Heated Rush
Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Copyright

A two-time RWA RITA® Award nominee, nine-time Romantic Times BOOKreviews Award nominee and 2006 Romantic Times BOOKreviews Award winner, LESLIE KELLY has become known for her delightful characters, sparkling dialogue and outrageous humour. Since the publication of her first book in 1999, Leslie has gone on to pen more than two dozen sassy, sexy romances.

Keep up with Leslie’s releases by visiting her website, www.lesliekelly.com, or her blog site www.plotmonkeys.com.

To Caitlin.

One of the greatest accomplishments of

my life is having given the world a soul as kind

and beautiful as yours.

1

GIVEN THE CHOICE between sticking flaming skewers up her nose and attending her own parents’ thirty-fifth anniversary party without a date, Annie Davis would, without hesitation, reach for the lighter fluid and a match. Instead, she was reaching for her checkbook. Wondering just how far she could go—how much she could spend—to ensure she avoided a fate worse than burned nostrils.

“Twenty-five hundred, that’s all I can swing,” she murmured, reminding both herself, and her friend Tara, who sat beside her at an empty table near the back of the hotel ballroom. Twenty-five hundred was about as much as she could stretch it and still make her bills, as well as eat next month.

Tara, who occasionally helped out at Baby Daze, Annie’s successful day care center, had come only to this charity bachelor auction for moral support. Her aspiring actress’s checkbook wouldn’t allow room for a guy auctioned off in a Salvation Army parking lot, much less one at Chicago’s glamorous Inter-Continental Hotel.

If she were honest, Annie’s couldn’t bear the strain, either, and her savings account was strictly for emergencies only. Sheer desperation had driven her here tonight. Desperation caused by the thought of a weekend back home—sans a guy—being pitied and clucked over by all the women in her family, teased by all the men, especially her brothers, and set up by everyone else in her small hometown. Not to mention answering the inevitable questions about why she was alone when her entire family knew she’d been dating a nice, handsome man for the past several weeks.

Looking into her parents faces and admitting that nice, handsome man she’d been seeing had been a married jerk? She’d sooner add raw meat to those flaming skewers and call herself shish kebab. Wiping out her checking account seemed a small price to pay to avoid the agony. Maybe the savings, too.

No. Not a chance. Not unless Johnny Depp and Josh Duhamel both appeared on that stage, offering a weekend of pure carnal exploitation to the high bidder.

“Nobody has gone for less than three thousand so far,” Tara reminded her. The petite brunette, usually bubbly and sassy, sounded uncharacteristically pessimistic. “Not even the wimpy-looking blond dude who made a complete dork of himself doing that pretend striptease.”

Annie cringed, wishing she had a bar of soap to wash away the mental image of the pale twenty-something doing a white-men-can’t-dance bump-and-grind that had women near the front pretending to swoon. Ick. Bringing someone like that home to meet her family? She’d probably do better picking up a homeless person who wanted to make a few bucks for a weekend holiday in small-town U.S.A.

Now there’s an idea….

It would definitely be cheaper than this ritzy charity auction. “Maybe I should just check out the park benches near the El. There’s bound to be some guy who will do it for a whole lot less than twenty-five hundred.”

“You’re desperate,” Tara reminded her. “Not suicidal.”

“Is that any riskier than what I’m doing now? These guys are all strangers, too.”

The only difference was they were being paraded and hawked in front of a crowd of rich, half-past-tipsy-and-well-on-their-way-to-being-drunk women in a hotel ballroom. Yes, they were offering legitimate dates—romantic dinners, beach walks, afternoon cruises and picnics—to the highest bidder. But these men were still complete strangers to her.

Besides, she wasn’t even certain she’d be able to talk any bachelor she won into going along with her visit-the-folks date rather than whatever he’d offered.

So why was she doing this again?

Tara seemed to read her mind. “Desperate times call for…”

“An escort service?”

Tara snorted. “Sure, show up at your folks’ with a male hooker. That’ll go over real well.”

“He wouldn’t necessarily be skeevy. He could be nice, normal, handsome.”

“Stop channeling that movie The Wedding Date.” Tara smacked Annie on the arm with her rolled-up auction brochure. “Professionals like that one don’t really exist.”

“But I need a Plan B,” she mumbled, knowing time was running out. Maybe some decent-looking young man coming out of the unemployment office? As long as he had all his teeth and four limbs, how would her family know he wasn’t the one she’d been dating?

Or even three limbs…he could be a noble accident survivor.

Noble was good. Very good. Which was why she’d immediately scanned tonight’s program looking for firefighter, rescue worker or policeman types. Her dad would totally be into that.

Her family didn’t know what her ex-boyfriend, Blake, did for a living. They knew almost nothing about her relationship with him at all. Just that she’d been swept off her feet by someone tall, dark and handsome. They didn’t know specifically what he looked like. So she could introduce practically anybody and say he was the wonderful guy she’d been telling her family about.

Well, anybody except the real wonderful guy, who’d turned out to be nothing more than a wonderful liar.

“Stop thinking about Blake the Snake.”

“Are you a mind reader?”

“No, you’re just incredibly easy to figure out, Miss wholesome, blond, always-smiling girl-next-door. Whenever you think about him, your face scrunches up, your lips disappear into your mouth and you look like you want to hit somebody.” Shrugging and sipping from her beer, Tara added, “Of course, you look that way when you fight with one of the über-mamas, too, but none of them are here.”

Über-mamas. That was the name she and Tara had come up with to describe some of Annie’s more difficult clients. There weren’t many, but a few ultraorganized, ambitious, arrogant mothers of the children cared for at Baby Daze seemed to view day care providers as overpaid dog walkers. As if there was no more to watching a toddler than changing his diaper.

“You weren’t in love with him, you’ve admitted that much. And you hadn’t even slept with him.”

