NO MATTER HOW HARD Harley willed herself not to look, she couldn’t help herself. She would take a guy in a pair of jeans any day, so worn and comfy that they’d frayed at the seams and rode low on his hips. Mmm-mmm. Which did not explain her reaction to Gerard in his dressy tux as he climbed off her bed in a burst of muscular grace.
She needed to clear her head and calm down in case some opportunity to reason presented itself. The thought of spending the entire night with her arms cuffed above her head made her cringe—she’d be crippled by morning.
He picked up her gun from the dresser. “Jeez, Harley. You had the safety off.”
“You’ve been working with me all these months and haven’t figured out I don’t pull my gun unless I’m ready to use it?”
His gaze cut across the distance between them and he didn’t look so much surprised as he did thoughtful. That look irked her. She wasn’t quite sure why. Then again, her irritation might have had more to do with the handcuffs.
“I assume you already took the gun I keep under my pillow,” she said, an attempt to assert some control over the situation, lame though it might be. “Obviously, I can’t check.”
He inclined his head, a regal gesture that made his dark hair gleam in the light of her bed-table lamp. “I’m putting them both in your top drawer. Safety’s on.”
Her panty drawer. Why not? At least her guns would smell pretty. Or maybe her panties would smell like gun oil. She supposed either would come as a surprise to whoever got close enough to one or the other.
Clearly Gerard thought he should be the one to get close. He’d already shrugged out of his jacket. It crossed her field of vision to land in a careless heap on a chair.
The bow tie followed.
For a man with a good education and blue blood, he sure could be obtuse. A real gentleman would have availed himself of the facilities to undress. Not Gerard. He was performing a bloody striptease. As if she hadn’t seen enough of him in that towel yesterday.
Not that she’d minded Anthony walking in to find a nearly naked man in her bedroom, but she very much minded facing a whole night in bed with him.
She didn’t think for one second he’d do the gentlemanly thing and sleep on the couch. No, he was going for shock value, because it didn’t take any reasonably healthy man this long to unfasten his cuff links.
Gerard was way beyond reasonably healthy.
This was a performance, plain and simple. He challenged her with each glimpse of those tanned fingers working the buttons at his throat. He pulled away the collar to expose his neck, unfastened the last button and started peeling away a sleeve. Fingers flexed. Shoulders shifted. Biceps bulged, and suddenly a long, tanned arm shot out to start the process all over again.
He wore a white undershirt that had to be silky and soft given the way it clung to the ridges of his chest. And though she’d never imagined an undershirt could be sexy, something about the bright white against his tanned skin made the sight even sexier than if he’d been naked.
A crazy swooping dropped the bottom out of her stomach and Harley swallowed hard to smother a groan. This was so unfair. She didn’t want to want this man. Even if he wasn’t as big an idiot as she’d thought he was, he was still an idiot—one way too attractive for his own good.
For her own good. She should just close her eyes.
And let him know he was getting to her? Harley raked her gaze over him and gave a haughty sniff as if his striptease wasn’t doing a damn thing for her.
Right. Just watching him hike a long leg onto the bed to take off his sock was a sight. He had feet as tanned and strong as the rest of him and, even though she’d never been one to notice feet, she noticed his.
He whipped the undershirt over his head with a burst of bunching muscles and treated her to a full frontal of defined pecs and rippled tummy with a line of silky dark fur.
That swooping sensation kick-started an ache inside her.
From a purely analytical angle, Harley could appreciate how much work his toned physique must take to maintain. She’d devoted herself to the martial arts, which made working out pleasurable, but Gerard was a club boy, a man who weight-trained and swam in the upscale privacy of his club. She knew he liked to play golf, but aside from some fishing excursions she’d heard him talking about with Josh, she hadn’t heard him ever mention another sport.
Trouble was, it was hard to stay analytical when a handsome man unbuttoned his fly. Her thoughts scattered as he shifted his hips and shoved his slacks down, down…and down.
