn’t all she had. She also had mile-long legs and kissable lips and a wicked teasing tongue. She made his blood sizzle and the windows steam.

He’d met a million more suitable women, but he’d never met one who’d set him on fire—except Sierra. He’d never met one he’d wanted to go to bed with more.

Or again.

He could have taken or left any one of the others. But not her.

They’d made wild passionate desperate love one night three months ago. He’d been reliving it every night since.

Half an hour ago he’d married her—to be a sober reliable married man, to put an end to his father’s meddling—but mostly so tonight they could set the world on fire again.

But they had to get through dinner with his father first.

He tucked her into the same hired car and got in after her. Outside, rain slashed against the window. Horns honked as the driver cut into the traffic and began the journey uptown. The faint warmth of the spring afternoon had all but dissipated now. And against the far door Sierra seemed to be shivering inside her denim jacket.

“Are you cold?” Dominic asked.

She shook her head fiercely. “I’m fine.” She wrapped her arms around her damned tackle box and sat hugging it like it was some great plastic shield. For an instant she glanced his way long enough to shoot him a quick flippant smile, then stared straight ahead again.

He still thought she looked like she was shaking.

So if she wasn’t cold, was she nervous? Sierra? Not likely!

He doubted she’d ever been nervous in her life. He studied her out of the corner of his eye—her purple hair, her stubborn chin, her pert nose, her raccoon eyes. He fished in his pocket and thrust a clean handkerchief at her.

“Here. Wipe your face. You’ve got eye gunk all down your cheeks.”

Sierra looked startled. Then, “Thank you so much,” she said with false politeness, making him wonder if she’d rather appear in public looking like a raccoon.

But she snatched the handkerchief out of his hand and pressed the button to roll down the window.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

She thrust his handkerchief outside into the rain. “Unless you’d rather I spit in it?”

Dominic flushed. “Of course not.”

“I didn’t think so.” When she decided the handkerchief was sufficiently damp, she put the window back up and scrubbed at her cheeks. It took two more dousings of the handkerchief, followed by so much scrubbing he thought she’d rub the skin off her cheeks.

Finally she quit and turned to look at him. “Satisfied?”

Now she just looked like a prizefighter with two black eyes. Dominic didn’t say so, though. Apparently his silence said it for him.

Sierra shrugged. “Well, let’s just hope I get a chance to stop in the ladies’ room before your father arrives.” She stuffed his handkerchief in the pocket of her jacket, then folded her arms around the tackle box again.

She looked young and innocent—even in her purple-haired insouciance—and he wondered if he ought to coach her so she wouldn’t feel out of place.

But, of course, she would be out of place—it was part of the reason he’d married her, after all. He felt a twinge of guilt and promptly smothered it.

No one had made her say yes!

Besides, there was no point in telling her how to behave or how to act. If he tried she’d bite his head off, he was sure. And anyway, her very presence, looking as she did, was her act.

Still, he couldn’t quite leave it there.

“Do you need anything?” he asked her. It seemed like the least he could do. “A briefing?”

She looked at him, incredulous. “To meet your father?”

“Never mind,” he said, feeling like a fool. “Well, fine. If there’s nothing you need—” he picked up his briefcase, set it on his lap and opened it “—I’ve got work to do.”

She was married.

To Dominic Wolfe.

It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so real. If he hadn’t been sitting less than a foot away from her in his suit that probably cost more than two months’ rent on her apartment. If he hadn’t had his nose stuck in papers that Sierra was sure had to do with a merger that would allow him control of more wealth than the average small country.

Had she lost her mind?

Apparently. Never very much given to second guessing herself, even Sierra couldn’t refrain from second guessing this.

What on earth had possessed her? Why had she said yes to Dominic’s outlandish proposal?

She knew he didn’t love her.

Most of the time he barely acted as if he even liked her!

Except in bed.

In bed they were dynamite. In bed things happened that Sierra wouldn’t have believed could ever happen—especially between Dominic and herself.

Out of bed, though, she feared they had nothing in common at all.

He was using her against his father. He’d admitted as much.

Well, she was using him to help Frankie, she reminded herself. And she hadn’t even admitted that.