“Thank God.” Something had held her back, some intuition. She’d blessed that intuition when she’d found out her Divorced Mr. Wonderful was, despite his claims to the contrary, Married Mr. Cheating Pig.

“So forget him.”

“I have. Almost. I just have to get through this weekend and then I can pretend I never knew the man.”

“Tell me again why you can’t just tell your family what happened? It’s not like any of it was your fault.”

“You met my folks when they came to visit me last spring. Do you really need to ask that question?”

Tara pursed her lips and slowly shook her head. She’d had a firsthand glimpse at Annie’s life as the only daughter in an overprotective, small-town family who wanted her back home, married, and pushing out babies—now, if not six months ago. If they found out their “little girl” had had a bad affair with a married man, they’d harass her endlessly to give up her dreams of big-city success and come home where she could meet a decent local boy and settle down.

“Forget I asked.”

“I’ll get someone to play boyfriend, let them all see I’m blissfully happy and fine, then gradually stage a breakup over a series of weekly phone calls.”

Satisfied with at least that much of the plan, she reached for her drink, still musing over a possible Plan B. The man she showed up with didn’t have to be really handsome just because she’d told her family he was. Somebody much more plain and normal-looking than any of these sexy bachelors being auctioned off to support a kid’s Christmas charity would do.

Beauty was, as she knew, in the eye of the beholder, and her family understood that. Just last year her brother, Jed, had convinced them all he’d met a future Miss America. His fiancée, however—a sweetheart whom the family adored—more resembled a Miss Pillsbury Dough Girl.

So maybe they’d think she’d simply exaggerated about how handsome her new guy was. Or that she was wildly in love, just as her brother had been. She didn’t have to bring home a guy who looked like…like…

Oh, my God, like him.

Once again, as it had been doing all night, her gaze drifted toward the table, and the auction program lying open upon it. About two minutes had elapsed since her previous covetous glance, which was the longest she’d gone all evening without at least a peek at Bachelor Number Twenty, described as a good-natured rescue worker. An all-out hero. Absolutely perfect.

In addition, the man was an all-out hunk-a-holic.

As she stared at those midnight blue eyes, Annie’s heart again played a quick game of hopscotch in her chest. Just as it had the moment she’d spotted him, this complete stranger, whose name she didn’t know but whose face and body were as familiar as her last erotic dream.

Those cheekbones were high and prominent, the nose strong, the jaw carved from granite. Visible on one earlobe was a tiny stud of gold. His lips were slightly pursed in a sexy, come-hither smile that no real man could pull off and still look so damned masculine. The sleekness of his thick, nearly jet black hair—long, silky and tied back in a sexy ponytail—and the violet glint in those fathomless blue eyes simply had to be the product of a photographer with the latest Photoshop software.

Who cares? You’re not going to win him. Not a chance. Not with what that last guy went for.

And suddenly, she couldn’t stand to see who did win him. Nor did she really want to see the man in the flesh, because, honestly, the picture had to have been majorly touched up. No man was really that good-looking in person.

Before she could move, however, Tara pointed at the stage, where the announcer was milking the audience, building things up to the final moment of the night. The big finish. Bachelor Number Twenty.

“This auction was your best chance, and this next guy is your last chance. So don’t blow it.”

“We should just go.” Annie put her hands flat on the table to push her chair back. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Come on, what’s money for if not to blow? We both know this last guy’s the one you’ve had your eye on all night.”

Had she really been that obvious? Maybe only to Tara, who had been the first friend she’d made when she’d moved to Chicago five years ago. Then again, her family had always told her that she should never play poker because she wore her emotions the way rich women wore their jewelry: blatantly.

“Have you noticed how much emptier the room is?” Tara leaned close, trying to convince her as much with her calm tone as with her words. “Half the women in the place got up and left after that last guy went, the international businessman.”

Annie had noticed, though she didn’t understand it. “Still can’t quite figure out why though,” she mumbled.

Ten minutes ago, when Bachelor Number Nineteen had gone for an unbelievable sum—twenty-five thousand dollars—the crowd had begun to rapidly disperse. As if some of the bejeweled, fur-wearing women had come only for that one man. Entire groups of women had flounced out, thinning the room considerably and emptying a dozen tables near the front.

The brown-eyed bachelor had been good-looking. But, in Annie’s opinion, he couldn’t hold a candle to the last man of the night. “I bet the high price scared everyone away because it means this next guy’s going to go for fifty thousand.”

“I don’t think so.” Tara leaned even closer. “The Junior League set is gone. Look who’s left…Just rowdy blue-collar chicks like us.”

Annie cast a quick look around, noting the laughter and easy, laid-back atmosphere in the room. And she began to wonder if Tara was right. These looked more like two-for-one happy hour girls instead of the Dom Perignon types who’d been involved in the bidding frenzy for Bachelor Number Nineteen.

Tara tapped the tip of a red-painted nail on the face of the sexy bachelor. “You can win him, Annie. And you deserve to.”

Maybe….

“Look at his picture,” Tara snapped. “Talk about saving the best for last. Go for it or I’ll never speak to you again!”

On some days, that would probably be a blessing, but Annie was too caught up in the moment to think about it.

As the auctioneer began reading the last bachelor’s bio, the remaining women quieted. Annie’s pulse, which had accelerated throughout the evening as she pretended interest in some of the other men—even halfheartedly bidding on a few of them—picked up its pace. Her blood began a steady gallop through her veins, her quick, shallow breaths leaving her a little light-headed.

“You can go higher than twenty-five hundred. You know you can squeeze out a few more bucks,” Tara whispered.

“You’re pretty quick to empty my bank account,” she muttered. How much do I have in savings?

“Raid the penny jar in the playroom. The kids won’t miss one more alphabet puzzle. They hate those stupid educational toys, anyway.”

“Shh!”

