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Excerpt...
Angel slipped her
hand into his and drew him out to the dance floor. That, however, was
the only leading Angel had to do. Once they were in the midst of the
swarm of people, Tom wove his hands around her waist and tugged her
against his warm, hard body.
Their hips
melded. The friction of their thighs and legs rubbing together could
have caused sparks to fly about the room. Angel's breasts brushed
against Tom's chest, her suddenly hard nipples chafed against her lacy
bra, and summoning up all the willpower known to woman, she held back
the I'm-dying-to-taste-your-lips-right-this-very-instant sigh that
begged to escape her nearly heaving lungs.
God, it had been
a long time since anything had felt so good.
And they'd just
begun to dance.
Tom moved slowly,
his bristly yet ever so soft cheek caressing hers, his warm breath
drifting like a downy feather over her ear. Inside, way down deep, her
body pulsed and butterflies flitted around in her stomach. They were the
loveliest yet almost foreign sensations.
Dancing with Tom
had been a mistake. Yet everything about him felt right, as if they
should have been together years ago but by some unfathomable force of
nature, they'd been torn apart before they'd had a chance to meet.
And since it felt
so right and she knew that was oh so wrong, she figured she should push
away. End this silly little tease before, heaven forbid, he should want
to take her to bed.
But she couldn't
back off. She still had to return his wallet. It had been her mistake to
play with fire, and she couldn't pull away from the flame until she'd
finished her little game.
Somehow she
gathered her wits together. Of course that's when Tom chose to tug her
ever closer, something she would have thought impossible when it was
already difficult to tell where her body ended and his began. With his
hands pressed against the small of her back, they danced cheek to cheek,
very close and very personal.
The scent of
cloves drifted from his skin to her senses. It was more intoxicating
than a chocolate martini, more tingly than bubbling champagne, more
seductive than all the schoolgirl dreams she'd ever had of being
romanced and loved by a man who'd treat her right.
Warm lips hovered
over her ear, shooting a shiver of delight all the way down to her toes
then up again to quiver in that intimate place where all women loved to
quiver.
And then he
whispered, "You know, Angel, I would have told you anything you want to
know about me. You didn't have to pick my pocket."
Anxiety tightened
her chest. The shiver of delight twisted into cold, stark panic. But she
was good at hiding her emotions, and she wasn't about to show them now.
Drawing her cheek
from Tom's, she tilted her head back just enough for their eyes to meet.
His were tinged with devilish laughter. Hers, she knew, were filled with
a mixture of surprise and annoyance. She'd hit him with a questioning
glare, as if she had no idea what he was talking about, but something
told her the Piano Man wouldn't buy her innocence.
Instead, she
smiled. "I'd lie and tell you you've imagined things, but I doubt you'd
believe me."
His grin never
left her face--not when he plucked his damnable wallet, which had borne
not one bit of useful information, from her handbag; not when he waved
the blasted thing before her eyes; not when he tucked it back inside his
jacket. And he kept right on grinning when he said quite smugly, "I
don't like liars."
Angel shrugged, hoping she wouldn't appear the least bit vulnerable.
"What about pickpockets?"
"I haven't yet made up my mind."
In the same
graceful way he played the piano, Tom waltzed her to the far side of the
dance floor, guiding her with a gentle nudge of his hand in hers, his
legs pressing against her legs, his entire body twisting and turning
her, holding her intimately close, until they reached a quieter, more
secluded place.
"Now," he said,
his brown eyes narrowing, "are you going to tell me why you felt
compelled to take my wallet?"
She wove her
fingers into the silky dark hair at the back of his head, not only
because it felt so darn lovely, but because she wanted to claim some
measure of control. "Because," she whispered close to his lips, "I
wanted to know who you are."
"And now you
know. I'm Tom Donovan and if I'm not mistaken, you're the
ever-so-delightful Angel Devlin."
"Did you pick the
wallet out of my purse to find that bit of information?"
"Fortunately
Jorge was very forthcoming with everything," Tom said, swaying
effortlessly with the bluesy tune Jorge had begun to play, "I asked the
questions and paid him for his answers before your pretty little hands
went digging into my jacket for something to steal."
"All right, so
now in addition to my name, you know I'm an expert pickpocket."
"Not so expert."
He grinned wickedly. "I caught you."
"But you didn't
come after me."
"I hoped you'd
come back."
"Why? So you
could personally haul me off to jail?"
Tom shook his
head. "Because I liked the feel of your hands on my chest and your lips
on my cheek. If I hauled you off to jail we'd end up enemies. The fact
that you came back means there's a chance for more."
