Page 2 of Rufus

Oh God, could this situation get any more embarrassing?

Knowing her, yes, it could, Molly acknowledged heavily.

She had a habit of speaking before thinking. Not always with good results.

She immediately went on to make the situation worse as she gave a wave of her hand in Rufus’s general direction. “The good looks. The buff six-foot-three body. The sexy silver-fox vibe.” Shut this conversation down now, her inner voice was telling her frantically. Right the hell now!

The problem was, Rufus Wynter was so gorgeous, he always had the effect of rendering her polite conversation filter, precarious at the best of times, completely null and void.

There could be no other explanation for the way she totally lost all her wits and started babbling nonsense every time he came to the animal shelter to visit Mia.

Which Rufus did a lot.

Molly had only been five years old twenty-two years ago, too young to have read about the tragedy printed in the newspapers regarding the crash of an oil tanker on a motorway in which Elizabeth Wynter’s car, along with several others, had also been involved. A crash followed by a horrendous fire which Rufus had believed had killed both his wife and three-month-old daughter.

The truth had only come to light two years ago, when Rufus had been reunited with his very much alive twenty-year-old daughter, who, at the time, was engaged to and about to marry Darius Kingston.

A member of the press had been the plus-one of a guest at the couple’s wedding two years ago, and they had recognized Rufus Wynter as the man giving the bride away. With the usual doggedness of a reporter, the woman had dug up the past tragedy of how Rufus had supposedly lost both his wife and daughter in a car accident twenty years previously.

Within days, the story of how Rufus had been “reunited with his very much still alive daughter” had been the top-of-the-page headline of a popular tabloid.

It had caused an emotional sensation for several more days, before, as was the fickleness of the press and general public, the scandal of a government minister having an affair with another man had taken its place.

Molly still remembered crying when she read about the father and daughter finding each other again after so many years apart.

“I’m six foot four,” Rufus now corrected. “But I doubt an inch makes much difference,” he dismissed.

Molly’s thoughts instantly went to a part of Rufus’s anatomy where she’d been told inches did matter. If everything was in proportion, then Rufus certainly had nothing to worry about in that department either.

There she went again, allowing her thoughts to wander off onto subjects that were totally inappropriate for the situation.

Even if, when she lay alone in her bed at night fantasizing about Rufus’s wide shoulders and muscular chest, she might secretly wish that the length of his cock might become her business too.

* * *

Rufus eyed the young woman across the reception desk from between narrowed lids.

Molly Harper.

He’d done the usual security check on her when Mia told him she was thinking of employing the other woman just over three months ago.

The same security check he did on anyone who came near or worked with his beloved daughter, either personally or at the animal shelter she owned and ran.

Learning Molly’s background had made his heart ache. She had been brought up by a single mother who had disappeared when she was ten. Molly had then been put into care because she had no other relatives.

He knew Molly had had half a dozen jobs since reaching the age of eighteen and going out on her own, all of them animal-related. She’d been a helper in several boarding kennels. Worked in a pet shop. Been a vet’s receptionist. She’d even worked in a zoo for a while. Then, a little over three months ago, she’d applied for the job at his daughter’s animal shelter.

Rufus had a feeling that, like Mia, Molly hadn’t been allowed a pet of her own when she was growing up in care. That, also like Mia, she had learned since reaching adulthood to trust animals more than she did people.

But none of the information he’d managed to compile on Molly, or the photograph he had of her on file, had prepared him for actually meeting that vibrant young woman after he had cleared her so that Mia could employ her.

For one thing, despite the heartache of her background, Molly was always smiling. She clearly loved her life and her job, despite her traumatic past.

She was also stunningly beautiful.

Long silky blue-black hair grew to just below shoulder length. She had the sort of ivory-white complexion that was usually only found on people from an Asian country or some European countries. Yet her name couldn’t have been more British. Nor did her long-lashed sky-blue eyes have an epicanthic fold.

She had a slight but very attractive burr in her voice. The sort of huskiness that could arouse a man to madness as she whispered dirty things into his ear in the dead of night as he pumped his cock deeper and deeper inside?—

---