Willing the announcer to hurry up, she watched for a movement behind the black curtain, half wanting to flee to avoid disappointment, but wanting even more to catch a firsthand glimpse of that man in the flesh. Just to find out if he could possibly be real.

“I’ll share my PB and J’s every day next month if you end up on the verge of starvation.” Grinning impishly, Tara added, “But hopefully you’ll be so satisfied by your purchase that you won’t be hungry at all.”

Annie shook her head, denying that possibility to both of them. “This is a business arrangement. A weekend to get my family off my back, without them ever finding out about…”

“Blake the Snake.”

Exactly.

“There’s nothing personal about it. I’ve learned my lesson about hooking up with handsome, sweet-talking men. You’re looking at a woman in complete control of her libido.”

She meant it. Every word. She was confident, strong, secure, and certain she could handle just about anything.

But then the curtain opened and a black-haired god stepped out. Even from here, Annie could see the glint of something wicked and suggestive in his expression. The photo hadn’t conveyed the broadness of his shoulders, the leanness of that tall male body. He was wrapped in a black tux that looked as if it had been sewn around him, it fit so perfectly.

She told herself to be calm. Rational. To proceed cautiously. A low initial bid, don’t tip your hand.

Then he flashed the audience a sexy, knowing smile, making those blue eyes glimmer under the spotlights. The sultry curve of his eminently kissable lips promised throaty whispers and complete seduction to every woman in the room. Especially Annie.

And suddenly her libido took control of her entire body and she sprang to her feet, an exuberant stranger’s voice emerging from her vocal cords.

“Five thousand dollars!”

ONE BID. He’d been “purchased” after only a single shouted bid that had emerged from the mouth of a blonde standing at the back of the ballroom.

Sean Murphy hadn’t been the most expensive man of the evening—the bloke before him, a rescue worker named Jake, he believed, had claimed that distinction. But he felt fairly certain nobody else had earned a five thousand dollar offer before the auctioneer had even opened the floor for bidding.

That had been the only silver lining of this ridiculous night. That and the fact that he’d at least not “sold” for less than a few of the wankers who had gone earlier in the evening.

“Thank you again, Mr. Murphy, for agreeing to help us out tonight. We’ve raised a very large sum of money. There are a lot of kids in shelters throughout Chicago who will have a much merrier Christmas this winter.”

Sean nodded at the woman who ran the charity benefiting from tonight’s event. She was a frazzled-looking, but pretty, dark-haired woman called Noelle something or other. She’d been trying to keep things professional, courteous and polite, mostly preventing the melee he’d envisioned, given the activities scheduled for this evening. “It was my pleasure.”

Sold before a crowd of women. The realization that he’d gone through with it—and his name and photograph had probably been circulated because of it—was enough to make him sigh, knowing the response he was bound to get from his father. The old man always surfed the major newspaper Web sites, watching the financial markets from his home in Ireland. So if this showed up in the social pages, Sean was in for another round of “You’re a disgrace, come home, bow down, be forgiven and do exactly what I want you to do,” messages and e-mails.

“Who is it I have to thank for getting you to agree to participate?” Noelle asked.

Hmm. He wondered what the woman would say if she knew he’d been asked to participate by one of the rich, bored Chicago wives he occasionally visited when he was stateside. Now just a friend, she’d been his very first “client,” who Sean had met six years ago in Singapore. Her husband had hired Sean to escort her around and keep her safe and…occupied.

He hadn’t quite understood what that meant until the woman had seduced him.

In the end, they’d all been very happy with the arrangement. The businessman got his wife off his back so he could spin his financial webs. The wife got the sexual services of a rather inexperienced—but very interested in learning—twenty-two-year-old who fell madly in love with her. Sean gained invaluable experience, both sexually and emotionally, given the gentle way she’d let him down at the end.

And he’d walked away with money. A lot of it.

“Mr. Murphy?” The busy auction worker was still waiting for his answer.

Would she, as many women did, immediately understand—or think she did? Would she sneer at him? Proposition him? Grope him? Or freeze him out? He’d dealt with all of the above.

In the years he’d spent traveling out and about in the world, meeting people—meeting women—he’d met with all kinds of responses to his lifestyle. Not that many people really knew the truth about his lifestyle. Or about him. But he couldn’t deny there was a certain prejudice, a preconception about what he did.

Sometimes he corrected it. Sometimes not.

In general, he didn’t bother explaining. Least of all to a complete stranger. So he kept things simple. “I just heard about it from a friend and wanted to help if I could.”

She smiled, readily accepting the explanation. “That’s great. Some of our bachelors got their arms twisted by their sisters, coworkers, that sort of thing.”

He sensed the fellow who’d sold before him, the rescue worker, had been one of them. He’d looked as uncomfortable in his tux as Sean would have in a pair of coveralls and a straw hat. Or, worse, in a classroom surrounded by squalling children.

Tuxedos? Well, those he could handle just fine. Given his family, he suspected he’d had one of them put on over his nappies before he’d learned to crawl.

“We’re hosting a small reception down the hall for the winning bidders and their bachelors to meet and exchange information.”

Uh-huh. Schedules. Phone numbers.

Birth control preferences.

Hell, maybe he was just jaded. There was no maybe about it, he was definitely jaded. Still, he supposed some of the women who’d come here tonight really did expect nothing more than a nice evening out in exchange for their support of a worthy charity.

But not all of them. Not a chance.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work,” the organizer said, her attention drawn to a confusedlooking volunteer counting piles of cash into a lockbox. Before her, tapping her fingers impatiently, was the petite—but curvy—brunette who’d paid such an exorbitant sum for the bachelor who’d sold before him.

She was attractive. Very. And young, too. Which gave him hope for his own prospects. Not much, unfortunately, given the glimpses he’d caught of the audience from backstage, made up mainly of women who’d appeared much older…and much harder.

“Have a good evening,” Noelle said as she stepped away.