Not that he would care. He wouldn’t even ask. He’d just cut the check.

Her husband. Dominic Wolfe!

“Someday,” her mother used to warn her, “you’re going to bite off more than you can chew, missy.”

“Someday, kiddo,” her far more blunt farmer father used to say, “you’re going to leap without thinking and land headfirst in the manure pile.” Only he hadn’t said manure pile. He’d been a little more graphic.

That was about where Sierra felt she’d landed right now.

She shivered inside her jacket and considered opening the door and throwing herself out into traffic. With luck she’d be squashed by a passing taxi.

With her luck, she’d be knocked over by a bicycle messenger and Dominic would simply peel her off the pavement, mop her off and trundle her away to meet with his father.

God.

It was as close to a prayer as Sierra had been in a while. She was not big on praying. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in God. Or prayer. She did. But for the weak and the downtrodden and the desperate.

Not for herself. And definitely not when it came to asking for things. Asking was for people who couldn’t help themselves.

Sierra had always been sure she could.

Until now.

What on earth was she going to do now?

She shot a quick glance at the man sitting next to her. He had his briefcase open on his lap and was running his pen down a column of figures. His pen probably cost more than the rent on her apartment!

But it wasn’t just about money. It was about style. About values. About their whole very different approaches to life.

Like this restaurant they were heading toward.

She didn’t dare hope that Dominic was taking her to an uptown diner or a groovy little club for his little tête-à-tête with daddy.

No, it was bound to be one of those stuffy obnoxious places, all wood-paneling and hunt club prints of dogs with dead birds in their mouths. A muffled elegant place where the maître d’ would look down his ski-jump of a nose and seat her behind a potted palm—if he even deigned to seat her at all.

What if they didn’t even let her in?

A momentary shaft of humiliation and panic stabbed her in the gut before she realized that of course they would let her in.

She was going to be on the arm of Dominic Wolfe. He’d cow them and loom over them and pass them fifty bucks on the side and they might look askance, but they’d let her in.

And then they’d spill soup in her lap.

Or expect that she’d do it herself.

She started to bite her thumbnail, then jammed her hand into the pocket of her jacket. She was not going to bite her nails in front of Dominic. It was why she painted them wild and outrageous colors in the first place—so she’d remember not to bite them.

She wasn’t going to betray by the slightest flicker that her heart was in her throat and that her stomach was in knots.

No, sir. She wasn’t.

She’d learned long ago that fear got you nowhere. Her older sister Mariah had taught her that back when Sierra was only seven years old.

In those days her biggest terror had been water. When she was four, Terry Graff had knocked her into the swimming pool. She’d swallowed half of it before her father had fished her out. For the next three years she hadn’t stuck a toe in.

While all the other kids had laughed and splashed and swam and played, she’d stood quaking on the side, watching. Then some of the bigger kids had realized she was afraid—and instead of leaving her alone, they’d dragged her in.

She’d gone kicking and screaming and flailing and floundering. She’d made a complete fool of herself before Mariah had run at them with a stick and scared them off. When she’d dragged Sierra, shaking and crying back out, she’d said the seven most important words anyone had ever told her.

“You can’t let them see you’re afraid.”

Sierra had done her damnedest never to let anyone see her fears ever since.

She’d spent her life making sure she got over them. And, if she had to say so herself, she’d done a bang-up job. She’d outgrown her early panics. She’d discovered the world was a pretty dandy place.

But every once in a while she felt like that little girl on the poolside. But she wasn’t going to show it. She was going to march right up to the restaurant and, even if she resembled a Day-Glo raccoon, she was going to look them straight in the eye and never bat a lash.

Dominic might well be sorry he’d asked her to be his bride.

But he’d never feel sorry for her.

She’d see to that!

The maître d’ was agog.

His normally impassive features became positively animated at the sight of Dominic and his guest. For a split second his eyes gawped. But then he schooled his features, stiffened his spine and assumed an expression of something that might best be described as “determined indifference.”

As well it might be, Dominic thought. If he was willing to pay Le Sabre’s exorbitant prices, he ought to able to bring his damn dog to dinner if he so chose!