"You know nothing
about me but my name." And the feel of my body, Angel thought, just
barely hanging on to her composure as Tom's hands glided down the curve
of her spine, then flared over the sides of her waist, and settled on
her hips. "Why would you want more?"
"I paid Jorge for
a lot more information than just your name," he said. "I know you're a
private investigator and that you cater to the ultra rich. I know that
your office-slash-home is right here on Worth Avenue in a building you
share with Ma Petite Bow-Wow, the local pamper your pooch shop. And if
Jorge knows what he's talking about, you're thirty years old,
five-feet-eight inches tall, weigh one-thirty-two--"
"Thirty-one
dripping wet."
Tom grinned, his
laughing gaze locking onto hers. "Should we get naked and dripping wet
and weigh each other?"
"Not tonight."
"It's close to
midnight. It'll soon be tomorrow."
"Are you always
in such a rush to get naked and dripping wet?"
He shrugged
lightly. "Depends on the woman."
"Trust me, I'm
the wrong woman."
"I disagree."
The music picked
up tempo and so did Tom's moves. He spun around with Angel captured in
his arms, the heat of his embrace, the closeness of their cheeks and the
scent of his spicy aftershave overwhelming her, making her dizzy.
And then he
slowed again. Warm breath whispered against her ear. His heart beat
against her breasts as he whispered, "From what Jorge told me--that you
wear Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist and Manolo Blahnik's if you can get
them on sale--you could easily be the right woman. Of course, there's
also the fact that you're soft in all the right places. And going back
to your original question, that, Angel, is why I want more of you."
Angel laughed lightly. "Jorge was a virtual fount of information."
"I figured the
soft-in-all-the-right-places part out for myself," Tom said, his hands
drifting slowly from her waist to her bottom.
She leaned back
slightly and gave him the evil eye. "Excuse me, but we don't know each
other well enough for you to touch me where you're touching me."
A grin touched
his perfect lips. It sparkled in his eyes and made the dimple at the
side of his mouth deepen, as his fingers began to slide again, but not
up to her waist. Oh, no, lascivious Tom Donovan's fingers slithered down
to her thighs.
That was the
first really big mistake he'd made since he'd chosen to follow her.
His fingers
stilled. His eyes narrowed, and she knew he'd found the one thing she
didn't want anyone to find.
Again his hand began to move, to explore, gliding up and down, over and
around the not-so-little-lump on her right thigh. His eyes narrowed even
more as his gaze held hers and locked. "That wouldn't be what I think it
is, would it?"
Angel grinned
slowly. Wickedly. At last, she again had the upper hand. "If you think
it's a slim but extremely sharp stainless steel stiletto that could
carve out a man's Adam's apple in the blink of an eye, you've guessed
right."
One of Tom's
dark, bedeviled eyebrows rose. "I never would have expected a sweet
thing like you to carry a stiletto."
"That, Mr.
Donovan, just goes to show that you really don't know as much about me
as you think you do."
Strong masculine fingers continued to whisper over her thigh, over her
knife. "Do you have a permit to carry a concealed weapon?"
Angel nodded,
drawing a perfectly manicured candy apple red fingernail across his
warm, taut throat. "And, my dearest darling Tom, I know how to use it."
"You wouldn't be
planning to use it on me, would you?"
"All depends."
"On what?"
"How fast you can
get your hands off my thighs."
In spite of her
threat, there was laughter in his eyes. "You've got nice thighs. I'm not
too sure I want to move my hands. But, gentleman that I am--even though
you're thinking I don't have a gentlemanly bone in my body--I'll remove
them."
"Thank you."
He slid his
fingers and palms back to her derriere, causing deliciously lovely
tingles to scatter through her insides, in spite of her attempts not to
feel anything, and rested them there. "You know, Angel, you not only
have nice thighs, but you've got a nice butt, too. I noticed that when
you sashayed into the club tonight."
She'd had her
fingers in his overly long but irresistible to the touch hair but
suddenly, instinctively, and ever so gracefully, one hand shot down to
her skirt, through the slit at the front of her right leg, and she
wrapped her fingers tightly around the hilt of her knife. "If you prize
that bit of manhood between your legs, I strongly suggest you put your
hands back where they belong."
He winked. "As
you wish." Once again Tom caught her waist, then did another little spin
with her in his arms. "For now."
The man was
insufferable. On top of that, he wanted to be in charge of what was
going on between them just as much as she wanted to be in charge. That
probably didn't bode well for either of them.
She should walk away. She should put an end to the dance they were
sharing--both mentally, physically, and emotionally. But between Tom's
over-abundance of testosterone and her sudden desire to have sex with a
stranger--she couldn't leave.
Not yet.
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