Damn, if the man didn’t have the best legs…all strong and straight and perfectly hairy, as opposed to too hairy.
And why, oh why couldn’t he have been a boxer man? She hated boxer men, with those baggy bottoms hiding their thighs and making their parts look like tent poles. No, Gerard had to be a brief man, with all that nice white cotton molding his hips and snuggling his parts into a suggestive bulge that seemed to be bulging the longer she stared.
Harley’s pride took another hit when her breasts grew tight in response to the sight, her nipples peaking until she could feel her light cotton pajamas like a whisper against her skin. She was glad she’d kept her robe on, really not wanting to give this man proof of how she reacted to him. He was arrogant enough already, thank you.
But then Gerard pulled out all the stops, effectively claiming the prize in their little contest of wills. Turning back around, he hooked his fingers in the waistband of his briefs and gave a tug. Not even pride would make her take on that. Closing her eyes, Harley buried her face in the pillow.
Gerard laughed. The rich sound filtered through the quiet like a bayou breeze, grazed across her senses like a caress.
“I sleep naked.”
“Of course,” was all she said, refusing to open her eyes.
He gave another chuckle then the bed bounced as he climbed over her and started tugging the comforter from beneath her.
“I don’t want you in my bed,” she said in a would-be-reasonable voice. “No one will ever know if we really sleep together or not. We don’t have to put on a show.”
“It’s our wedding night,” he said as if that explained everything. Then he went to work on the sheets. “Roll over.”
That did it. Her eyes shot open. “Roll where? I’m handcuffed to this bed, or are you blind?”
His gaze slid up her arms and back again. “I’m not blind.”
She was so glad she’d kept the robe.
But her robe didn’t do much to protect her from Gerard when he’d finally wrestled the sheets out and slid in beside her. For one thing it was only September and her robe, for all that it reached her ankles, was still made of lightweight cotton, which meant exactly nothing when he pulled her into his strong arms and curled around her, all big and hard and male.
His chest pressed so close to her back that she rode each rise and fall of his breath. His thighs fit beneath hers, acquainting her with how very much he enjoyed their closeness.
She waited for him to make some smug comment about how he finally had her where he wanted her, but he only rested his chin on the top of her head and held her. His body relaxed.
She finally couldn’t stand the silence. “The only reason you suggested this whole marriage ruse was to get me in bed.”
“That was only one of the reasons,” he said, a throaty burst far too close to her ear. “The other reason was to help my grandfather. Killing two birds, you know.”
“Murdered birds. Oh, that’s real romantic, Gerard.”
A beat of silence. “I didn’t think you wanted romance.”
“I don’t.”
“Then what do you want?”
“You to remove your rock-hard erection from my butt.”
“Turning you on, is it?”
She gave a laugh. “You wish.”
Suddenly he moved and his lips fluttered around her neck, gusting warm breaths below her ear in a place she hadn’t realized was quite so sensitive.
“I don’t wish. I know.”
What was she going to do—deny it? She’d only look stupid with her pulse jumping beneath his lips. So she kept her mouth shut, which he clearly interpreted as an invitation. His mouth brushed her skin again, a whisper of a kiss.
Every nerve ending from her ears to her thighs began to tingle, crazy bursts of sensation that made her aware of the way his body heat penetrated light cotton as if it didn’t exist. So aware of the hardness nestled against her bottom.
“You’re killing me here, Gerard.”
“Really? Want me to unlock the handcuffs? You can’t jump me when you’re all tied up.”
“If I have sex with you, you’ll let me go?”
“That would be coercion.”
“You really are hard up for a date.”
No reply but a sweep of his lips in that sensitive place where her neck scooped into her shoulder. “I’ll remove the handcuffs if you agree to let me hold you while we sleep together. That way I’ll know if you go for your gun.”
“Every night?”
“Every night until we finish the case,” he repeated. “But first you have to answer a question.”
