Naughty By Nature. Jule McBride

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Which you are,” clarified Morgan.

      “See?” Vanessa managed to muster a bright smile. “It’s all so simple. I sleep here sometimes and answer the phone, pretending to be Lucy. That’s how you and I wound up, uh, uh—” Her words stuttered to a halt, and she settled her gaze on the bed, which, she decided, said it all.

      Morgan held up a staying hand. “I get the picture.” As graceful as a panther, he dropped to his flat belly and swept a long arm under the bed, looking for his shoes.

      All conversation ground to a halt.

      “Anyway,” Vanessa continued lamely, watching wistfully as he rose, sliding huge bare feet into polished black oxfords. Vaguely, she wondered what had happened to his socks. “I…” Staring at him, she forgot what she’d been about to say, mostly because she was vowing never to think again of the criminal lengths to which she’d gone to get him into her bed. Lucy’s bed, she corrected.

      A rumbling bass, her father’s voice, suddenly cut through the silence. “Lucy? Are you up there?”

      “Two words,” muttered Morgan, looking none too happy.

      When his dashing eyes fixed on hers, Vanessa croaked, “Which two words?” And then prayed her father wouldn’t venture upstairs.

      Morgan mouthed, “I’m fired.”

      “Three words.” Vanessa couldn’t help but reply, unable to stop herself from pointing out his self-centeredness, given what was starting to feel painfully like rejection. “So is Lucy.”

      Morgan’s gaze traced her bare shoulders, and sparks of awareness came into his eyes. “You’re safe.”

      “No,” said Vanessa. “If my father finds me here, naked with you, he won’t fire me, he’ll kill me. I’m his daughter.”

      Before Morgan could respond, Lucy called, “I’m on my way, Senator!” Her eyes bugging a final time, she stared around—at the evidence on the floor, at Vanessa, who was still clad in a sheet, and at Morgan, who was seated on the bed’s edge in wrinkled pants, a shirt without buttons and shoes without socks. “I know Mrs. Bell called in sick.” Lucy continued in nervous falsetto, prying Vanessa’s fingers from her arm so she could go downstairs. “And I’m on my way!”

      “Hurry up,” intoned the senator, adding one of his usual aphorisms. “He that riseth late must trot all day, Lucy.”

      As soon as Lucy was gone, Vanessa realized the sheet wasn’t adequately covering her. Her bare behind was facing the stairs her elderly father had just threatened to climb. Reaching behind herself, she grabbed a flap of the sheet and fashioned a toga. Her eyes settled on Morgan’s fingers, which were lacing the left shoe, and she steeled herself against memories of those fingers gliding along her bare thighs, parting them, stroking between them. Straightening her shoulders, she could only hope she didn’t look anywhere near as humiliated as she felt.

      He must have read the lift of her chin as haughty, because he glanced up and cautioned, “Don’t look at me like that, Ms. Verne.”

      His not calling her Vanessa was driving her crazy. “Look at you like what, Mr. Fine?”

      “Like I’ve done something wrong.”

      Actually, she thought with a shudder, the problem was that Morgan had done so many things just fine, and during the long seconds they eyed each other, she dwelled on each and every one of them. From the moment she’d watched him drive up to the house, she’d decided he was her dream man. His easy humor and air of quiet competence had impressed her, and soon enough she’d decided the competence would extend to the bedroom, which it had. His rejection was nearly killing her. “Maybe next time—” she couldn’t help but speak stiffly, wishing they weren’t alone “—you should check to see who’s in bed with you.”

      For the endless moment his gaze held hers, she tried not to notice the sleek black curls dancing around his face and how sharp his cheekbones looked under taut skin. “I thought it was Lucy.”

      “It,” she whispered, wishing she didn’t sound so miserable. “Do you think I’m an it?”

      He blew out an exasperated sigh. “That’s not what I meant.”

      “Do you really like Lucy?” It was horrible to ask, but after feeling how he’d made love, Vanessa had to know. Hovering by the door, she held on to the toga knot and waited.

      He gave a very male grunt. “No, I don’t like Lucy.”

      “Maybe that’s even more offensive.” She couldn’t help but say it. After all, Lucy was Vanessa’s best friend, had been since they were babies. Feeling the toga slip, Vanessa curled a hand more tightly over the knot between her breasts and hiked up the sheet. “Anyway, what does that mean? Do you usually sleep with people you don’t like?”

      Looking annoyed, he placed his palms on rock-hard thighs, rose from the bed and moved toward her, stopping when he was close enough that her every breath was drawing in a fresh, wind-in-the-pines scent. “Watch it.” She couldn’t help but taunt him, holding out her flattened palm. “If you come any closer, I might bite. And if I trip over a sheet and almost break my neck, like I did a minute ago, you definitely shouldn’t help me out. Heaven only knows what could happen to you if you did.” She paused for effect. “You might turn into a gentleman.”

      He ignored the gibes. “I do not sleep with people I don’t like,” he assured her. “And I do think last night you could have stopped me.”

      What was she supposed to do now? For a second, she was so stunned she forgot she was standing there looking like an idiot with green goop in her hair. “When? When I was half asleep and you climbed into bed with me? When you undressed me?”

      “In anticipation of my visit,” he reminded her, his voice growing husky in a way she would have found arousing under any other circumstance, “you weren’t wearing much.”

      “I was in bed when you called! You woke me up!” He was acting as if she’d worn a sexy nightie just for him. “If I was calculating,” she said, “I would have washed this stuff out of my hair.”

      “Good point,” he conceded, making her feel even more ridiculous. “Still…”

      “What was I supposed to do?” she asked, her jaw slackening. “Manacle your hands when they…” Her voice trailed off at the memories of what those hands had done. Suddenly starting, she forged on. “Muzzle you when you kissed me like a man possessed?”

      When his gaze lingered a second too long on the mouth he’d plundered so senselessly, she fantasized him grinning and saying, “You think I kiss like I’m possessed, huh?” Instead, he said in a deliciously smooth baritone, “Look, the sooner we forget all this, the better, Ms. Verne.”

      Whichever poet said hell had no fury like a woman scorned was probably right. She was definitely getting testy. “That’s a far cry from passion that keeps people together forever,” she retorted dryly.

      Looking perturbed at having his words used against him, Morgan glanced toward the stairs and cocked his head, listening to her father and Lucy. “Sounds like your father’s leaving now.”

      The words stung. For weeks, СКАЧАТЬ