Sean murmured his thanks and headed in the direction she’d indicated. Might as well get this over with. He wanted a real look at the woman he’d be spending an evening with this weekend, rather than merely the shadowy glimpse he’d had of her blond head from up on that brightly lit stage.

Figuring out what kind of evening she expected him to provide shouldn’t be too difficult. If he had to guess, he’d say it would take no more than thirty seconds to determine whether she’d known who she was bidding on, or not.

Given the way she’d called out such a large sum without any prodding from the auctioneer, he suspected he knew the answer. He got the feeling that was why nobody else had bid after her. Considering what had happened with the preceding bachelor, she’d simply scared off the competition, who had probably recognized the same note of determination in her voice that Sean had.

So the woman probably had heard some rumors about him. Who he really was, where he really came from and what he really did.

He doubted, however, that those rumors in any way resembled the truth. So he hoped that the woman hadn’t given away a small fortune because she thought it would guarantee her a spot on his pillow tomorrow morning.

Nothing guaranteed that. Not unless Sean was well and truly aroused. It didn’t matter who the woman was or what kind of balance she carried in her checking account. If he wasn’t attracted to her, his services only went as far as being arm candy, tour guide, interpreter, or even, on occasion, bodyguard. Despite what anybody thought. The spoiled women. Their wealthy, older husbands who wanted them kept “occupied.”

Or even Sean’s own father.

Deliberately putting up his defenses, he entered the smaller room, where couples chatted quietly in shadowy corners and near the portable bar. A few of the women were laughing too brightly, a few of the guys were squirming under the attention. A quarter of the “winners” were probably two decades older than their dates but had had enough surgery to look merely one.

Only a handful of couples actually appeared to be having a normal conversation—i.e. one that didn’t involve the rich auction winner trying to get her date, who’d offered a picnic in the park, to take her upstairs to one of the lush suites in the hotel instead.

He let his gaze travel the room, knowing he’d recognize the shade of his winner’s hair, even if it had been lent a more golden glow under the overhead lights in the ballroom.

Then he saw her. One woman, standing alone.

She was blond. She was young. Truly young, not just faking it. And, as he approached her, he realized she was pretty. Very pretty, in a fresh-faced, wide-eyed, all-American girl way, right down to the freckles he suspected were dribbled across her pert nose beneath her makeup.

She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, and didn’t have that predatory look of a rich piranha, which meant she might actually have a personality.

This could work. Unless she opened her mouth and sounded like one of those brainless twits whose idea of fashion and taste came right from the tabloid princesses currently littering Hollywood.

But he doubted that would happen. Judging by her soft, silky yellow dress, the simple hairstyle—short, pulled back and held with a glittery headband at her nape—and her minimal jewelry, he suspected she was much more natural than that.

Then she spotted him. Those pink lips parted on a gasp, and her soft blue eyes—the shade of the cornflowers that grew wild back home in Wicklow—locked with his, and he knew he was right.

Because she was nervous. And absolutely not the predator he’d half expected to meet.

And he found her very—very—attractive.

Which suddenly had him suspecting this whole crazy auction scheme might not have been such a bad idea after all.

2

“GOOD EVENING,” SEAN murmured as he reached the side of the woman who’d bought him for a night. “I’m sorry if I kept you waiting.”

“You have an accent!”

He laughed softly. “Maybe you’re the one with the accent.”

“Oh, God, that was incredibly rude, wasn’t it?” She stuck her hand out, which was so small, it practically disappeared inside his when he reached out and clasped it for a formal shake. “I’m Annie Davis. And you’re…”

“Sean. Sean Murphy.”

“Like Bond,” she mumbled, “James Bond.”

“Not exactly,” he said, chuckling, “I didn’t say ‘Murphy. Sean Murphy. Besides, Bond was a Brit.”

“You’re not?”

“God, no.”

As if realizing she’d insulted him, she nibbled her lip. “Sorry. I only like the older movies and you sound like Sean Connery.”

So she had good taste, in Bonds at least, but obviously no ear for accents. “Connery’s a Scot. It’s not even the same island.”

She appeared so flustered, he knew he shouldn’t tease her, but he couldn’t help himself. The woman, who he figured to be in her midtwenties, a few years younger than him, was too adorable. Especially when trying to come up with something to say without putting her foot in her mouth.

“What are you?”

“A man, so I’ve been told. An Irish one. Also your date.”

She tugged her hand free of his, as if just realizing he still held it, and lifted it to her face, rubbing lightly at her temple. “I’m not very good at this.”

“And I’m teasing you,” he admitted with a soft laugh.

“I don’t respond well to being teased,” she warned him, frowning. “My oldest brother woke up with raw catfish in his mouth one morning because he’d started calling me Little Miss America after I got my first period.”

Her face, pretty and creamy-skinned, flooded with color. Her hand flew up again to cover her lips as her own words repeated in her ears. “I didn’t just say that, did I?”

Sean couldn’t help bursting into a peal of laughter. “You did, yes.”

“Get me out of here.”

He stepped in her path to prevent her from heading for the door, liking her more and more by the minute. How could he have thought her merely pretty? When her blue eyes sparkled like that, the woman was breathtaking.

“I prefer swordfish. Just so we’re clear. And while I enjoy sushi, I generally like my seafood grilled.”

“Will you excuse me while I go hide under a table?”

“No, I won’t, céadsearc,” he murmured, taking her arm. Noting the softness of her skin, he caught the faintest scent of peaches and smiled a little. Not musk. Not cloying gardenia.

Peaches.

Unwilling to let her out of his sight, he steered her to a shadowy corner near the bar. He had the feeling she’d bolt if he didn’t handle this right. Though why any woman would plunk down five thousand dollars to spend an evening with him, and then run away, he had no idea.

“What did you call me?”

A slip of the tongue. “I called you sweetheart,” he admitted.

“That’s sexist.”

“You American women…you mustn’t be so on guard. ‘Twas only an endearment.”

