Free Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) by Candace Schuler

she had to.
    "I thought that Lisbeth didn't live here with you and her aunt," she said, to give herself something else to think about.
    "She doesn't." Pierce downshifted, slowing the car to check for traffic as they came through the open iron gates at the end of the driveway, then shifted again as he accelerated onto the street. The engine gave a satisfying rumble of power. "She lives in a dorm room at U.C.L.A."
    "Really? She seems to spend an awful lot of time in your kitchen."
    Pierce slanted a glance at her. "So?"
    "So, you'd think a girl that age would want to hang out with her friends."
    "You'd think," Pierce agreed absently.
    "Do you know why she doesn't?"
    "Doesn't what?" Pierce said, more interested in the way Nikki's skirt was inching up her thighs again than in what she was saying. Luscious thighs, he thought, silently giving thanks for spandex and memory yarn.
    "Doesn't hang out with her friends," Nikki persisted.
    "Whose friends?" World-class thighs, he thought. They were smooth and firm, with a hint of definition running down the sides between the front and back quadriceps muscles. Strong thighs. He felt his blood heat a few degrees more as both he and the car shifted into second.
    "Lisbeth's friends," Nikki said in exasperation. "Pierce—" she angled herself a bit more in the seat "—are you listening to me?"
    Pierce's hands tightened on the steering wheel as the hem of her dress rose another inch higher on her thighs. "Every word," he said, although he would have been hard-pressed to repeat those words back to her.
    "Well, don't you think it's odd that she spends so much time with her aunt?"
    "Who?"
    "Lisbeth!" she said, the annoyance clear in her voice. She turned to face him more fully, completely forgetting about the hem of her dress. "Don't you think—" She broke off as she caught the direction of his gaze. "Oh, for heaven's sake." She shifted in her seat, pointing her knees toward the dashboard and yanking her dress down as far as it would go. "Don't you ever think of anything else?" she asked, holding the material in place with the flat of her hands.
    "Not when I'm around you, it seems."
    It took Nikki a second or two to fight down the spurt of pleasure his words gave her, but she did it. "Does that line actually work?" she asked, managing to inject a credible amount of acrimony into her voice.
    "It isn't a line."
    "Yeah, right." She made a small sound of disgust. "And I'm the tooth fairy."
    "I don't use lines," Pierce said, unaccountably stung by her disbelief. He'd been completely sincere in all his dealings with her. "I don't ha—" He broke off, as if suddenly realizing how conceited it would sound.
    "Because you don't have to," Nikki finished for him, her tone as tart as straight lemon juice.
    Pierce couldn't help but smile at her acerbity."All right, yes," he said, because it was true—and because he wanted to hear what she'd have to say to that. "I don't have to."
    "Women just fall into your lap like ripe plums, is that it?" she said, thinking of Lisbeth and Janice and the salesclerk at the boutique. And herself, if she was crazy enough to let it happen.
    "That's it," Pierce agreed. He waited a beat. "You feeling ripe yet?"
    She shot him a killing glance out of the corner of her eye. "I'll rot on the vine before I stand in line for some man again."
    "Again?" he asked, picking up on the one word she wished she hadn't uttered.
    "It's none of your business," she said flatly, in a tone that brooked no argument.
    Pierce backed off immediately, sensing the bitterness and hurt beneath her words. Here was an interesting bit of information, he thought. A love affair gone bad. I'll rot on the vine before I stand in line for some man again. That meant whoever it was had cheated on her. The idiot. Pierce couldn't understand that kind of behavior. He'd been with a lot of women in his life— not nearly as many as he'd been credited with, but a lot. And there had never been more than one woman at a time.