Gripping Sierra firmly by the arm, he smiled at the maître d’. “Good evening, Flaubert. Has my father arrived?”

Flaubert fixed a thin smile on his face. “He has, Mr. Wolfe. He and the lady and the other gentleman arrived a few moments ago. They’ve already been seated. I understood you were to be four for dinner?” One brow lifted, but he determinedly did not look at Sierra.

Dominic’s back stiffened. “There’s been a change in plans.”

For a split second the maître d’ seemed about to argue. Then his mouth pressed into a tight line and beckoned a waiter. The man scurried to his side. At Flaubert’s whispered words, he shot an astonished gaze in their direction, then nodded and hurried toward the dining room.

“It will take just a moment.” Flaubert paused. Once more his gaze skated right over Sierra to focus on Dominic. “Would the…young lady…like to…check her coat and er…?” He eyed the tackle box with distaste.

“I’ll keep it, thanks,” Sierra said before Dominic could open his mouth.

But it was as if she hadn’t spoken. Flaubert continued to look at Dominic for an answer.

Dominic’s teeth came together and he put an arm around her shoulders. “We will check the box. I think it might get in the way in the dining room, don’t you?” He looked to Sierra for a nod which, after a moment’s stubbornness, he got. Then he turned back to the maître d’. “My wife will keep her coat, thank you.”

Flaubert’s jaw sagged as Dominic had been sure it would.

Stepping around him, Dominic handed over the box to the woman behind at the cloak room. Then, pocketing the token she gave him, he steered Sierra into the dining room.

His father, Tommy Hargrove and a sleek blond woman were no longer sitting at the table his father regularly claimed. Instead they were sitting behind a potted palm, looking discomfitted and annoyed as a waiter finished laying an extra place setting and stepped away.

A sound something akin to a smothered snigger emanated from Sierra.

Dominic looked down at her. “Something funny?”

She flashed a grin. “The palm tree. I knew they’d have a palm tree.”

And that they’d put you behind it, he finished for her. A corner of his own mouth twisted and his fingers tightened on her arm. “Screw ’em,” he muttered and was instantly rewarded when Sierra grinned again.

Just then Douglas spotted them, and Dominic had the pleasure of seeing the old man’s jaw rival Flaubert’s. Almost instantly, though, it snapped shut again and Douglas took a deep breath as he rose to his feet. His gaze fixed on Dominic and his hard blue eyes glittered. It was belied by his smooth tone.

“How nice that you’ve brought a guest to join us. I don’t believe we’ve met?” He, at least, was facing Sierra head-on. In fact he stared straight into the magenta and the Day-Glo peeking out from behind the denim and didn’t even blink. Dominic was impressed.

“We have, actually,” Sierra said cheerfully, offering her hand. “I’m Sierra Kelly. Mariah’s sister. My hair was blonde for the wedding,” she added, presumably by way of explaining why he might not have recognized her.

“Oh!” Douglas’s relief was palpable as he took her hand and shook it heartily. “Yes! Oh my, yes. Of course. I do recognize you now. The, um, purple threw me for a moment. My son Rhys’s wife’s little sister!” he explained to Tommy and the blonde who had to be Viveca.

Dominic smiled and corrected this misconception. “Mariah’s little sister,” he agreed. “And my wife.”

He had to give his father credit.

By barely more than a flicker of a muscle in his jaw and a sudden paleness around his mouth, did Douglas betray that Dominic’s arrival with a wife in tow was even unexpected, much less a shock.

Instead he kissed Sierra’s cheek and introduced them both to Viveca Moore.

She was exactly as his father described her—blonde, brilliant, and sophisticated. The perfect accessory.

A far cry from the woman whom an hour ago he’d made his wife.

Dominic never knew if Viveca had any idea she was supposed to be his date this evening. Douglas took hold of her hand and said smoothly that he was sorry they hadn’t been able to make the wedding, and then called for a bottle of champagne.

“To toast you both,” he said, the glitter in his hard blue eyes the only sign that he was less than pleased.

Champagne, Dominic remembered with a qualm, had been his and Sierra’s downfall at Rhys and Mariah’s wedding.