“How can I be your sweetheart when we just met?”

“Not my sweetheart,” he admitted. “But I must say, judging by how many times I’ve wanted to smile since the moment you opened your mouth, I think you must be very sweet and very funny and very good-hearted.” He grinned. “Stealth catfish attacks notwithstanding.” Letting go of her arm—the silky skinned, soft arm—he added in a half whisper, “I’m looking forward to knowing you, Annie Davis.”

He meant it. But the fact that he’d said it to her almost surprised him. Sean didn’t usually let his guard down so quickly. Something about this young woman, however, had him dropping the smooth veneer and the jaded mannerisms that suited him so well in his daily life.

He wasn’t flirting, or charming his way into her good graces. He was merely speaking honestly to her, something he wasn’t often free to do with women. Usually he was paid to tell them exactly what they wanted to hear.

Except “no.” They never liked hearing that. Sean, however, had no compunction about saying it.

“We are supposed to be getting to know each other, aren’t we?” he asked. “So tell me about yourself.”

He waited, wondering how she’d respond, this sweet-smelling blonde, who watched him with uncertain eyes.

“That word you said…what language was that?”

“Irish…some call it Gaelic.”

She frowned. “Can you speak without the accent?”

“We still haven’t established that I’ve got one,” he murmured, for some reason enjoying teasing her, even if it might someday cost him a mouthful of raw fish. Cute, that.

She looked away a frown tugging at her pretty mouth. “Well, I don’t think I ever said he didn’t have an accent.”

“Who?”

“You.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean him.”

“I ask again. Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. I was talking about you…the you I want you to be, if you’ll agree to it.”

He sighed. “I think I need a drink. Want one?”

When she declined, he gestured toward the bartender. He pointed to a bottle of whiskey and motioned first for a finger full, then widened his fingers to make it a double.

The drink was in his hand a few moments later, brought by an attentive waitress in a short black skirt. She smiled coyly and brushed her hand against his for a moment longer than was technically necessary to pass him the napkin-nested glass. Then she sauntered away, a definite flounce in her step.

“Boy, talk about rude.”

“What?”

“That waitress totally ignored me, not offering me a drink or even a glance. Like I wasn’t even here.” She rolled her eyes. “She might as well have ripped off her uniform and scrawled her phone number on those fake double-D’s of hers.”

“How did you know they were fake?”

“Oh, puh-lease…” Then, obviously having noted his inflection, asked him the same thing. “How did you?”

He responded the same way. “Oh, puh-lease.”

A tiny twinkle appeared in those eyes and her lips quirked up a bit at the edges.

Liking that glint of humor, Sean cast a leisurely gaze over her, taking in every inch of the woman standing before him, beyond just the attractive face, understated hairstyle, simple jewelry and clothes. He noted the delicate swell of her breasts beneath the silk of her dress. There was no question of how perfect, how natural, her curves were.

He sipped his drink. Slowly.

Her shoulders appeared capable, yet somehow fragile, her bare arms strong, yet pale and slim. Her body was in perfect proportion, her height an ideal match for his. She could easily tilt her head back to meet his kiss.

And Sean suddenly found himself wanting that kiss. A lot.

“You obviously know something about women,” she said, not sounding entirely pleased at the observation.

He knew enough to know she was one-hundred-percent female. And that she was instinctively messing with his head.

What, he wondered, would she do if he bent slightly to brush his lips across hers, as he suddenly wanted to do? Would she pull away if he cupped her waist in his hands, rested the tips of his fingers on her hips and tugged her close? Would everyone else in the room see the brush of their bodies as an innocent hug, or as the carnal invitation he knew he would be extending?

“I should thank that waitress, you know. She helped me confirm just how stupid this is,” she said, any hint of a smile disappearing.

Her tone chased away his sensual mood. He couldn’t believe she had truly been jealous about the ridiculous cocktail waitress, whose overblown charms had nothing on the more understated ones of this woman. “She was rude to you, but it’s cute that you’re jealous.”

The way she tilted her head to one side—puzzled—told him he’d misread her. Now he realized she hadn’t been jealous. In fact, she looked almost…deflated. Morose. “That’s not it. I mean this whole situation is stupid. I give up. Nobody’s going to buy us as a couple.”

Ignoring the obvious question—why anyone would have to—he asked the more interesting one. “Why not?”

Frowning, she gestured toward him—his face, his shoulders, his tux—then glanced down at herself. “We’re not what I’d call a match made in heaven.”

“We are a match made at an auction,” he pointed out. “And that’s all that matters.”

“No, it’s not,” she murmured, those amazingly expressive eyes shifting away again, as if she had something she didn’t yet want to tell him.

“What exactly is it you’re worried about?”

“Somebody meeting us would take me for your secretary.”

He snorted at the thought of him having a secretary. What? To keep track of his…appointments?

She ignored him. “Or your dental hygienist. Not your girlfriend.”

Girlfriend? He didn’t have those. Ever.

This auction was strictly for a one-date relationship, which was about Sean’s max when it came to his personal life, anyway. Or, at least, it had been for the past several years, since he’d told his old man to shove his estate and his plans for Sean’s future—including an appropriate marriage—and had hit the road, determined to find his mother and the other side of his history.

But he didn’t argue, still wanting to get to whatever point she was trying to make. “Or they might take me for your mechanic. Who gives a damn what anybody else thinks?”

At that, a rumble of soft laughter escaped from her mouth, sounding so genuinely merry, he couldn’t prevent himself from echoing it with a chuckle of his own.

“Yeah, right. Remington Steel showing up to fix my minivan. That’s exactly what people will see.”

A minivan…horrendous. “Who is Remington Steel?”

“He was a character on a TV show. My mom’s favorite when I was a kid.” Her brow scrunched in concentration. “Wait, Pierce Brosnan is Irish, right?”

