Secret Seduction. Lori Wilde

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СКАЧАТЬ understood that he was making a big mistake, that by just dancing with her something inside of him was changing, but he couldn’t think of a graceful way to bow out. Didn’t know how to stop.

      She leaned her head against his shoulder and his heart jumped.

      He made a strangled noise, half groan, half sigh.

      She tilted her chin, angling her head to give him a sideways glance. The movement, languid and curious, was identical to the way Maria used to look at him when she was in a romantic mood.

      Tanner’s gut twisted and he suppressed a panicky urge to turn and flee.

      A strand of midnight-black hair fell across her face and she tucked it behind her ear, studded with a ruby earring that matched the color of her dress. She smelled like sophistication from the way she held herself to her perfectly manicured nails to her cologne that smelled of forbidden secrets and starlit tropical nights.

      The deal was he knew she was a fake. Knew the sophistication was all an act, something she’d developed rather than been born with. He admired her ability to pull it off with such smooth cool.

      The song the band was playing was so slow in tempo that he and Vanessa were barely moving. He tightened his hand around her waist, breathed in the scent of her. All he could hear was the sound of his blood rushing pell-mell through his ears.

      He peered into her eyes and caught a glimpse of it. The raw fear. The utter vulnerability. The real reason she was here.

      In that instant the sophistication was completely gone. It didn’t matter than she had a Mensa IQ or that she had learned to navigate the world of the rich and powerful successfully. She was still that scared kid who’d been forever marked by a very rocky early life.

      That naked, vulnerable expression told him she was trying to blot out the awful news she must have gotten today. The same news that had spurred Tanner’s employer to hire him, the news that must have rattled her secure little world.

      Carlo Vega, the man who’d vowed to get even with Vanessa Rodriquez for testifying against him fourteen years earlier, had been paroled from prison.

      The woman was hurting.

      And was using Tanner to blunt her pain.

      He understood. His protective instincts kicked into overdrive. He wanted to tell her everything would be all right. That she wasn’t alone. That he was here now and no one would ever hurt her again.

      But, of course, he couldn’t say that. The man who had hired Tanner had been adamant. Vanessa could not know she was being guarded.

      He gazed at her, trying to tell her with his eyes what he could not say with his mouth. I’m here for you. I’ll keep you safe.

      What she read in his face must have scared her even more than Carlo Vega’s release. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open and for one brief second she looked absolutely terrified.

      Then just as quickly as she had let it fall down, she zipped her guard back up, locking herself inside her tower, hiding her emotions beneath those dark eyelashes. He wondered what it would take to scale that fortress.

      “I’m thirsty,” she said matter-of-factly, pulling out of his arms and stepping away from him so quickly she almost collided with another couple. He took her elbow and guided her off the dance floor, but the way her muscles tensed beneath his fingers, he could tell she didn’t appreciate his proprietary touch.

      “What would you like to drink?” he asked, dropping his hand.

      Her gaze darted toward the bar. “I have a drink.”

      “I’ll get it for you.”

      “No, no,” she said. “I can get it myself.”

      Tanner’s eyes met hers again. “Am I being dismissed? Did I do something wrong?”

      “Nothing. It was a nice dance. Thank you.” She smiled with her mouth but not with her eyes.

      “I am being dismissed.”

      She laughed a sound of nervousness, not humor. “I’m just tired of dancing.”

      “Is there something else you’d like to do instead?” He didn’t mean to sound suggestive, but he heard the innuendo in his voice and instantly cringed. “I mean,” he hurried to amend, “like play pool? Or shuffleboard? Darts, maybe?”

      “I think it’s time I called it a night,” she said, walking away from him, heading toward the bar.

      “Do you think that’s wise?” he asked.

      Vanessa halted, looked back over her shoulder at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”

      “You’ve had two shots of tequila in under two hours.”

      Suspicion descended over her face like a heavy curtain. “You were watching me?”

      “The entire bar was watching you,” he said. It was true enough. “You shouldn’t be driving. Maybe we could go to the hotel down the street, next block over, and grab a late dinner in their restaurant. They stay open until eleven on weekends.”

      “I don’t drink and drive,” she said. “I took a taxi. When I plan to drink, I think ahead.”

      He knew that. He’d followed her here from her condo, but he couldn’t show that he knew it.

      “But,” she said, “I am hungry.” Then she raked a glance over him like a very naughty girl and licked her lips. “So I accept your offer of dinner.”

      Whoa, Tanner thought as he stared into her dark, enigmatic eyes.

      How had he ended up here? Nothing about this evening had gone according to plan. He was getting in over his head and he realized too late that he’d forgotten how to swim.

      Chapter 2

      “I’M IN THE MOOD FOR STEAK,” Vanessa told her dinner companion as they sat in the hotel dining room. At this late hour there was only a handful of other diners in the place. “I don’t normally eat red meat, but tonight I’m feeling—”

      “Like you need to bolster your courage?” he finished.

      That wasn’t what she was going to say at all, but it was the truth. Taken aback, Vanessa stared at him.

      The man’s unsettling blue eyes held her own over the flickering candles in the middle of the white linen tablecloth. She had an urge to put up her dukes in a boxing stance.

      “Why did you say that?” she asked.

      “Going to a nightclub you don’t often frequent, dancing with a stranger, then joining him for dinner. Now ordering steak. Do you want to talk about it?”

      Irritation sideswiped her like transfer paint in a fender bender. Vanessa swallowed, arranged her face into a smile. Was she that transparent or was he that perceptive? “I changed my mind. I do want to know your name. But only your СКАЧАТЬ