Page 20 of Lawless in Leather

“Maybe I’ve given up bad boys who ride Harleys for Lent.”

“Then that’s not a problem, either, I’m one of the good guys.”

Raina shook her head. “Oh no. You’re really not. My bad-boy radar is well honed and you, Mr. Coulter, tick all the boxes.”

“Isn’t Lent over in a few days anyway?” he asked. The start of the season was coinciding with Good Friday and his hazy understanding of Lent was that it ended at Easter. He wasn’t exactly a churchgoer. His dad had been a firm atheist and his mom, though she’d been brought up Lutheran, had never exactly dragged them all to church.

“Let me rephrase that,” Raina said. “I’ve given up bad boys permanently.”

“At the risk of sounding repetitive, I’m not a bad boy,” Mal said. “Protective instincts, remember? Charging in to save people. That’s hardly a bad boy.”

“Protective instincts can go too far,” Raina said. “Become possession.”

Hell, she had him there. He definitely wanted to possess her. Just not in the way she meant. Nope, more in the strip her naked and bury himself inside her for a few days way. But saying that out loud right now wasn’t going to help his cause any. “I’ve never held on to anyone who wanted to walk away from me,” he said.

“Oh good,” Raina said. “Then we aren’t going to have a problem.”

He shook his head. “Nice theory. But there’s a snag.”

“Which is?”

“You don’t want to walk away from me.”

One side of her mouth curved up briefly before she got it under control and sent him a stern look. “I guess you weren’t standing last in line when they handed out the self-confidence.”

“You’re the one who brought up the subject. In my experience, when a woman raises the subject of sex with a man, she’s most often wanting to have sex. If you could walk away from this, you wouldn’t even have brought it up. You would have just ignored me. You’re hoping I’ll do the walking away for you.”

Her expression turned annoyed.

“Are you going to tell me I’m wrong?” he asked.

“A gentleman would walk away,” she said.

“Well, that might be your problem. I’m not a bad boy. But I’ve never claimed to be a gentleman. Particularly not when a beautiful woman is sitting in front of me talking about sleeping with me.”

Her eyes widened slightly at that and the color of her cheeks, already flushed from whatever she’d been doing in her exercise gear before he had arrived, deepened. Guilty as charged, it seemed.

“But the fact remains that I’m working for you. And that this would be a very bad idea.”

“You think it’s a bad idea,” he said. “I’m inclined to regard it favorably.”

“That’s because you’re a man. You think great sex is enough.”

He raised an eyebrow. “It isn’t?”

She shrugged. “Once upon a time, I would’ve said it was all that was needed. But I’m not twenty-two anymore. I want more than just sex.”

“You’re looking to settle down?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I want more than just scratching an itch. Hence no bad boys. Bad boys are great for itches but they don’t do much more than that.”

“I see.”

“And now you’re worried,” she said. “You think here’s a crazy woman who wants to get married after dating for two weeks. Well, I don’t. I’m just saying I’m not starting anything if I don’t think there’s potential for something more.”

“You don’t think I have potential?

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But my life is this.” She gestured at the office. “Sequins and late nights and women who like to wear very expensive lingerie and even take it off in public sometimes. Add in quite a bit of weird. It’s a little off center. And you might be a long streak of Harley-riding bad judgment but you’re also baseball and money and defending your country. Not so big on the weird. That’s another thing that, in my experience, doesn’t work so well.”

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