“Oh, that show,” he replied. “Yes, he is.”

Sounding triumphant, she said, “And he’s Bond, too! So I wasn’t so far off.”

He nodded to concede the point. “But Connery’s still the best.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, duh.” She looked away. “My mother would be easy to win over,” Annie whispered, as if working things out in her own head. “She wouldn’t question the details once she saw your face and heard that voice.”

“Are we getting closer to the subject now?”

She shook her head, realizing she’d been overheard. “No. Not really. It’s still crazy and would never work, no way would anybody look at us and see what they expect to see, given the way I’ve been talking about you.”

“Me?”

“Him,” she said, her face flushing again. “Sorry.” Then, under her breath, she added, “I can’t believe I spent all that money. At least it’s tax deductible.” Nibbling her lip, she added, “I hope.”

“I wish I had some idea what the bloody hell you’re talkin’ about.”

“Come on,” she snapped. “Not only would you never fit in my world, but anybody looking at us would realize we are absolutely nothing alike. We have no common interests, no emotional connection.” She swallowed visibly. “Zero chemistry.”

There she was wrong. Very wrong. He knew it, instinctively, just as he knew he’d be replaying their unusual conversation over in his mind long after they parted company this evening. And that he’d be remembering the echo of that joyous, uninhibited laugh tonight as he tried to fall asleep.

They had chemistry. So much chemistry he could feel it pulsing between their bodies, like brightly colored fireworks, flashing red and gold in bursts of heat and light. When he wasn’t trying his damndest to decipher what the hell she was saying, he was forcing himself not to grab her and kiss the prattle right off her lips.

“Annie,” he murmured, lifting a hand so he could touch a strand of that golden hair, “we most definitely do have chemistry. I suspect we could set off an explosion without ever going near a laboratory, you and I.”

There hadn’t been many such explosions in Sean’s life. Physical gratification? Oh, to be sure, on occasion. But it had been years since he’d met a woman and wanted her on sight, for no other reason than the pleasure they would both gain from their physical connection. Especially one who had no idea who she was dealing with.

As Annie most assuredly did not. He knew that as well as he knew his own recent history. Which was much better than he knew his future.

I’ll get around to figuring that out.

“You’re still teasing…”

“No, I’m not. You feel it, too. Admit it.”

The friction rolling off her body and reverberating back off his underscored his claim and gave her no chance to deny it. They were close enough to share the same inch of airspace, to feel the light rasp of cloth on cloth as their bodies brushed against each other, sending the tension, the awareness, into the stratosphere.

For the first time since he’d arrived here tonight, he began to wonder if he was going to be inside this building until the sun came up tomorrow. They were in a beautiful hotel. Upstairs were hundreds of rooms waiting to be filled with lovers hungry to spend the hot summer night in a heated, carnal embrace.

What would she say if he made such a suggestion? Would he scare her off, or finally pierce through that self-deprecating wall of chatter she’d been using to keep him at bay?

“I feel it,” she finally admitted, dropping all pretenses. She said nothing else, just watched him, trying, as he was, to figure out what was happening here.

Something, that was for sure.

Annie’s lips trembled and her pulse fluttered rapidly in her throat. Ravenous for a taste of her, for a sample of that smooth skin, he settled for a kiss—just a brief one—on her pink lips.

“Sweet Annie,” he murmured before eliminating the inch between them and covering her lips with his. He didn’t press for more, didn’t demand entry into her soft mouth. Instead, he merely tasted her, shared a quick breath, inhaled the fragrance wafting off her hair—peaches, with the silky scent of her skin providing the cream. Then he forced himself to end it and back away a single step.

“Nice,” she whispered.

“Very nice.” His voice was just as low.

Much too nice to go too fast, despite how much he wanted to. While quick, hot affairs were nothing new to him, he knew from experience that if he made himself wait, the experience would be that much more pleasurable.

Besides, he didn’t want to be one of those couples slipping out of the room, exchanging keys, heading for the elevators. He didn’t want her to be one of them, either.

Regaining control, he cleared his throat. “That’s enough for now. When we go out on our date, we’ll talk a little more about this connection between us.”

“Connection…”

“Don’t make me prove it to you again.”

She suddenly reached up, brushing the tips of her fingers across the tiny gold stud in his ear, twisting it carefully in a move that was entirely innocent yet incredibly personal just the same. He could read the fascination in her face.

“Would you, if I said please?” She still sounded dazed, her stare locked on his mouth as she licked her lips in such blatant invitation it drew a groan from his throat.

“Annie…”

“More,” she demanded, swaying toward him in unspoken demand that he step forward to catch her body against his own or else watch her fall to the floor.

This time, the kiss wasn’t as sweet. Wasn’t as soft. And certainly wasn’t innocent.

This time, when his mouth touched hers, she immediately licked against his lips, demanding a deeper intimacy. As their tongues came together in a quick, hard thrusting, her hands went around his shoulders, her fingers twining in his hair. Quickly forgetting the others in the shadowy room, he allowed himself to enjoy it—to savor the taste of her, the smells, the incredible softness of her body pressed against his.

Finally, though, a loud, shrill feminine laugh from a nearby corner intruded. Annie seemed to realize what she was doing—practically wrapping herself around him in a silent invitation to carnal pleasure—and tugged her hands, her mouth, her body away.

“Nice,” he muttered, repeating her earlier description, which fit perfectly.

She nodded. “Very nice.” Then she fell silent, staring up at him, as if wondering what to do, where to go, how to proceed from here.

Those hotel rooms beckoned again. And he sensed he could have her up in one with the merest invitation. It was so tempting.

No. This was the first time in ages he’d wanted a woman purely for his own desires, separate from his life, his job, his past, his family.

He wanted her for himself. Which meant he was willing to wait for her, to ignore the primal, heated demand of his body, which was unaccustomed to having to wait for anything these days. “Tell me where to pick you up Saturday night.”

