Page 26 of Merrick

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you a little too old to believe in fairy tales?” This time, there was no pretense.

“You believe falling in love is just in stories?” He gave her an interested look, a slow sweep with his unfathomable gray eyes that had her going warm and soft at the core. The man was definitely lethal.

“I believe that people say the ‘l’ word to wield power over others.” She was unaware that she was proving his point. “Or to get laid. Or a combination of both.”

“Interesting.” He murmured. His fascination and desire for her was increasing every single moment and making itself felt, in parts of him that could not be hidden. It frustrated and intrigued him. “How are you going to write your romance if you don’t believe in the subject?”

“It’s called imagination for a reason,” she snapped it out.

“I take it you have never been in love.”

“No. And I’m all the better for it.”

He intended to teach her otherwise and felt a charge at the challenge facing him. Before long, he would have her writhing beneath him, even if he had to put everything he learned over his forty years of being with women. Without being vain or pompous, he knew his way around the female anatomy and what made them wet and wanting more.

With Margo Sullivan the need to feel her wet and panting for him was making him hot and shaky.

“Are you?” It took effort for him to remain seated and appeared unaffected when all he wanted to do was reach across the table and plunder her lips. It was not just the challenge of breaking down that cool façade, but the need to feel her, taste her was so ripe, he was almost bursting from it. He would have her in his bed very soon.

“Yes.” She sipped her wine and pretended that he was not affecting her. The surroundings, like nothing she had ever experienced before, because she was elemental. Her tastes ran to beer and burgers.

She was a cop and had never hankered for wealth. She loved what she did – the grittiness, the gore of delving into a murder investigation. She never considered herself beautiful or even female. Those at the precinct who made the mistake of trying to treat her like a damsel had been quickly disabused.

But right now, seated across from this very wealthy and powerful man – a man who was also very attractive and sexy and God! Was he sexy!

She felt like a female, with complicated feelings raging through her body. He was under investigation, and she was the cop who headed that investigation. She couldn’t afford for lines to blur, let alone be crossed – she had to keep them clear.

“How disappointing.” He continued to sip the wine as he gazed at her with that intense look that had her feeling as if he was stripping off every piece of clothing from her body. “What do you think?”

“What?” She blinked at him.

“The wine. What do you think of it?”

The change of subject caught her off guard and for a minute, she simply gaped at him. “You do that so well.”

“What?”

“Switch from the topic.”

“I had a feeling it was getting too personal for you. The wine.” He gestured towards her glass.

“I am not a wine buff or whatever the hell it’s called, but it does not taste like horse piss, so that’s something, I guess.”

Her bluntness, the lack of tact had him blinking and then laughing. Damn if he was not already falling in love with her. She was the most fascinating woman he had ever met, and he was now more than certain he wanted her in his life.

The quickness of the decision, the increasing development of feelings left him breathless and alive for the first time in too many years to count.

“So, I take it that you like the taste.”

“I do. Why?”

“It’s from my vineyard in Napa Valley.”

“A man who has everything.”

“Oh, not yet, But soon.” His eyes settled on her lips, now made moist by the wine, and felt a need so great; he could hardly breathe. “Very soon.”

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