Wicked & Willing: Bad Girls by Leslie Kelly

here. Do you think I don’t know how out of place I am with the Max Longotti types? You think I intentionally want to throw myself to a pack of rich wolves who’d tear me apart because I don’t know a salad fork from a dessert fork?”
    “They’re interchangeable, unless they have distinct triangular points at the ends of the outmost tines,” he explained, not even thinking about it. “Then it’s a salad fork.”
    Silence. He glanced at her, seeing her staring at him as if he had two heads. “Gag me,” she finally muttered.
    Troy bit his lip to hide a grin, entertained again by her forthright personality. He couldn’t make sense of the woman, who outwardly appeared very open and sometimes shockingly honest. That just didn’t gel with the image of a deceptive con artist.
    They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then, stopping at a traffic signal, he finally turned to meet her stare, forcing himself to focus on what she was up to, not the way she looked—not the pale curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips or that tantalizing hollow in her throat.
    He stiffened, mentally ordering his body to stop reacting to her when his mind didn’t trust her one bit. “Youmust admit, money is a large motivation for a lot of things, Ms. Messina.”
    She held his eye, not turning away or blushing. “I’m not after Max Longotti’s money, Mr…. Vice President!”
    Her reaction was different than when the money issue had come up before. So either he’d misread her earlier, or else she’d better prepared herself to answer the question. He honestly couldn’t say which he believed more. “My last name is Langtree.”
    She snorted. “Figures.”
    He was almost afraid to ask. “Why?”
    “Because it sounds rich and uptight. Like you.”
    “I didn’t seem too uptight for you up on that balcony when we met,” he said softly, daring her to disagree.
    “No, then you were oily and pompous.”
    He couldn’t prevent a small laugh from spilling across his lips. The woman was damned stubborn and fiery as hell. Surprisingly, he found himself liking the combination, even when she was hurling insults at his head. “So,” he asked, “which was I when we kissed? Uptight, oily or pompous?”
    She didn’t say anything at first, and Troy almost regretted baiting her. Neither of them needed to be reminded of the sexy conversation they’d shared on the balcony, nor of their erotic kiss. Had the circumstances been different, they may very well have been driving to a hotel right now. And they both knew it.
    He could almost hear her breaths deepening in spite of the sounds of traffic and the purr of his car’s engine. A quick look confirmed her sudden confusion—obviously she was thinking of that sultry, electric connection they’d felt from the first moment. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted. Seeing the tightness of her nipples under her clingy cotton shirt, Troy suddenly felt hot in spite of thesteady stream of cool air emerging from the car vents. He remembered how her breasts had felt against his chest, the way his mouth had hungered for them. His body hummed as he reexperienced the way she tasted, the softness of her skin. He shifted in his seat, willing himself to forget her deep, seductive laugh, and the way the sun turned her long hair into living, red-hot flames.
    Off-limits or not, con woman or heiress, she still attracted him like no one had in a very long time. “Cat got your tongue, Ms. Messina? Just whose lap do you think you were sitting on less than an hour ago?” he finally said, almost regretting the suggestiveness of the words as soon as they left his mouth.
    “A body double,” she finally mumbled.
    Considering he was an identical twin, that amused him. “My body double wouldn’t have asked at all. Trent tends to go for what he wants without thinking about it first.”
    She edged closer to her door, giving him a wary look. “Do you have a split personality? Like that guy in Psycho? ”
    He laughed again.