She blinked twice, her mouth falling open as she stared at him, still looking dazed, shocked into silence.

He sensed it was not a common occurrence. He pressed his advantage, not wanting to argue with her anymore about whether they would be seeing each other again. They would. Period.

“Don’t even try to say we have no chemistry. Not after that.”

She hesitated, then slowly shook her head back and forth. “No, I…”

“No is not an option.”

“God, you’re bossy,” she snapped, finally emerging from the sensual confusion she seemed to have been experiencing.

“No, I’m quite charming once you get to know me,” he replied with a cocky grin. “Come on, give it up. What time shall I pick you up for our date?”

Annie crossed her arms in front of her chest. His gaze dropped, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the tender cleavage so temptingly displayed. God, did the woman have no idea how attractive she was?

Perhaps not. He’d thought her merely pretty at first sight. He now knew she was beautiful enough to have him rethinking his decision to let her leave here without him tonight. Especially given the uncomfortable fit of his perfectly tailored trousers. So he imagined she might not understand her own soft, quietly seductive appeal.

It was immense.

She tried one last time to resist, sounding anything but determined. “This can’t work.”

“Yes it can. We have an agreement. I gave my promise to the people running this show and you paid a lot of money to get what you want. We’re doing this. If you don’t like what I suggested for our date, feel free to choose something else. But we will be going out together.”

With a disgruntled sigh, she finally gave up. “All right. You win.”

As if there had ever been any doubt.

Annie stared into his face, her lips slightly pursed, eyeing him as if to see how far she could push.

Then she pushed.

“You can pick me up this Saturday morning at nine. Our date will last until Sunday night at six. Bring something casual, something dressy, and at least two spare pairs of shoes in case you…step in something.”

It was Sean’s turn to drop his jaw in shock. “Wha…”

She tilted her head back, challenge shining from those baby blues, dripping off her posture, and ringing clearly in her voice. “You said I could choose. And I have. We’re going to my parents’ farm for the weekend.”

Her smile wicked, she concluded, “Hope you like big families…And cows.”

“HE’LL NEVER GO through with it. He’ll find a reason and bow out,” Annie mumbled as she and Tara made their way out of the hotel, heading for the nearby parking garage and Annie’s minivan—the spit-up and apple juice stained one that she used to transport kids to various field trips. The one somebody like Sean Murphy wouldn’t be caught decapitated in, much less alive and a willing passenger.

Tara didn’t seem to even hear her. “Are his eyes really that violet-blue shade from the picture? They’re not, like, colored contacts, right?”

“Did you hear what I said?” Annie snapped. Her friend had been jabbering nonstop for five minutes, ever since Annie had strode out of the cocktail party, leaving a bemused-looking Sean Murphy behind her. Tara had been full of questions about the man’s looks. Heaven help Annie if she let it slip that he’d actually kissed her. Twice.

Such a simple, normal thing, to kiss a man. And yet Sean’s kisses had been a complicated mess of pleasure and confusion and yearning and surprise.

His mouth was as fabulous as the rest of him. Any woman with an ounce of estrogen would want a much deeper taste.

She doubted, however, that she was going to get it. Not after the way she’d responded, practically backing him into a corner to get what she wanted—his company at her parents’ farm this weekend.

“Does he smell good? Guys like that usually smell good. Not like actors. They only smell like sweat, coffee and cigarettes.”

Annie merely grunted. How could Tara continue to yank her chain—which she was, with these intentionally ridiculous questions—when Annie was so anxious?

She still couldn’t believe the way it had gone down. She’d practically ordered a stranger to spend a weekend with a bunch of other strangers at a real farm a few hours outside of the city. Even more shocking, he hadn’t laughed in her face or run in the opposite direction.

Sure, one of his brows had shot up somewhere in the vicinity of his black hairline, and he’d been speechless for a few moments. Then, with a twinkle in those beautiful blue eyes—yes, they were really that amazing violet-blue reflected in the picture—he’d simply murmured, “Very well,” taken the business card she offered him and bid her goodnight.

As if it was all set. Easy breezy.

And completely freaking insane.

“He’ll stand me up.”

“Could you tell if that tux was designer-made? It sure looked like it from the back of the room.”

“He’s booking a trip to Siberia as we speak.”

“He’s tall, right? He looked tall.”

“Rather than giving me the rest of this week to prepare myself to show up alone, he’s going to leave me hanging—hoping—then stand me up on Saturday. I’ll be brain-dead from stressing out about it and won’t be able to invent a single excuse, like that my guy is on a top secret military mission to Hungary or something.”

“Are we at war with Hungary?”

“I hate that you’re laughing at me,” Annie said, shooting Tara a glare, fully aware that her friend had been tormenting her intentionally.

Tara finally grinned and stopped harassing her. “For heaven’s sake, will you stop it already? He said he’d be there. He’ll be there. Why would he stand you up?”

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe because he looks like he’s never heard the word farm in his life and doesn’t have a clue that the filet mignon he enjoyed for dinner last night once wore a cowbell?”

Tara, the vegetarian—this month—threw a hand up in protest and made a retching sound.

“Sorry.”

Reaching the garage, they got on the elevator to go up to the fourth level. As they ascended, Annie continued to imagine all the excuses Sean Murphy would make for not showing up. She couldn’t think of a single reason he would show—despite how nice his kisses had been. And despite those sensual words and his even more sensual expression when he’d talked about their chemistry. She was almost swearing by the time they reached level two.

“I should have just seduced him. Got a night of good sex out of it, rather than expecting him to come meet the family.”

“Heck, yes!”

Annie glared at her friend. “Do I look that easy?”

“No, you don’t look it, but for a man like that, honey, the Pope’s mama would be easy.”

“I blew it,” Annie murmured, not wanting to get into a how-sexy-he-is conversation with Tara, knowing it would surely lead to an oh-the-man-has-a-great-kiss conversation, which she really didn’t want to have right now.