It was the champagne that had made them reckless, that had fanned the flames of desire that had been raging between them since the day they’d met. It was the champagne that had made them challenge each other, that had tipped them over the edge and sent them to that hotel room to slake their desperate desire.

“I don’t know—” he began.

But Sierra said brightly, “What a lovely idea.” Then she explained, “We’ve been in such a hurry all day, we didn’t have time to toast our marriage earlier with our friends.” She turned her gaze on Dominic and he saw the challenge in her eyes.

“Then we must do it now,” Douglas said firmly. He gave Dominic a hard smile and, when the waiter arrived, poured and passed out glasses of champagne. Then he raised his own, first to Sierra, then to Dominic.

“To my son,” he said, “and his new wife. May you share a long, long, long life together.”

If he’d said one more “long” Dominic would have throttled him. As it was, he noted there was no wish for happiness. He wondered if Sierra noticed.

Her eyes were laughing as she touched her glass to his. “And a happy one,” she said.

Their glasses clinked.

“Hear, hear!” cried Tommy Hargrove.

“We wish you great happiness,” Viveca said with etiquette book politeness. “Don’t we, Douglas?”

“Yes, of course,” Douglas said hastily. “Indeed we do.” He poured more champagne, then looked at his son. “Dominic, don’t you have a toast for your bride?”

Dominic raised his glass to the challenge, first to his father, then to his wife. “To Sierra,” he said gravely, “who has made me the happiest of men.”

He meant it as a slap at his father. As a bit of veiled sarcasm. But as he drank, Dominic realized that, in some small way, it was the truth.

For one steamy night three months ago, Sierra had made him happier than he’d ever been in his life.

She’d made him silly and hungry and passionate. She’d made him forget mergers and balance sheets and the rat race he called his life. She’d made him laugh and tease and wrestle and grow sweaty and desperate and, finally, fulfilled.

He hadn’t forgotten.

It was, after all, why he’d asked her to marry him. But he wasn’t fool enough to expect it to last.

Outside of bed, they had nothing in common. Inside it, for one night at least, they’d had bliss.

“To Sierra,” he said firmly. “My wife.”

They drank staring into each other’s eyes. Hers were no longer laughing, he noticed. They were shiny, as if they held tears. But that was ridiculous. Sierra never cried! She wasn’t the type. And she would certainly not get soppy about a marriage like theirs.

“I have a toast,” Tommy said suddenly.

Everyone turned to look at the snowy-haired old man as he raised his glass and looked at Dominic over the top of it. “This was a spur of the moment affair, I trust?”

Dominic stiffened, but Sierra laced her fingers through his and nodded. “Yes. Dominic swept me off my feet.”

“Ah.” Tommy beamed at her.

Douglas fixed Dominic with a glare. But Tommy didn’t notice. He was nodding enthusiastically. “Thought so.” He raised his glass higher. “Just like Bernice and I. Sometimes,” he said with a sweet sad smile, “the best things happen on the spur of the moment. Bernice—God rest her soul—and I knew each other only a week when we eloped.” His voice wavered a little and he paused to collect himself. Then, eyes brimming, he murmured, “Fifty-three years. We were married fifty-three years. The best fifty-three years any man could have.” His hand shook briefly, but then he drew a breath and it steadied.

Dominic had known Tommy Hargrove his whole life. He’d known Bernice who’d died last year. He supposed he’d never thought about them as young and impetuous. Tommy was a tough-as-nails old man. Bernice had been his dutiful wife—always there with a smile or a gentle laugh. Now Dominic remembered those smiles, remembered how often they’d been directed at Tommy. He looked at the old man with new and wondering eyes.

“To the surprises in life,” Tommy said with a smile. He touched each of their glasses.

“Thank you,” Sierra said to him. Then she turned to Dominic and clinked her glass against his. There was a stubborn tilt to her chin and a fierce gleam in those bright blue eyes.

“To us,” she said. “And the next fifty-three years.”

In high school Sierra had played Alice in Alice in Wonderland. She’d fallen down the rabbit hole, chatted with Humpty Dumpty, been spoken down to by a caterpillar, had tea with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, and had been chased through the forest by a pack of cards while the red queen had screamed, “Off with her head!”

