Millionaire Playboys: Paying the Playboy's Price. Emilie Rose

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      Thursday evening arrived long before Juliana could get a handle on her reaction to the near-miss kiss and the sting of Rex’s rejection. But she wouldn’t let a little discomfiture derail her agenda.

      “Plan B. If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed,” she muttered as she turned her car into the stable’s driveway.

      Over the past two and a half days, she’d launched a full-scale fact-finding mission. By her calculations, she was as prepared for today’s lesson as she possibly could be. She’d memorized the magazines recommended by her twenty- and thirty-something coworkers, bought clothing deemed appropriate by said magazines for casual dates with a hot guy and learned everything between the covers of the Department of Motor Vehicles booklet Rex had given her. To top it off, on her lunch hour yesterday she’d visited the local motorcycle dealership. The salesman had fitted her with the proper safety gear to the tune of several hundred dollars, and she’d spent a good part of last night curled up with a book—the Harley owner’s manual.

      She spotted Rex standing beside his motorcycle. The bees in her stomach buzzed into flight. Once again, he wore jeans and a Renegade T-shirt. His closed countenance brought heat to her cheeks. He hadn’t forgotten their last encounter or her panting eagerness. Neither had she.

      If he could disturb her that much without actually kissing her, then what kind of havoc could he wreak if—when—their lips connected? She trembled in her new biker boots at the possibility of exploring further.

      She’d never had sex just for the sex’s sake and wasn’t totally comfortable with the idea now. In the past, each relationship she’d allowed to progress into intimacy had been one that she’d thought might eventually lead to love and marriage. None had, and she readily admitted that was mostly her fault. She’d never been head-over-heels in love or anywhere close to lust and that made it all too easy to get caught up in her job and forget her boyfriends. The guys eventually got tired of being neglected and dumped her.

      Forget past failures. Focus on future successes. Wrapping herself in the knowledge that she looked young, hip and available, she took a deep breath for courage, parked and climbed from the car.

      Come and get me, bad boy.

      Rex’s gaze lasered in on her clothing as she closed the distance between them, and he snapped to attention like a military man. His darkening expression looked more ominous than the storm clouds on the distant horizon.

      Hold your ground. Don’t let him rattle you.

      “Good evening, Rex.” Juliana’s manufactured smile wobbled on her lips when he didn’t return it. She extricated the hard rectangle of her motorcycle learner’s permit from the pocket of her snug new jeans and handed it to him. “I’m ready for my driving lesson.”

      He took the permit, but his eyes examined her, not the card. She struggled with the urge to hitch up the low-riding stretch jeans and cross her arms over her close-fitting camisole top with its built-in push-up bra. At the moment, Juliana would have welcomed anything that would cover the two-inch wide band of bare skin around her midsection. Even the navel ring the sales clerk had tried but failed to talk her into sounded good since it would have covered part of her navel. These clothes were so not her, although she had to acknowledge the heady surge of power caused by Rex’s widening pupils and devouring glance.

      Rex blinked, handed back the license and abruptly pivoted toward the bike. “We’ll start with ground work.”

      His voice sounded deeper than she remembered, but the stiff set of his shoulders looked familiar. How did he turn the charm on and off so easily? At the auction and with the reporter, he’d been Mr. Too-Hot-To-Handle, but with her, he was Mr. Don’t-Mess-With-Me. Which was the real Rex Tanner and what was he thinking behind that blank expression?

      Juliana wiggled her license back into her pocket and reached deep for the bravado to get through the next two hours. “I borrowed a manual and a video from the Harley dealership. I can name most of the parts of a motorcycle.”