He just knew that this woman was anything but …
So toss back your whiskey and get out of here, Tessier. And there’s no point in running pickup lines through your head. You are not going to use them on her or anybody else.
Smart, very successful—rich, if she had to judge by his subdued designer threads—and a little or a lot lost, Remy thought. His broad shoulders looked tight and his thumb tapping against his tumbler suggested tension. His hair held the furrows of frustrated fingers raking through it.
She recognised stress when she saw it—after all, she’d once been the living, breathing embodiment of it—and she sympathised. He needed more than one hastily thrown back whiskey and some conversation. He needed to relax, to laugh, and probably a healthy bout of really good sex.
She could help with one and two, and she couldn’t emphatically state that three was out of the question. She was that attracted to him …
Here’s hoping you have a sense of humour, cutie, because if you don’t I’m about to fall flat on my face …
‘You are just the way I like my coffee. Tall, dark and strong.’
He half turned towards her and she sucked in her breath at her first proper look at his eyes, which were gunmetal-grey, framed by dark, spiky lashes.
His straight, dark eyebrows pulled together. ‘Excuse me?’
Remy made a clucking noise and pretended to think. ‘Didn’t work? Well, what about this …? I’ve been looking for a man with a VCR and I’ve finally found the perfect one … That’s a Very Cute Rear, by the way.’
He rolled his eyes but she saw humour flash in them. Thank God.
His strong face remained impassive, and if it hadn’t been for that flicker of fun she’d noticed she would have run for the hills.
‘Seriously?’
Remy flashed her naughtiest grin. ‘Really cheesy, huh?’
That sexy mouth tipped up just a little at the corners. ‘Very.’
‘Okay—last one. Aren’t you the guy who’s going to buy me my next drink?’
He stared at her for a moment, before releasing a smile which took him from cool and remote to vaguely accessible.
Oh, cutie, you definitely need to smile a lot more.
‘Not great, but tolerable.’
His voice was low, melodious, and as smooth as the expensive whiskey he was drinking, she thought as he turned away to order her a drink. Then he took the vacant seat next to her and, as she’d expected, blinked when he noticed her eyes. Instead of commenting on the pale golden colour, as so many people did, he just crossed his arms, big biceps pulling the sleeves of his dress shirt tight across his arms. She longed to loosen that perfectly knotted red tie, to undo the top button of that blindingly white shirt. She wondered what he would look like in lived-in jeans and a T-shirt … how he looked naked. Fantastic, she decided.
‘So, do those dreadful pickup lines usually work for you?’ he asked, his eyes unreadable again.
‘You bought me a drink, didn’t you?’ Remy pointed out.
‘This is true.’ He pushed the glass of wine in her direction. ‘Got any others?’
‘Pickup lines? Sure.’
‘Hit me.’
‘They are pretty dreadful,’ she warned him, her expression inviting him to flirt a little, laugh a lot.
‘I don’t know … the VCR one was dated and dreadful.’
Remy tapped her finger against the bar and pretended to think. ‘Okay, what about … your body is a wonderland and I want to be Alice?’
He groaned.
‘Could you please step away from the bar? You’re melting all the ice?’
There was that smile again.
‘Are you a dictionary? Because you just gave me the definition of gorgeous?’
Yeah, the smile’s growing bigger. C’mon, I know it’s in there somewhere.
‘You’re so hot a firefighter couldn’t put you out.’
His unexpected laughter rumbled over her and Remy couldn’t help her shiver, which was quickly followed by heat flowing through her veins. She’d got him to smile properly, to laugh. She felt as if she’d won a seriously important prize.
She sent him another dazzling smile. ‘I’m Remy.’
‘Robert, but most people call me Bo.’
Robert was too uptight, too formal, Remy thought as she took a sip of her wine, but she supposed it suited his cool, calm, Lord of the Manor attitude. ‘Bo’ suited the laughing man she’d seen behind the stick-up-his-ass façade.
And she really found that man far too attractive.
This is a good time to get up and leave, Draycott. Before you do something really stupid like inviting him to inspect your panties—which just happen to be red and barely there. Take your reality pill, honey. Remember the last time you had sex? Which happened to be your first and only one-night stand? Two years ago? It was so unfulfilling that you swore you’d never do it again … Is this ringing any bells yet?
It was, but she really, really didn’t want to listen to Sensible Remy. She wasn’t any fun …
‘How long are you staying in Bellevue?’ he asked, distracting her from her crazy thoughts.
Remy looked at the functional, no-frills watch on her wrist. ‘Ten hours or so? I’m hitting the road at first light. Do you live in the area?’
He nodded. ‘Are you travelling alone?’
She knew that he was fishing—could see the attraction she felt echoed in his eyes. ‘Yep, just me.’
‘It’s a nice holiday … touring the wine country,’ he replied, his tone so bland that she wondered if she was perhaps reading him wrong.
Then his hand moved across the bar and his thumb stroked over the pulse-point of her wrist, which instantly bolted at his touch.
Holy hell, she was playing with fire, she thought, staring at his strong, broad hand on her pale wrist. Unable to pull away from his touch, so simple and so devastating, she used her other hand to pick up her wine glass and lubricate her mouth.
‘So, how has your trip been so far?’
Same voice, but his eyes were on her mouth and the gunmetal-grey had turned smoky with passion. How could he keep his voice so smooth while she was a maelstrom of nerves and lust and attraction? Kiss me, already, she wanted to beg.
No begging allowed, Sensible Remy whispered in her ear.
‘Oh, I’m not on holiday … I’m a professional vagrant.’ That sounded better—a little breathy but there had been words in a sentence. Pretty impressive, really.
His thumb on her wrist stopped. Noooo!
‘Want to explain that?’ he asked.
She couldn’t. All she could think about was the effect he was having on her and her desire to get him naked, to have her hands on that warm, muscled, masculine flesh. There was no way to verbalise that three years ago she’d lived in New York, that her doctorate in computer science had landed her the position of youngest Chief Information Officer of a Fortune 500 company. Ever.
She’d had an apartment in Manhattan, worked eighty-hour weeks, had an ulcer the size of a fist and had been prone