Waking Up Married(9)

With a jut of his chin, he urged, “By all means, then, bottoms     up.” Tossing back a swallow of his own, he grinned. “I’ve got all night.”

Damn, she had a gorgeous laugh. Even after it left her     lips...echoes of it lit her eyes. Those sparkling eyes that were staring up at     him like maybe he had the solution for anything. And suddenly, the idea of this     strong, fiercely independent woman needing something         from him appealed on an almost primal level.

“What?” he asked, chalking up the low timbre of his voice to a     dry throat and remedying the obvious problem with a gulp of scotch.

Megan reached for the lapel of his jacket, her slender fingers     curving around the fabric in a move both needy and intimate—a move that did     something to him he wasn’t quite sure he should like quite so much.

Pearly-white teeth sank into the soft swell of her bottom lip     before pulling free and he stopped breathing altogether.

“Megan.”

She sighed. “I’m starving.”

For a beat he stared down at her. And then those fingers     tightened and she gave his lapel a little shake. “Star-ving.”

A single nod.

Food.

Yeah, he was pretty hungry too. For something, anyway. So it     was time to stop staring down into her pretty, freckle-kissed face.

“Right.” Downing the rest of his glass in one swallow, he     handed off the empty to a passing server. “Then I’m your man.”


Seven hours earlier...

He’d thought it couldn’t get any better than the laugh.     But then he’d heard the laugh coupled with the squeals of delight and gotten an     eyeful of Megan’s sensational and perfectly displayed backside. Shimmying in     some victory dance as her winning machine counted up at the far end of the     waffle buffet their surprisingly reliable cabbie had recommended.

Damn.

She’d caught him by surprise. Again. Lulling him into too easy     a conversation and then giving up the details of her life as easily as this     machine had given up her winnings. All it had taken was the right question at     the right time, and she’d opened up, revealing new insight into the engaging     creature he’d managed to capture for the night.

She was a self-proclaimed recovering romantic. A woman who     believed in love but had discovered through a lifetime of experience the heights     of that particular romantic elevation to be beyond her reach. And she’d accepted     it, wasn’t interested in the futility of an unattainable pursuit. She was a     brainiac beauty. A freelance software engineer, successful in her own right.     Confident where it counted and modest in the most appealing ways. Independent to     an extreme and unafraid to buck convention when it came to the achievement of     her goals. Kind, funny and sexy.

Now he stood behind her, their latest round of cocktails set     aside—which maybe wasn’t such a bad thing considering the kind of detours his     head had been taking—as he shrugged out of his suit jacket, giving in to the     absurdly out-of-place bit of possessive insanity going nuts thinking about     anyone else seeing this heart-shaped perfection.

“Here, put this on,” he said, slipping it over her     shoulders.

“I can’t believe it!” she gasped. “I never win. I never, ever,         ever get lucky like this.”

Connor grinned, watching as the bare length of her arms     disappeared within the sea of his coat. Reaching over, he adjusted the lapels,     telling himself she’d looked cold. Then before he gave in to the temptation to     linger near that tantalizing V of feminine flesh, or God forbid let his knuckles     skim the softness there, he moved on to cuff her sleeves. Rolling up the arms     until the slim band of her wristwatch shone beneath the flashing lights of her     winning machine. It was a delicate band, but a little plain. The way he’d     mistakenly thought about her, when really this girl glittered like a     diamond.

“Carter,” she said breathlessly, those blue eyes watching where     his thumb stroked across the sensitive pale skin of her inner wrist.