Free Marrying Mari by Elyse Snow

once.” He grinned at his best friend.
    Ethan stood, throwing his napkin on the table. “Yeah, yeah. Nice for you, you mean.” He pulled on his suit jacket and picked up his briefcase.
    “I like this grumpy, irritated Stone. Makes me feel all mellow. Not such a fucking head case, for once.” Gabriel shoved a forkful of hash browns into his mouth.
    Ethan studied him, frowning. “You’re not a head case, Gabe. Never were.” He headed toward the hallway, throwing over his shoulder, “Let me know what she says. I’ll leave word your call should come through, no matter what. You’d better eat that entire omelet, by the way. Mrs. W doesn’t appreciate breakfast leftovers.”
    Gabe sighed and mentally committed himself to extra reps in the gym before he dug into the rest of the food on his plate.
     
     
    Mari dug into her pedals, pushing her muscles to make it through the intersection with the light, burning yellow into red as she flew into the junction, competing with the cars and busses for space in the lane. She was seven packages into her day, on the third uptown leg.
    Her mind kept wandering back to last night’s events. Dangerous, even when she wasn’t knee-to-knee with metal vehicles six times her size. Manny’s voice in her ear was an irritant, buzzing in and out like a fly.
    Plus, she was dog-tired. Muscles she didn’t even know she’d had were biting back at her, bitching and reminding her of soft sheets, hard bodies, firm lips, and— God! —the sensation of being one with another body. The welcome invasion of hot male parts into her softer, wetter female parts. It was a feeling she’d never had, and the very real possibility was that she had had that accord with not one but two gorgeous, intensely sexy men who seemed to think she was their intended mate, of all things.
    After a lifetime of being buddies, pals, teammates and wing man for her male friends, this was an interesting turn of events.
    She noted the two cabs ahead of her, jockeying to pass each other. Held back by the limo in the far lane and what looked like a tourist lookie-loo ahead of them. Oh, help, some out-of-towner from the Midwest who thought driving in the city would be just like cruising Main Street back home and now was either hopelessly lost or scared to death or simply looking at every building like it was a miracle.
    Probably looking for free parking in midtown.
    Only three more blocks and she could unload package number seven, then kick over two blocks and up one and get package number eight, easy as pie if Joe Tourist would put his foot down in the Ford Focus.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a quick movement as a teenage couple stepped off the curb directly in her path, in the middle of the fucking block— holy crap! She swerved to avoid the suddenly frozen duo and found herself right in the path of one of the cabs. Too close to avoid the front right corner of the bumper…and she went tumbling over, pushing the bike away as she skidded across asphalt toward the back wheel of the other cab, braking hard for the light. She twisted desperately at the last minute and knocked into the curb instead, glancing her helmet against the edge.
    Blackness fell, suddenly and completely, just before the pain hit.
     
     
    Ethan was halfway through his weekly audit of the heads of the bank’s various divisions, when his door opened and his personal assistant poked her head in and pointed at the blinking light on his phone.
    “Mr. Stone, that call. It’s about a Miss Amorini. She’s been in an accident—”
    Before Amanda could even get the sentence out, Ethan had the phone to his ear. “Ethan Stone. What happened?” He listened, standing up and grabbing his jacket as he did. He looked at Amanda. “Get my car,” he barked. “Got it,” he said into the phone. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Give her whatever she needs, yes. I’ll take care of the forms when I get there.” He dropped the phone and turned to the men