“You don’t want much, do you?”
“I want you.”
He held all the cards right now and she hissed out an exasperated breath, couldn’t tell if he was bluffing. Would he really handcuff her every night until this case was over?
Determined bastard had gotten her into bed, hadn’t he?
“What kind of question?” she asked.
“A personal one.”
Of course, her favorite kind. “Deal. Shoot.”
“How do you know Judge Bancroft?”
A really personal question, although now that he’d asked, Harley should have guessed the subject would come up. Naturally he’d be curious why the judge had kept tabs on her.
This wasn’t any big secret, not in the conventional sense, but Harley didn’t talk about her past. She didn’t even think about it if she could help it and she’d been on such a nice roll until coming up against the judge today.
It had been a long time since anyone had asked about her past. Her relationships with men usually never went beyond the need for vague generalities. Anthony already knew all the gory details. Now that she thought about it, one of the last times she’d had to explain herself had been when she’d stood in front of Judge Bancroft.
“Why do you keep running away from your foster families, Harley?” the judge had asked. “You’re not giving them a fair chance before you run to the DiLeos.”
“That’s because they love me and want me with them,” she remembered explaining.
“I know they petitioned to adopt you, but Mrs. DiLeo is a widowed mother with six children of her own. She’s having trouble making ends meet.”
Harley hadn’t quite understood what difference money should make. “But they love me and want me to be with them.”
“I was a juvenile delinquent, Gerard,” she told him.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. A real troublemaker.”
He chuckled, a sound that was even more effective at sparking those tingles along her skin. “That would explain the guns. How many times did you go in front of Judge Bancroft?”
“I already answered your question.”
“I haven’t unlocked the cuffs yet.”
She exhaled hard in resignation, forced to dredge through memories she’d purposely forgotten. “Twelve, maybe thirteen.”
He gave a low whistle. “You were bad news. And you didn’t wind up in a juvenile detention center? Bancroft’s not known for his patience.”
“No, I didn’t.” But she hadn’t wound up in the home she’d wanted to be in, either.
Gerard’s arms tightened around her. Now came the part when he’d say something patronizing—one of the reasons she never discussed the past. But Gerard surprised her. He didn’t give her one of those worn-out responses she hated. He asked yet another question. “Did coming up against Bancroft do the trick?”
“What trick?”
“Get you past the delinquency phase?”
“Yeah, I suppose you could say that.”
“Good.” He snuggled closer. “Otherwise you might be in jail right now and I couldn’t hold you like this. You feel good.”
She resisted the urge to roll off the side of the bed. Sure, she’d get away, but she’d likely break both arms in the process. “I thought you couldn’t stand me.”
“That’s not true, Harley. I like you.”
“You just want to sleep with me.”
“That, too.”
She didn’t know what to say to his calm-voiced admission, so she didn’t say anything at all. As it turned out, she didn’t like it when Gerard gave her answers she didn’t expect. The usual arguments were okay, but anything else threw her. So Harley just waited for him to make good on his promise.
The man might be arrogant, but his mama had raised him to keep his word. He finally slipped away, forcing her to close her eyes to avoid sight of his naked self as he leaned over her to retrieve a key from the bedside table.
“You’re warm,” he said while he unlocked the cuffs. “Sure you don’t want to lose the robe.”
She was warm, but that had more to do with the fact that she could feel him kneeling over her, knew if she opened her eyes, she’d get an eyeful.
The cuffs slipped off and she rolled away. “I think I will.”
But his hands were suddenly there, helping to draw the robe off her shoulders. He slid it down her arms, a move that seemed very intimate in the moon-soaked darkness. They were in bed together. He was naked. She wasn’t much more than naked.
And she’d agreed to lie here while he held her.