Those two kisses belonged to her and her alone.

Tara put a hand on her arm, lightly. “Stop, Annie. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d go back on his word.”

“Neither did Blake.”

If Tara’s green eyes could have spewed flames at will, they would have been firing at the very mention of Annie’s ex’s name. “I have never even met this auction guy, but I’m insulted on his behalf that you’d even consider comparing him with that lying, cheating, womanizing slime bucket.”

Sighing in remorse, Annie nodded. “You’re right. Sean seemed like a decent guy.” An incredibly handsome—almost magnetic—decent guy. And, judging from his bio, a heroic one, too. He was a paramedic. Saving people’s lives—not trying to recklessly destroy them, as Blake had done to her.

Frankly, the man seemed like no one she’d ever known. “I shouldn’t cast judgments. Maybe I’m just borrowing trouble.”

“I’m sure you are. Now, tell me everything else about him.” Tara wasn’t teasing this time. She wanted the scoop.

“You saw him.”

“From a distance. They wouldn’t let us losers enter the cocktail party.” Tara wrinkled her nose. “Junior League Nazis.”

“Well, he is tall.”

“Figured that much, honey. Give me something good.”

“He’s got a pierced ear and it’s totally sexy.” Even though she’d never imagined one would be.

Tara shrugged, unimpressed. Then again, she didn’t read romance novels like Annie did, so she probably wouldn’t get the instant gold-earring-long-black-hair pirate fantasy that had immediately gone through Annie’s mind when she’d seen him up close.

“More.”

“He has an amazing voice.”

“Throaty? Like, talk-dirty-to-me voice?”

She shook her head as they exited the elevator and approached her minivan, parked halfway down the center aisle on this almost-deserted level. Annie tugged her small evening bag tighter against her side, sweeping a thorough, assessing stare around the shadowy recesses of the garage.

Despite what her family might think about her being unsafe in the “big bad city” after being raised in a nursery-rhyme town come to life, Annie knew how to handle herself. She clenched her keys in her hands, the longest, sharpest ones between her fingers, and suspected Tara’s fingers were resting lightly on the small can of mace she always carried.

What a couple of Charlie’s Angels. If a thug with a knife approached, they’d probably both toss him their purses and run like hell back toward the elevator. Frankly, that was the smart thing to do.

But for some sicko who wanted more than a purse? Well, the keys-as-spikes and mace were basic necessities when living in the city. Besides, she liked to at least think she was tough, if only to avoid letting her family’s constant worries that she wasn’t get her down.

They’d predicted robbery, rape, mugging…nearly everything except mutilation when she’d informed them she was heading for Chicago, fresh off the farm, after four years of commuting to a small, local college. In the five years since she’d arrived, she’d had her purse snatched, and her first apartment burglarized. Twice.

But otherwise, she’d managed to avoid getting herself murdered and proving them all right, which would have prompted the ultimate—if tearful—“I told you so” from her mother.

Her mother was going to like Sean Murphy. If he showed up.

Her father would like that he was a rescue worker. Albeit, the most elegant, well-dressed rescue worker any of them had ever seen. Again, if he showed up.

And her brothers would like that he was big and strong, and probably knew all about sports—even if it was Irish sports like rugby rather than football. If he showed up.

Her three annoying siblings would definitely consider him a step-up from one guy Annie had dated in high school. That had been back when she thought she wanted to marry the current-day version of Lord Byron, someone soft, soulful, vulnerable and emotional. Blech.

Although Sean Murphy was a gentleman—her instincts told her that—there wasn’t one soft spot on that incredible body, nor an ounce of vulnerability in his cocky smile.

He was all mouthwatering, turn-your-insides-to-mush man.

“Earth to Annie?”

“Sorry,” she mumbled as they reached her minivan.

“Tell me about his voice.”

Remembering the question Tara had asked, she admitted, “He has an accent. The program didn’t mention it—” which she found odd “—but he’s foreign.”

“Oooh, sexy. French?”

“Irish.”

“Even better! Like James Bond.”

Remembering her conversation with Sean, Annie had to chuckle. “Nope, Bond is English. Or Scottish. We never quite nailed that down. Sean’s one of those black-haired, blue-eyed Irishmen who rolls his R’s and sounds like he’s taking a soft bite out of each one of his words as he utters it.”

Tara’s mouth fell open. “Good God, woman, did you spend twenty minutes with him or the entire night? You sound like he’s been taking soft, sexy bites out of you.”

Feeling her heart thump in her chest at that visual, Annie purposefully ignored her friend. And she managed to continue ignoring her as they got in the van and left the garage, heading toward Lincoln Park, where they both lived.

But once she’d dropped her friend off, watching to ensure she got up into her apartment safely, Annie could no longer ignore the voice in her head that had been echoing Tara’s. She had felt like Sean Murphy had been taking sexy little bites out of her.

Removing bits of her self-control, morsels of her insecurity, and big, huge chunks of her resistance.

“I want him,” she whispered as she entered her own quiet apartment.

Her four-year-old tabby, Wally, heard her and deigned to come to the door for a quick greeting, if only to see whether she had anything interesting to eat. Given her carryout lifestyle, she usually did.

Bending to pet him, she repeated, “I really want him.”

And not just as a cover for this weekend’s family gettogether. She wanted him physically, as she hadn’t wanted anyone in a long time. Including her creepazoid ex.

Given her recent track record, she had no business wanting anybody, or trusting her own faulty judgment. But that didn’t change the way her thighs quivered and her panties tightened against her sex at the mere thought of Murphy nibbling her from top to bottom. Especially since she knew just how soft and warm his lips were. How delicious his tongue.

It was dangerous, unexpected, outrageous. But she couldn’t help wondering if that chemistry he’d mentioned would be enough to spark something physical between them this weekend.

And whether she’d let it.

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