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Either way, he wasn’t going to give her, or them, a lot of time to think about it.
He’d kiss her, then hustle her outside where he could explain it had all been a game and either thank her for her cooperation or apologize for what he’d done...or maybe, just maybe, she’d laugh and what the hell, the night was still young.
Bottom line?
Kissing her was all he had to work with, so he flashed his best smile, the one that never failed to thaw a woman’s defenses, reached out, put his arms around her, gathered her in...
Her eyes widened. She slapped both hands against his chest.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Travis showed her.
He captured her lips with his.
For nothing longer than a second, he thought he was home free. Sure, she stiffened against him, said “Mmmff” or something close to it, but he could work with that.
The problem?
She went crazy in his arms.
It would have done his ego good to think she’d gone crazy with pleasure.
But she hadn’t.
She went crazy the way he’d once seen his sister Em do when she’d bent down to pick up what she’d thought was a compact and found herself, instead, with a handful of tarantula.
The blonde in his arms jerked against him. Pounded his shoulders with her fists. Said that “Mmmff” thing again and again and again...
Somebody laughed.
Somebody said, “What the hell’s he doin’?”
Somebody else said, “Damned if ah know.”
What Travis knew was that this was not good.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he snarled, his mouth a breath from Blondie’s.
“Mmmff!”
She struggled harder. Lifted her foot. Put one of those stiletto heels into his instep and it was a damn good thing he was wearing boots.
He put his lips to her ear.
“Lady. Listen to what I’m saying. I’m not—”
Big mistake.
“Help,” she yelled, or would have yelled—he could see her lips forming the sound of that “h”—so, really, what choice did he have?
He kissed her again.
This time, her knee came up.
He felt it coming, twisted to avoid it, then hung on to her for dear life.
The crowd hooted.
Jeez, was he going to be the night’s entertainment?
“Lady sure do seem happy to see you, cowboy,” the Mountain shouted.
Everybody roared with laughter.
Okay.
This called for a different approach.
Travis thrust one hand into Blondie’s hair, clamped the other at the base of her spine, tilted her backward over his arm just enough to keep her off balance and brushed his lips over hers.
Once. Twice. Three times, each time ignoring that angry Mmmff.
“Don’t fight me,” he whispered between kisses. “Just make this look real and I swear, I’ll let you go.”
No mmmff that time. Nothing but a little sighing sound...
And the softest, most delicate whisper of her breath.
“Good girl,” Travis murmured, and he changed the angle of his mouth on hers...
God, she tasted sweet.
Slowly he drew her erect. Put both hands into her hair. Kissed her a little harder.
She tasted like sunshine on a soft June morning, smelled like wildflowers after a summer rain.
His arms went around her; he gathered her against the hardness of his body, felt the softness of her breasts and belly against him.
The crowd cheered.
Travis barely heard them.
He was lost in what was happening, the feel of the woman in his arms, the race of her heart against his.
An urgency he’d never felt before raced through him.
He was on fire.
So was she.
She was trembling. Whimpering. She was—
Sweet Lord.
The truth hit. Hard. She wasn’t on fire for him, she was terrified.
She hadn’t acquiesced to his kisses, she’d stopped fighting them.
What kind of SOB did this to a woman? Scared the life out of her, and all to save his own sorry ass?
All at once, the trip to Frankfurt lost its meaning. He was a financial wizard but what he really was, was a gambler. He’d lost money before; he’d lose it again.
Millions were on the line.
So what?
When had winning become so important he’d use someone—not just “someone” but a woman—to make sure the dice rolled the way he wanted?
He lifted his head. Looked down into the face of the woman in his arms.
His gut twisted.
Her skin was pale, the color all but completely drained away. Her breathing was swift; he could see the rapid pulse fluttering in her throat. Her eyes—her eyes, he knew, would haunt him forever. They were beautiful eyes, but now they had turned dark with fear.
“Oh, honey,” he said softly.
She shook her head. “Don’t,” she said in a tiny whisper. “Please. Don’t—”
He kissed her again, but lightly, tenderly, his lips barely moving against hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never meant to frighten you.”
There was a whisper of sound behind him. He was giving the game away. Screw it. Screw whatever would happen next. All he wanted was to get that look of fear off the blonde’s lovely face.
“Lovely” didn’t come close.
That cloud of silken hair. The dark blue eyes. The soft, rosy mouth.
She was still shaking.
No way was he going to let that continue.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I never intended to hurt you.” Her face registered disbelief, and Travis shook his head. “It’s the truth, honey. This was never about you. Not the way you think.” He framed her face with his hands, raised it just a little so he was looking directly into her eyes. “I ran into a problem. With some people here.”
“Damn right,” the Mountain growled.
Travis heard him hawk up a glob of spit, heard it hit the floor.
The blonde looked past his shoulder, her eyes widening. She looked at Travis again.
Two slender parallel lines appeared between her eyebrows.
“See, I told them I was waiting for my date—”
“Thass what he said,” one of the Mountain’s pals said. “But we knew he was lyin’—an’ we know what to do with liars.”
A loud rumble of assent greeted the proclamation.
The blonde’s gaze swept past Travis again. Her eyes filled with comprehension.
“And then,” Travis said, ignoring the interruption, “then, the door opened and you walked in. One look and I knew that you were right for me, that you were perfect, that you were—”
“The woman you’d been waiting for,” the blonde said, very softly.
He smiled, a little sadly because there was no question how this was going down. The only thing he needed to do now was get her safely out of here because however she’d come to be at this bar tonight, she was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Exactly right, honey. You were just the woman I’d have waited for, and—”
The blonde put her finger over his lips.
“Of course I was,” she said, her voice louder now, loud enough to carry to the men behind Travis. “How foolish of you to think that I wasn’t going to keep our date, just because I showed up a bit late.”
This time, Travis was the one whose eyes widened.
“What?”
“I was angry, I admit. That quarrel we had last week? About—about me thinking you’d been with another woman?” She smiled. “I know I was wrong. You wouldn’t cheat on me, not ever.”
For mercy’s sake, man, say something!
“Uh—uh, no. I mean, you’re right. I wouldn’t. Cheat on you. Ever.”
She nodded.
“But I couldn’t just admit that.” Another smile, this one half-vixen, half-innocent. “It’s against all the precepts of male-female genetically-transmitted courtship behavior.”
The what?
“So I decided to keep you waiting tonight. Let you cool your heels a little, kind of wonder if I was going to show up.” Another smile, this one so hot and sexy Travis felt his knees go weak. “And you did wonder, didn’t you? About me and how I’d deal with our date this evening.”
Travis tried to answer. Nothing happened. He cleared his throat and tried again.
“Yes. Right. I surely did. Wonder, I mean, about how you’d deal with our—”
“And you reacted to perfection! Every single DNA-coded response was in evidence. Machismo. Dominance. Aggression. Even an attempt at territorial marking.”