HARLEY’S FIRST DAY as Gerard’s fake wife started off with a bang. She had no intention of giving in to his challenges, but that didn’t stop her from waking up wrapped around him like a twist tie. She’d turned sometime during the night and now her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, an arm over his stomach, a thigh hiked across his. He apparently didn’t mind, because he cradled her close with both arms, his cheek resting on the top of her head.
No matter how determined she was to resist this man, no matter how valid her reasons, she wanted him. Even in this hazy half-awake state, she couldn’t ignore the way her skin glowed everywhere they touched. A slow ache pulsed between her thighs, her body aware in places she didn’t even know could be aware. She liked him wrapped around her, all warm and naked and hard.
Harley supposed if she hadn’t gone so long without sex, she wouldn’t be going to pieces around a man she didn’t want to go to pieces around. Talk about paying the price.
“Good morning,” he said sleepily.
She rolled out of his arms, and took a deep breath of Gerard-free air. What was it about men that made them smell in the mornings? Not a body-odor type of smell, but a…male smell, as unique to each as a fingerprint.
“It is a good morning. For you. No bullet holes.”
He chuckled, a throaty sound that made her glad to make an escape. She slipped over the side of the bed and got to her feet. If she’d been thinking, she would have made for the door, but Harley wasn’t that awake yet. She glanced at him stretched out on her bed. The comforter only reached his waist, leaving his broad chest bared and his tanned skin looking dark and tempting against the white bedding.
Looking at his face was an even bigger mistake. His features were relaxed in a way she wasn’t used to. His glossy hair spiked around his head at odd angles, only lending to his sleep-tousled look, and his heavy-lidded eyes made her think of sex.
“I need coffee.” Badly.
To Harley’s relief, Gerard didn’t follow, and as she set up the coffee to brew, she heard the shower turn on. Grabbing a scraper from her drain board, she set to work chiseling away a section of wallpaper in what had become a morning ritual. Slowly the wallpaper was peeling away and, eventually, she’d strip every inch of the nasty avocado floral print so she could start mud work to repair the drywall.
She didn’t know what she wanted to do with the room yet. Once she saw how the walls shaped up, she’d decide on paint or wallpaper. And that all presupposed she had money to buy supplies. At the rate she was going…
The smell of coffee soon filled the kitchen with an aroma that jump-started her drowsy senses. After pouring a mug, she headed back into her bedroom to get her clothes. She’d dress out here since the man had commandeered her private bath.
As she passed the desk, Harley noticed the flashing telephone recorder light. Depressing the play button, she sipped her coffee and listened to yesterday’s messages.
Mama DiLeo’s Italian-accented voice rang out. “Cara mia, Anthony mentioned you’d gone to a wedding last weekend. I told him he must have mixed up the dates because I know you wouldn’t embarrass me by going anywhere when you’re three weeks overdue for a haircut. You book an appointment so I don’t have to send someone after you.”
Harley smiled, not doubting for an instant that Anthony’s mom would send out the hit squad. She deleted the message and made a mental note to call.
An unfamiliar male voice spoke next.
“Ms. Price, this is Harry from All Parishes Pest Control. You haven’t gotten back to us yet, so I thought I’d call to let you know I just got word from corporate headquarters that we’re starting a no-interest, no-payments-until-next-year special. I reviewed your extermination and repair estimate and it looks like you qualify. All you need to do is sign the papers and I can send a crew out to start work. Give me a call at…”
Harley stared. She blinked. Then she remembered to breathe.
“Hot damn!”
She didn’t remember meeting Harry, but she slammed her mug down on the desk hard enough to slosh coffee over the rim, snatched up the receiver and dialed his number. A recorder answered and she left a message telling him to fax the paperwork to her office. If they were willing to extend her credit, she’d sign her life away, no questions asked.
She kissed the receiver and whispered thanks to Lady Luck. Anthony was right—something did break. With this unexpected turn of fortune, she could take the money she’d earn from this case and any cash bonuses to catch up on her mortgage and pay for her transmission so he wouldn’t have to foot the bill.
