But these tits on a skinny, gawky kid he used to know from eighth grade!
The girl he used to call ‘Jaws’ is magnificent before him. All filled out and lushly curved. Her eyes spit blue fire, and he can well imagine them sparkling fire of another sort under him.
He’s aware that his own jaw has dropped to the floor. Around him, the poker guys are sniggering and even laughing outright. The women at the door wear expressions of delight at his comeuppance. Clearly, this is a scenario plenty of women would like to see him wallow in.
He knows he needs to say something. The appropriate (not to mention decent) thing to do is to apologize for middle school. Apologize for everything he can’t remember doing to her.
Only he’s fucking speechless right now, and the only image torpedoing in his head is that of a grinning great white shark.
But wait a minute.
He’s Brian Morton. He doesn’t have to apologize.
He has never apologized to any woman in his entire life, excepting his mother – when he’s actually speaking to her, that is. He’s not Mr. Nice Guy. That role has already been taken by Caleb. He’s a predatory uber-stud who tells it like it is, be damned with the niceties. He never had to be nice to a woman to get her to spread her legs.#p#分页标题#e#
It’s an image he has cultivated and it has served him nicely all his adult life.
It’s time to say something snarky. Something like “So how was therapy?” After all, she did deck him a good one for something he did when he was an immature fourteen-year-old who was too angry with his alcoholic father who took out his booze-soaked rages on him by whupping his ass and his mother who stood by and watched the whole thing but did nothing.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t because his tongue is still frozen to the roof of his mouth and his vocal chords are locked.
Caleb breaks the awkward silence.
He grins as he says, “I guess we’ve found our lucky girl.”
5
It’s an extremely awkward situation.
Brian Morton and Caleb Carr are seated across Cassie and herself in an all-night diner. Sam is unable to take her eyes off Brian.
When she had stomped into the poker room, her eyes had been riveted to the handsomest man in the room. Actually, he is one of the best-looking men she has ever seen. He’s not conventionally pretty. His brown eyes are large and deep-set, and they blaze with a confidence far beyond his obvious youthfulness. His nose is rough-hewn and broad, like a blade in the middle of his sculptured face. His mouth is wide and generous and extremely sensual.
The entire ensemble serves to make him extremely arresting. He radiates an aura of ruthless intensity. A devil-may-care, ‘fuck the world and I don’t care what people think of me’ attitude. He is the type of man who walks into a room, and every single head would be averted to watch him.
Damn. Now she can’t take her eyes off him.
But how did he get to be so damned gorgeous? She remembers him as that heavyset kid. He was definitely overweight then. But now … his body under that leather jacket suggests hours of toning at the gym.
His hair. She loves his dark hair, especially when hers is so unmanageable. How does he get it that voluminously floppy over his forehead?
Looks aside, she reminds herself that he is still the bully who made her cry more than once in the privacy of the second floor girls’ bathroom.
I should hate his guts.
He doesn’t look too pleased to be here either. And the story Caleb is feeding her is too incredible.
“So he lost his bet to you?” Cassie says, her eyes gleaming. “And he gets to be her slave for a whole weekend?”
“I call it Atonement 101.” The smirk has not left Caleb’s face all night. Sam remembers him all right. He hasn’t changed all that much compared to Brian. Caleb is dark-haired and terribly cute in a boy-next-door way. He was nice in middle school … sorta. When he wasn’t standing around and looking on like a dodo while Brian was up to his tricks. Still, kids go through all sorts of weird issues at that age. God knows she did.
Brian crosses his eyes. He has a caustic sardonic attitude to everything, even when he’s commenting on the weather – which has taken on a tint of Arctic. But on him, it comes off as highly sexual. Everything about him is highly sexual, even though he doesn’t seem to be putting any effort into it.
“OK, OK,” he says, “no need to make such a big deal. You’d think I lost the Alamo by the way you’re going about it.”
“It is a big deal,” Caleb insists. He turns to Sam. “So… what are your plans for the weekend?”
Sam and Cassie eye each other.
No fucking way, Sam thinks. She didn’t even really pray for her pretend boyfriend. So why is God granting her a favor and dropping a gorgeous guy on her lap now? But wait. He may be gorgeous but he’s still Brian Morton. God is having a laugh at her expense somewhere in cherubic heaven. Brian Morton is not going to be easy to handle, beholden to her whims or not.