Page 10 of Daring the Bad Boy

Not as dizzy as him, now all the blood had left his brain on a mission that could well be doomed to failure. “Hang tight. I’ll go get reinforcements.”

He dashed into the kitchen to start brewing something strong enough to tar the road outside.

But when he arrived back in the living area, two steaming cups of road tar in his hands, she was curled up on his couch in a tight ball. One shoe on the floor, another hanging by a toe, her hands tucked under her head in a praying position, and those wild curls glowing gold in the lamplight.

He placed the mugs onto the coffee table and jostled her arm. “Hey, Rosie, coffee’s here.”

She grumbled something incoherent, and snuggled deeper into his couch.

Rosie the Hot Kisser was out cold. And there would be no more feasting on those lips tonight or any other soft, fragrant parts of her anatomy.

Goddamn it, so close and yet so far.

His frustration faded as he slipped his arms under her knees and her armpits. Maybe this wasn’t what he’d been hoping to do with her company tonight, but at least he wasn’t alone.

“Come on, Hot Stuff.” He lifted her off the couch, his heart jolting when she snuggled into his chest with a soft moan, as trusting as a child. “Let’s get you into bed, so you can sleep it off.”

He carried her up the spiral staircase to his bedroom, aware of the scent of her hair tickling his nose, and the flushed glimpse of cleavage afforded by the straining buttons of her shirt. The sprinkle of freckles across her nose, and the chewed lip only added to that captivating combination of innocence and sin. Which was not doing his aching nuts much good. The tight jeans molding her butt completed the torture.

Her cell played the opening bar of a dirty R ‘n’ B song. Probably another joke from her partner in crime, Tash.

He settled her into the center of the bed and tugged off her remaining shoe. She rolled away from him. Steeling himself against the temptation to delve too far, he dipped into her back pocket and pulled out the cell. Then read the text that had popped up on her screen from a Michael Carter.

Babe, get in touch. We’ve got a problem for tomorrow. I may have to bail. x

The dart of something swift and sharp hit him square in the chest, the echo of old hurt and fresh anger consumed him. He turned off the cell’s ringer and slung it onto the bedside table, not bothering to pick it up when it slid off and hit the floor.

Who the fuck is Michael Carter?

He stomped down to the living room, his frustration returning full force.

Was the guy her boyfriend? Maybe Rosie wasn’t as cute as she looked, if she was the kind of girl who liked to pick up guys in bars while she already had one at home?

He threw back the cooling coffee in a couple of gulps, dumped hers in the sink.

Not that it mattered to him. They’d only shared a couple of lip locks.

But as he made himself up a bed on the couch, it annoyed him to realize it did matter. Way more than it should.

Chapter Four

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“Ahhh!” Rosie groaned as she cracked open an eyelid and then slammed it shut again – before the penetrating glare of a million suns could laser off her retinas.

Counting a couple of beats, she eased it open this time. White sheets smelling of laundry soap swam into focus while the thundering pain of a thousand pickaxes hammered at her skull.

Licking dry lips, she sat up in the gigantic bed.

Hello, hangover. Where the heck am I?

She searched the high-ceilinged room flooded with natural light. Far too much natural light. Bare red brick walls contrasted stylishly with polished oak floorboards. A pile of unopened cardboard boxes stacked in one corner and a low bedside table were the only other clues to her whereabouts. She winced, careful not to move her head too suddenly in case it rolled off her shoulders and shattered on the gleaming wood.

Six-foot high windows on all sides with no blinds or curtains explained the winter sunshine threatening to blind her.

Her eyes watered, but eventually got used to the glare enough to focus on the three framed photographs on the wall opposite. The pounding in her head receded to a dull thumping as she became transfixed by the images. One in saturated color, the other two in striking black and white. Each one arresting in its own way: a bare shoulderblade, the line of the collarbone strong and lithe dappled by sunlight; a pair of gnarled hands, the knuckles thickened by arthritis but still confident and capable; a baby’s round head covered with downy hair, its face partially hidden as eager lips latched on to its mother’s breast. Each image made a statement, haunting and human and desperately moving.

She tugged the sheet to her chin, feeling exposed even though she still had her underwear on. Then she noticed the trail of clothing – one shoe, her jeans, her blouse – sprawled in a line that led to an open door on the other side of the room. The edge of a glass shower cubicle marked it out as the en-suite bathroom she vaguely remembered visiting in the night.

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