The rest she’d put on her credit cards. If she could get them down, she could swing her loan payments, and if she could get her head above water now, she could pay off her loans by next April and divert that money to paying off the exterminator.
Harley sopped up spilled coffee and headed into her bedroom, so relieved that not even the sound of the running shower or the man inside her bathroom could wipe away her grin.
She was still grinning when Gerard showed up in the kitchen, barefoot and bare-chested and looking all damp around the edges.
And he was wearing jeans. The worn, comfy kind that looked soft to the touch and clung to his thighs and hips like an old friend. A memory of the way he’d felt wrapped around her made her grow warm inside, but she just handed him a mug of coffee and went back to peeling her wallpaper, too happy to let anything spoil her mood. Even chemistry she didn’t want to feel.
“Home repairs, Harley?” he said, coming to stand close enough so she could smell his freshly washed skin. “I’m surprised. I thought you spent all your free time in the dojo or at the gun range.”
“Not all my free time. I find these types of projects relaxing.”
“I like what you’ve done around here.”
“Thanks.”
He stepped away and sipped his coffee. “We need to discuss today’s schedule.”
“Shoot.”
“First item of business is returning the chopper,” he said. “My wife can’t drive her ex-lover’s motorcycle.”
“My car’s in the shop and won’t be fixed until next week.”
“I have an SUV. We’ll swing by my place later and pick it up so you’ll have it if we need to split up.” He made it sound like splitting up wasn’t likely to happen.
Not even that thought threatened her good mood. “Okay. What’s next?”
“We’ve got the morning and early afternoon to shop for your new wardrobe and pick up supplies for our new house.”
“What new wardrobe?”
“The one that’s not leather.” He grinned over the rim of the mug. “Not that you don’t look great in leather. I’ve had fantasies about peeling your clothes off piece by piece.”
The promise in his sexy morning voice made her breath catch. Harley pulled a strip of wallpaper off so hard she brought a chunk of drywall with it. Damn.
“As your new husband, it’s my job to outfit you for the sorts of functions I’ll be taking you to.”
“You’re going to town with this madness, aren’t you?”
“This is my first official case. I want to impress you.”
The amusement in those clear gray eyes sent her dodging for cover. She headed across the room and tossed the drywall into the trash. “What supplies are you talking about?”
There, she sounded almost normal.
“You do eat, don’t you?” The man whipped open her fridge and peered inside, giving her a prime shot of long legs and tight butt in the process. “All I saw in here the other night was peanut butter, green grapes and a bottle of Tabasco sauce.”
There wasn’t anything but peanut butter, green grapes and a bottle of Tabasco sauce there now, and the grapes were probably on their way out. “Protein, fruit and vegetables—everything a healthy girl needs. What were you doing in my fridge?”
“I was hungry.” He took out the peanut butter. “Mmm, breakfast. Do you put this on something or eat it straight?”
Harley reached into the silverware drawer and withdrew a spoon. “Straight. It’s the crunchy kind.”
“Add a trip to the grocery store on the list.”
“So what are tonight’s plans? Not another family function?”
Leaning back against the counter, he swallowed a mouthful of peanut butter and chased it with coffee. “No family functions until the weekend. Tonight it’ll be just you and me.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“We need another official appearance as a married couple. I got us noticed at the shelter last night. Tonight it’s your turn. Any ideas where we can go to get noticed?”
“How about out in the Quarter?”
“To the Pleasure Dome?”
A sex dungeon. Why wasn’t she surprised? “If you already had an idea, why’d you ask for my input?”
Gerard shrugged. “I wanted to be PC. You said you were a real troublemaker and I was hoping you’d get me into trouble.”
“You are so not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be a comedian. I’m trying to get laid.”
She turned back to her wallpaper. “You want to get noticed, Gerard? I’ll get you noticed. Be dressed to go clubbing at ten.”
“It’s a date.”
No, it was work.