That all seemed downright normal compared to the dinner she’d just survived.

She sank into the back seat of the taxi, clutching her tackle box, and shut her eyes. She was dimly aware that Dominic had climbed in beside her and was speaking to the driver. As the car begin to move, she heard Dominic sigh as he settled back next to her. She kept her eyes shut and waited for him to speak. But he didn’t say a word.

Maybe he was as tired as she was.

Acting did that to her. Drained her. Left her limp and exhausted. Playing Alice back in high school had wrung her out.

This had been harder. Lots harder. That she’d rehearsed for. This had been complete improvisation. And while she thought she’d acquitted herself well enough, she was still exhausted. She just wanted to go home and go to bed.

She didn’t open her eyes until the taxi stopped.

“We’re here,” Dominic said.

Sierra hauled herself up and blinked as she looked around. Then she jerked upright and her eyes went wide. “Where? This isn’t my place!”

“Of course not. It’s mine.’ Dominic was handing the driver some money and opening the door. “Come on.”

But Sierra couldn’t. She stayed right where she was. “I’m not going to your place!”

Out of the car, he bent down to stare at her. “You’re not—Why not?” He looked white-faced and furious.

“Because I’m not! I never agreed to—”

“You agreed to marry me. You did marry me.” His voice was icy.

“I know, but—”

“Marriage implies cohabitation,” he reminded her. He was gritting his teeth.

“Not…not necessarily.” It was one thing to have mad passionate sex with Dominic. It was entirely another to get sucked up into his apartment, his world, his life! She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not getting out,” she told the taxi driver. “I need to go downtown.”

“The hell you do!” Dominic protested.

But Sierra ignored him and gave the driver her address.

“You can’t—!”

The driver flipped on the meter, then glanced at Dominic. “Mister, you gotta shut the door.”

“No. I don’t. She’s not—!”

“Yes, I am. Now. Drive,” Sierra commanded the driver. “Go on!”

“No!” Dominic resolutely held the door open, not moving an inch.

The driver looked from one to the other of them, annoyed. “I got a business here.”

“So take me—”

“No!”

“D’youse two suppose youse could maybe settle this somewhere else?” the taxi driver said plaintively.

“Yes,” Dominic said.

“No,” Sierra said.

Their gazes locked. They glared.

“Please!” the taxi driver implored them.

Sierra clutched her box and didn’t budge.

Finally Dominic flung himself back into the cab and slammed the door “Fine. Take us to her place.” He challenged Sierra to contradict him. “We’ll stay there.”

“You can’t stay here!” Sierra said for the umpteenth time as Dominic followed her up the narrow stairway to her flat.

“You refused to stay at my place,” he reminded her. It was getting hard to breathe, and not from the three-floor climb. Rather it was a result of being on eye level with Sierra’s curvy bottom the whole way up. Her denim mini-skirt barely seemed to cover it. And it didn’t matter that the rest of her was discreetly covered in black ribbed leggings, Dominic had a good imagination.

And a good memory.

At last Sierra stopped in front of a tall metal door. She fitted a key into a lock, undid it, moved on to another one, undid that, then unlocked a third, and pushed open the door. “It doesn’t mean you had to come here.”

“Apparently it does, if I want to spend my wedding night with my bride.” He followed on her heels, suspecting that she would shut the door on him if he gave her half a chance.

Apparently the thought had occurred to her, because the color was high in her cheeks and she aimed a disgusted look in his direction when he shut the door himself and leaned against it, arms folded across his chest, smiling at her.

She set down her tackle box and stood glaring at him from the other end of the tiny room. “Well, you can’t. Not here. It’s not big enough.” She waved an arm and practically hit one of the walls. “There’s no room.”

Dominic shrugged indifferently. “It was your choice.”

“It was not my choice! I didn’t invite you here.”

“But you refused to come home with me,” he said reasonably.

“I don’t need to come home with you! I went to dinner with you! I shocked your father for you. I stopped Viveca from marrying you. What more do you want?”

“Fifty-three years.”

“What!”

