articles?”
“Oh, come on. It wasn’t just about that,” he said, holding out a placating hand.
She slapped it away. “You know you’re hot.”
She continued to stare at him, and he relented. “Okay, and it’s a little bit like
bedding a Bond girl, you know? Bragging rights, baby.”
“No, I don’t know. I’m not your Bond girl,” she snapped, trying to push him closer
to the door and out of her cab. “And I’m definitely not your baby.”
“Jesus, what’s your deal?”
The guy looked confused, and somehow that just made it all worse. He genuinely
had no clue that beneath the sex expert lay Riley McKenna the person. Or maybe
he did know, and he didn’t care.
She couldn’t even get that mad at him. After all, she wasn’t exactly dying to know
the person beneath the boring brown hair and ugly Italian shoes either.
“Christ, if you treat all guys this way, I don’t know how you get any material for
your slutty articles.”
Maybe she could get a little mad at him. Still, she refused to let her expression
change. No way was she letting him know he’d hit her weak spot. She hadn’t
revealed it to anybody, and she wasn’t going to start with a too-tall douche bag.
The taxi driver had figured out there was no budding romance in the backseat
and had pulled over despite the traffic having started to move again.
“Out,” she said again.
“This is nuts,” he muttered. “This was supposed to be an easy lay, and instead
I’m getting dumped in the middle of a rainstorm.”
Easy lay, my ass.
“Careful with your shoes!” she called as he slid into the wet night.
She saw his middle finger raised seconds before the door slammed.
Riley sucked in a breath. Mr. Good Enough just became Mr. Good for Nothing.
The cab resumed its slow crawl home, and Riley stared unseeingly out the blurry
window, feeling nothing and everything all at once.
Anger. Regret. Confusion.
She’d done it again. She’d royally screwed up a chance to actually experience
what it was she wrote about.
But he hadn’t been the right one.
Because with the right one, she wouldn’t be scared. With the right one, she knew
she wouldn’t need to hide the truth.
And the truth was a whopper.
There was a running joke at the Stiletto office that Riley’s sexual partners
outnumbered the New York City pigeon population.
But the truth was far worse.
The truth was, she could count her sexual encounters on one hand.
On one thumb, actually.
Because Riley McKenna, sex expert extraordinaire, was exactly one tepid, beer-
fueled college encounter away from being a virgin.
But that wasn’t even the real problem, she thought as she pulled out her
cellphone and turned it on. The problem was that the reason for her near-virgin
status came down to one very sexy, very off-limits Sam Compton.
The only man she’d ever wanted. And the one man in New York City who didn’t
want into her pants.
She glanced down at her phone. Nothing from Sam, but there was one more from
her mother. You did that THING, didn’t you?
Riley rammed her head against the headrest. You know, Mom? I think I did.
Chapter Two
For most New Yorkers, the chance to escape upstate was a welcome breath of
fresh air. A chance to get away from the fast pace and frenetic energy of the city.
For Sam Compton, going upstate meant old cigarette smoke, stale crackers, and
nonstop guilt trips.
He’d rather be anywhere else. Hell, driving Riley and her friends to the freaking
outlet mall had been better than this, and that included a high-pitched debate on
the advantages of waxing over shaving.
The view in the rearview mirror had been worth it though. Riley had been wearing
this purple dress that kept climbing up her thighs …
Knock it off. She was on a date last night. With a guy she actually liked.
Who also happened to be a guy Sam would like to punch, but that was pretty
much par for the course when it came to his feelings on Riley’s men. He’d learned
over the years to deal with it.
His mother let out a rough smoker’s cough, drawing Sam’s attention back to the
family obligation at hand.
He made the trip every couple of months or so, and depending on his mother’s
mood—and sobriety level—that was either too much or not nearly enough to
make her happy.
His mother always seemed to want the opposite of whatever it was Sam was
currently doing.
“I guess you can just set it on the shelf over there,” Helena Compton groused.
“Don’t know why you brought it. You know I only drink gin and beer.”
Sam’s fingers tightened briefly on the bottle of whisky he’d brought with him,