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1
Some men were sexy because they were handsome.
Lovely, well-put together faces atop buff, sculpted bodies.
Other men, like the one she was pretending not to look at, were sexy because they were just the kind of man a smart girl would keep away from. Trouble with a capital T.
From the dark scowl he wore on his swarthy face, to the powerful hands that were dragging a pen determinedly against a crisp white piece of paper, he emanated an uncontainable power.
There was nothing neat or groomed about him. He was wild. Uncaged. Half man, half beast, entirely too big, too strong, too much for this painfully trendy Mayfair bar. She lifted her straw to her lips, shaping them around it and sipping her mojito, lost in thought.
Cassie had promised her best friend Melinda that she’d avoid any more disastrous escapades. The last man she’d decided was far too sinfully gorgeous to resist had turned out to be absolutely mad. At best, obsessive, at worst: a verified stalker.
A shiver ran down her spine as she pushed the memories aside and took another sip of her drink.
The man was angry. His hand was moving fast as he scarred the pristine paper with insistent strokes.
He had dark hair, so black it was like a raven, and it was cropped close to his head. His brows were thick and his eyes, from what she could see, were a very dark, deep brown. His lips were wide, and his jaw was square. His nose had a bump halfway down, probably from a break at some point in his life.
His physique was astoundingly impressive, and Cassie had always gone for the burly type. But even compared to her roll call of exes he was particularly remarkable. Broad shoulders that looked like they could weather any storm topped a muscled chest. Through the suit he wore she could appreciate the tight definition. Some women may not have been able to, but Cassie had made an art form out of identifying the right kind of man.
His suit was another giveaway. It was custom made. Most men his size had to buy custom made. He was hardly an off-the-rack man, so why buy an off-the-rack suit? But even if he’d been a normal size, a man like this would buy bespoke.
He was someone used to having the best of everything. Despite the wild, almost feral energy that seemed to radiate from him, he was clearly spectacularly wealthy and successful.
Cassie moved her straw around her drink, batting her long lashes down at the cocktail while she considered her next move.
She should, absolutely, walk away.
After Antonio, she should have learned her lesson.
And yet, what good was it to pretend? Her heart was speeding up, her pulse was firing, and her lungs were working overtime to keep her breath moving. She felt a twist in her gut and she knew what it was.
Desire.
No, that was far too weak a term for what she was feeling.
She felt the kind of heat moving through her core that would make her crazy if she didn’t indulge it. She pulled her full lower lip between her teeth, careful not to smudge her perfectly applied lipstick, and lifted her gaze to his face.
His eyes, larger than she’d realised, locked to hers at that exact moment. A frisson of awareness bolted along her spine.
She was good at seduction. She’d had practice. But he was unnerving her.
An invisible force arced from him to her. The distance and occasional customer in between offered no resistance.
Cassie shaped her mouth around the straw, her pale blue eyes challenging him as she took a sip. One side of his mouth lifted in what she took to be wry speculation. He pushed the lid onto his pen and slipped it back into his pocket. The way he kept his hands on the paper interested her. What was it? What had taxed him so greatly to write that he now protected?
He arched one of his brows, the gesture imbuing his face with a devilish nonchalance that sent her heart skittering.
She swallowed.
When she didn’t move, he lifted a hand from the pages and crooked a finger slowly.
The gesture was not subtle.
Nor could it be misconstrued.
He was beckoning her.
She had promised Melinda she would stop meeting men in bars. At twenty six, Melinda argued, Cassie was too old for this kind of thing.
But Cassie didn’t feel too old for it.
She’d had her run in with the serious relationships; that wasn’t for her. There’d be a time to be sedate and sensible.
This was not it.
Not when faced with a man like him.
She felt her lips lift in a seductive smile. Purposefully, her eyes not leaving his face, she drained her mojito. It wasn’t wise, yet it gave her the necessary courage.
Her heels were sky high, but Cassandra Walton had no issues with that. She could walk on stilts if she had to. At a measly five feet three inches, she’d adopted the advantage of stilettos from her early teens. She moved across the pub, weaving easily through the small clusters of after-work customers.
She’d come straight from a meeting and she was dressed accordingly. Selling top-level art to her corporate clients required her to look a certain way. Some might have thought her dress sense was revealing, but Cassie had garnered an enormous base of clients. The way she did business worked for her.
She ran a manicured hand down the side of her dress, smoothing away an imaginary wrinkle. It fit like a second skin, clinging to the knees, where it gave a small kick. At the neck, it plunged just low enough to give a decent glimpse of her cleavage. At her collar, she wore a chunky gold necklace. Melinda’s? She couldn’t remember. They swapped accessories so often that they might as well have co-purchased everything they owned.
She schooled her expression into a mask of bored curiosity as she sauntered over. “Yes?” She breathed, sidl
ing in close to him.
His eyes flared; he put a hand on her hip.
No preamble, no hesitation. Just an immediate gesture of ownership.
