The Secret Seduction. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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СКАЧАТЬ himself an expert on all things female. “So what’d you do?” Joe prodded.

      I got into a shower in front of her, in hopes of scaring her away. Unfortunately, Fletcher admitted remorsefully to himself, it hadn’t worked. And now, all Fletcher could remember was Lily’s eyes roving over him as her face flushed and her breathing grew shallow. And he wondered what it would be like to see her in—and just out—of the shower.

      “Have we been missing something here?” Mac leaned in closer. His work as sheriff had trained him to notice absolutely everything. “Have you two got something going on?”

      “Nope.” Fletcher said honestly as Lily sent him yet another heated look. And just as suddenly, inspiration hit. Fletcher caught and held Lily’s eyes until she finally blushed and turned away with a haughty snap of her head. “But we just might,” he drawled.

      Dylan scoffed. “Fat chance, considering she’s got her eyes on another prize.”

      Fletcher had never taken well to disrespect. He wasn’t going to start now. He finished the last of the barbecue on his plate. “You think I can’t do it?”

      “Win her attentions?” Mac sopped up the last of his barbecue sauce with a piece of sourdough bread. “You bet.”

      Fletcher set his plate and bottle of beer aside. “You’re on.”

      Cal blinked, sure he had missed something. “What?”

      Fletcher stepped closer and dropped his voice to a husky whisper. “Hundred dollars says I can make Lily Madsen forget all about going out with Carson McRue.”

      Joe shook his head, predicting, “She’ll never give up on a date with the hunk, if only because it’ll mean losing the bet she made at her twenty-fifth birthday party last week.”

      It didn’t matter to Fletcher. Not in the least. Or it wouldn’t, when he was through waylaying Lily Madsen at every conceivable opportunity. “She’ll do it,” he boasted, to one and all, aiming his thumb at his chest. “In order to go out with me.”

      “WHAT WERE YOU and your brothers and future brother-in-law talking about for so long over there?” Lily demanded at the end of the party as Fletcher prepared to drive her home. The palatial, three-story white brick Wedding Inn that Fletcher’s mother ran loomed across the manicured lawns.

      “Nothing that concerns you,” Fletcher fibbed.

      All four of his brothers and Thad had wanted in on the action. With five hundred dollars riding on his wager—and his secret deathbed promise to Lily’s grandmother spurring him on—Fletcher had powerful incentive to keep Lily from being hurt by Carson McRue.

      She looked him up and down, color flooding her face. Feeling an answering heat well up deep inside him, he yearned to throw convention aside and simply take her in his arms and kiss her, if only to stop whatever it was she was going to say to him next. “I don’t believe you,” she said quietly.

      Fletcher shrugged and folded his arms in front of his broad chest. “If you must know,” he continued lazily, standing with his shoulders back, legs braced apart, “they were razzing me about the dirty looks you gave me all during the pig-picking.”

      Just as he had expected, the attitude he was exuding only served to infuriate her all the more. “Did you tell them what a cad you were?” she demanded with a haughty toss of her head, looking all Southern belle, born and bred.

      Didn’t have to. They had guessed as much, and of course, he already knew. Which was another reason, Fletcher figured, it would be best if Lily continued to detest him, both before and after he won his bet, of course. He needed to convince her once and for all she needed to hold out for someone far better than either him or Carson McRue to come along and sweep her off her feet and give her the kind of life she deserved.

      “Well, then,” Fletcher said, taking an astonished Lily into his arms and bringing her shockingly close as he prepared to give her something to really loathe him for, “I guess it’s high time I lived up to my ‘reputation.’ Don’t you?”

      Chapter Two

      Lily couldn’t believe it. Fletcher Hart was actually going to kiss her. Right here as the party was breaking up, in front of everyone getting into their cars. “I don’t—” she said, splaying her hands across his warm, hard chest. Before she could protest further, his lips were on hers, and in one sizzling instant, all reasonable thought left her brain and she was only aware of the sensations rippling through her. The smooth lips. Seductive pressure. The incredibly good taste of his lips and mouth and tongue as he erotically deepened and took full command of the kiss. She’d heard about embraces like this, read about them, even seen them when a few of her friends fell head over heels in love with the men of their dreams, but never had she experienced anything like the tumultuous whirlwind of emotion and pleasure.

      And even though she knew, in some distant part of her brain, that Fletcher was only doing this to provoke her, the fun-and-pleasure-starved part of it never wanted it to end. Because fiery hot kisses like this, men who could kiss like this, so masterfully and evocatively, did not come along every day. As his arms wrapped all the tighter around her, and he brought her even closer to his hard, demanding length, Lily moaned, surprising herself with the sensuality of her response, and melted deeper into the embrace. And that was when she heard it—the low male laughter surrounding them.

      The sound was like a bucket of ice water being dumped on her head. She broke off the impetuous kiss and looked around to see Fletcher’s brothers chuckling and shaking their heads with a mixture of amusement and chastisement.

      “Getting a head start there?” Dylan remarked sarcastically.

      “You better watch yourself,” Mac warned as he strolled to the SUV he drove whenever he wasn’t on duty as the Holly Springs sheriff.

      Joe sauntered past, his wife Emma’s hand tucked in his. “You could find yourself married before you know it.”

      Joe sure had, Lily remembered, thinking of the whirlwind romance earlier in the summer that now had Joe and Emma living as man and wife.

      Despite the odds against a happily-ever-after in the situation Joe and Emma had initially found themselves in, Lily had to admit the two looked very happy now.

      “Ah, leave him alone,” Cal said, waving off the interference of their other brothers. “It was only a kiss. Kisses don’t mean anything.” Cal turned his attention to her, looking every bit the compassionate doctor he was known to be. “Right, Lily?”

      “In this case, definitely right,” Lily confirmed stormily, trying to look as casual as if she did things like this every day when everyone knew she did not.

      “From where I was standing it looked like Lily was kissing him back. And that does mean something,” Thad said, as he leaned over to buss his bride-to-be’s cheek. “Right, Janey?”

      “That’s where all my troubles started.” Janey sighed, looking as happy as any engaged woman should be as she laced her arm around Thad’s waist and leaned her cheek against his chest.

      “It’s all disgusting to me,” her 12-year-old son, Christopher, said, as he tagged along behind his mother and Thad.

      “Not to worry,” Lily said, glaring at Fletcher. “It’s not going СКАЧАТЬ