Dominic raked a hand through his hair. He shoved away from the wall, wanting to pace, to move, but there was no room. “Nothing!” he muttered. “Never mind. You’re the one who said it.”

“Tommy’s the one who said it.”

“And who raised her glass in toast?”

“Would you rather I’d said, ‘Oh, how about six months?’ Your father would really have taken us seriously then.”

“How the hell is he going to take it seriously if you won’t come home with me?”

She wrapped her arms across her breasts. “He doesn’t have to know that.”

“Of course he’ll know! He’s probably got someone tailing after the cab right now, just watching. I’m surprised he didn’t demand to see the license.”

Actually Douglas would never do any such thing—not in public anyway. He wouldn’t want to admit that Dominic had bested him. “He expects us to be together. I’m staying.” He began to loosen his tie.

“Stop that!”

“What?”

“Undressing!”

“You’ve seen me with my tie undone,” Dominic reminded her mockingly as he yanked it off, tossed it on the chair, then undid the top button of his starched white shirt. “You did very creative things with my tie, as I recall.” Things that, remembered, could still send shivers straight to his groin.

Sierra turned bright red. “That was then!”

“And now we’re married” He arched a brow. “Do you only have sex with single men?”

“I’ve never had sex with a married one!”

“It’s allowed,” he told her. “When you’re married to him.”

He finished unbuttoning his shirt and stripped it off, then tugged his T-shirt over his head. The chill in the room was a shock to his heated flesh. He wanted to go to her and wrap her in his arms.

But all the while she watched him like a fawn caught in headlights. Swell, she was going to turn into Bambi. Sierra, of all people. Who’d have guessed?

Dominic’s hand went to his belt. She sucked in a breath. He glared at her, annoyed. “Are you going to pretend this isn’t why you said yes?” he asked.

She blinked rapidly, then swallowed, and he thought for a moment she would deny wanting him at all. But finally she gave a jerky nod. “Only partly.”

“Right.” His jaw tightened. “There was the check, too. The little matter of half a million bucks.”

She scowled. “The money had nothing—well, almost nothing—to do with it,” she told him defiantly.

He would have liked to ask what the hell she intended to do with half a million dollars, but right now it wasn’t important. He didn’t care. He wanted another more important answer. “Fine. Then why fight it? It’s what we want. What we both want. Unless you only believe in one-night stands?”

“Of course not!”

“Then maybe you’re a chicken.”

Her eyes flashed. “I’m never a chicken!”

“No?” Dominic challenged softly. “Then prove it.”

For a long moment she didn’t move. Then something changed. A gleam came into her eyes, a gleam he remembered once before. The corners of her mouth turned up in a smile that set his heart to pounding. And quite deliberately Sierra reached out and snagged his tie from where he’d tossed it on the chair.

She ran it through her fingers as she stepped forward to meet him. And his heart slammed against his chest as she whispered, “How nice of you to remember I had a use for this.”

They should have gone to his place.

They wouldn’t have to smash together on her hard narrow futon. At Dominic’s they could no doubt wallow in sybaritic luxury in Dominic’s bed.

But she hadn’t been able to do it. Not then.

So she consoled herself that even if they had they wouldn’t have noticed.

Once it was clear that neither of them had got the other out of their system during that one night in a Kansas motel—it didn’t matter where they were.

The awareness, the attraction, the chemistry—everything!—between them simply sizzled!

Something about Dominic brought out parts of Sierra she’d never even guessed were there. Something about his power made her want to challenge him. Something about his starchy conservative demeanor she wanted to muss. And his control—his iron-clad control!—she just couldn’t rest until she made it snap.

And she’d made it snap!

She’d moved in on him like a tigress stalking her prey. Circling, smiling, watching him from beneath lowered lids, Sierra had moved closer, turned, stepped and backed him into the futon. Then she’d looped the tie around his nape and slid it back and forth. Silk and skin. Hot damp skin.

She saw him take a quick sharp breath.

She smiled. She gave the tie a tug and drew him toward her, so close she could almost feel his heart pounding against his chest, so close the heat of her breath ruffled the hair that curled there. She touched one flat male nipple with her tongue.