Hunter by Diana Palmer

lifted. “That’s true. Most men react to a deliberate invitation. Even me,” he added, angry at his vulnerability and lashing out because of it.
    Her face colored. “I did not—” she began.
    â€œInvite me?” He let his eyes drop slowly to her mouth. “Yes, you did. But it won’t work a second time. You’re not my type, cover girl,” he added with a mocking smile. “I like a woman with less experience than I have. Not more.”
    He went out without a backward glance, missing the fierce anger that burned in her cheeks. She hadn’t invited him! She groaned. Yes, she had. She wanted him and it showed, but he thought it was because she was experienced and used to a full sexual life. What a laugh!
    She went back to her computer. Anyway, he’d just warned her off, and maybe it was a good thing. He seemed to prefer Miss Whitley, and he could relate to her. She was from his world, and Jennifer was just a diversion that shouldn’t have happened.
    She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and sighed angrily. “You should have stayed home in Missouri and married a mountain man and had two point five children,” she told herself. “Instead of joining an oil company and getting tangled up with Mr. Native American.”
    She refused to let herself think about that one weak moment she’d shared with Hunter. She ordered a fish dinner and coffee to be sent to the room, and she ate it in silence, hoping the fish would leave its scent and drive him crazy. She’d heard someone say that he hated fish. Good enough for him. She hoped his girlfriend gave him warts.
    It was only ten o’clock when she put on her cotton gown—deciding to let Hunter think what he liked—climbed into bed and turned out the lights. She didn’t mean to go to sleep, she was too fired up by the long day and longer evening. But she was tired and the day caught up with her. She closed her eyes and slept like a baby.
    Hunter came in just after midnight, sick of Miss Whitley’s too-obvious adoration, and found Jennifer sprawled on her bed in a gown that would have raised a statue’s temperature.
    The covers had been thrown off, and the gown was up around her thighs. She was lying on her back with one arm thrown over her head, and the bodice was half off, baring the exquisite pink curve of one firm breast. Her clothes hid most of her figure. She didn’t seem to go in for revealing things, except for that one night when she’d sent him up the walls in a low-cut red dress that showed every man around just what he was missing.
    She was no less lovely now in that white cotton gown with its delicate embroidery. With her long blond hair spread around her perfect oval of a face, her lips parted in sleep, her body totally relaxed, she made a picture that he was going to have hell forgetting.
    He managed to turn away from her at last and stripped down to his shorts. He almost removed them, too, but her remark about pajamas came back to twist his lips into a smile. He turned back his covers and set one of the security devices, just in case. From what Teresa had found out for him, the agent had been misled by this “vacation trip” and had followed their flight on to California, not realizing that Hunter and Miss Marist had suddenly turned into Mr. and Mrs. Camp in Tucson. But it didn’t pay to get careless.
    He had to remember that, he thought, looking at Jennifer one last time before he turned out the light. It had been one close call tonight, when Teresa had interrupted them. Another few seconds, and he’d have taken Jenny’s sweet mouth without one single thought for the consequences. She’d have let him. That memory haunted him until he fell asleep. For a woman who purported to hate him, she was remarkably responsive to his touch. He had to convince her that he wasn’t interested, no matter what it took. Her responsiveness could have