LITMIR.BIZ

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      “What does he always do? He treats me like a child.”

      “He loves you,” Ry said softly, and watched some of the starch ease out of her stiff spine.

      She turned those hazel eyes on him. They made him think of wispy, glittering smoke. Like a night fire, embers banked but smoldering.

      “What are we doing here?” she asked abruptly and with such earnest inquiry, he sobered.

      “Well, the way I remember it,” he said carefully, because he didn’t want her getting wise to the fact that at Trav’s request, Ry had been sticking pretty close to her for the past week or so, “I called to see how you were doing, you said you’d had a long day, wanted to unwind and asked me to meet you here for a cup of coffee.”

      She was already shaking her head. “No, I don’t mean, what are we doing here, at the Royal Diner. I mean, what are we doing here—you and me? Look at us. It’s Saturday night, for Pete’s sake. Why aren’t we out on the town with our respective dates, drinking champagne—or in your case, your beer of choice,” she added with a smarty-pants smile, “and looking forward to a night of hot, passionate se—”

      “Hold it right there.” He sat up straight, pushing a hand into the space between them.

      When she actually shut up, he wiped that same hand over his jaw, then resettled his hat. This was territory he had no intention of invading. “I don’t think I want to be discussing my love life with you.”

      “Not to mention, you don’t want to discuss my love life.”

      Yeah, he thought grimly, that, too. Keeping a protective eye on her in the wake of the danger that Trav’s fiancée, Natalie Perez, still faced was the extent of his involvement with Carrie. He still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to play watchdog slash bodyguard. Just like he couldn’t believe they were having this conversation.

      “I didn’t hear that,” he said firmly. “I didn’t hear anything about you even having a love life. Because if I did, I’d have to share the info with your brother and then he’d probably feel obligated to kill the messenger—that would be me—before he came looking for you. And Lord have mercy on the man who messed with Travis Whelan’s little sister.”

      She shook her head, pushed out a humorless laugh, then stared past him out the grease-and-smoke-coated window of the diner. “You can breathe easy, big guy. There’s not much chance of him killing anyone anytime soon. Why? you ask. Because I don’t have a love life, that’s why. And that’s what’s got my tail in a twist.”

      Ryan felt a small bead of sweat form on his forehead, beneath his hatband. This conversation was fast getting out of hand. “I don’t think I want to hear about this, either.”

      Oblivious to the squirming he was doing, she met his eyes with such solemn entreaty that he couldn’t look away. “Do you have any idea…do you have even a remote idea,” she repeated for emphasis, “what it’s like being twenty-four years old and still a virgin?”

      Virgin? Oh, Lord.

      “Why don’t you say that a little louder?” he ground out, falling back on irritation to cover the instant and forbidden surge of arousal her revelation prompted. “I don’t think Manny Hernandez, back in the kitchen, heard you.”

      She sat back with a huff of disgust. “Manny would probably like to give me a tumble.”

      He snorted. “Manny would like to give anything in skirts a tumble.” Manny Hernandez, the Royal Diner’s part-time cook, part-time bodybuilder was not only an outrageous flirt but also a notorious womanizer. “And what kind of way is that for a nice girl to be talking, anyway?”

      “Aha!” She pointed an accusing finger, a woman vilified. “See? That’s the problem. Maybe I’m not a nice girl. Maybe I’m this red-hot sex pistol who will drive men wild with my sexual mystique and my sultry, seductive—”

      “No.” He cut her off again with a shake of his head. “Oh, no-ho-ho. I am not hearin’ this.”

      “What’s the matter, Ry? Am I getting you a little hot and bothered?”

      Yeah. He was hot all right and wishing he’d never started teasing her in the first place. She was the one who was supposed to be squirming, not him.

      “I’m about bothered enough to turn you over my knee and whoop the daylights out of your backside,” he warned her in an attempt to regain his equilibrium.

      Her eyes narrowed in a flirty, bad-girl grin just before she touched the tip of her tongue to the sweet, lush curve of her upper lip. “Ooo, sounds…kinky.”

      His heart thumped him a good one in the chest. “Carrie, I’m warning you. You keep this up and I’ll—”

      “You’ll what? Tattle to my brother? Take me home and tie me to my bed? Which, by the way, has a fairly intriguing ring to it,” she continued, her voice rising again.

      He implored her with his eyes to tone it down before the handful of other diner patrons heard her—all the while fighting a vivid mental image of her naked and spread-eagle on his bed, her wrists bound to the brass headboard with silk scarves.

      “Come on,” he growled, feeling closed in and steamed up and as rattled as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. “We’re leaving.”

      “Leaving? Oh, I don’t think so.”

      Looking furious and, on a more disturbing note, a little hurt, her gaze tracked around the diner before landing on and holding on to the booth in the corner. Her eyes turned feline and determined as she dug into her purse.

      “You go on, Ry, but I’m staying right here and introducing myself to the new man in town. Maybe he’ll see me for something other than Travis Whelan’s little sister and not run for his life in the other direction.”

      The glare Ry shot her was wasted. She wasn’t sparing even a nickel’s worth of attention his way. Her eyes were still locked on a spot in the corner of the diner when she pulled out a tube of lipstick and, without consulting a mirror, expertly applied a cherry-red gloss to her lips.

      Ry was still staring at her mouth, indulging in a forbidden fantasy about those lips leaving crimson tracks across his belly and about silk scarves again, when she scooted toward the edge of the seat and stood.

      Finally he snapped out of it and found the presence of mind to key in to her statement—introducing myself to the new man in town—and followed the direction of her gaze.

      He recognized the man in the corner booth. He’d never met the new doctor who had just come on board at the Royalty Hospital, but he’d seen him around. In fact, Dr. Nathan Beldon was the reason Travis specifically requested Ry keep an eye on Carrie.

      “I can’t put my finger on it,” Trav had said with a thoughtful frown when he’d first approached Ry, “but there is something about that guy that just doesn’t feel right…he’s a little too slick and way too smarmy for my taste. But for some reason Carrie seems to have her sights set on meeting him.”

      Well, Ry thought grimly, he and Trav were of the same mind on that count. Beldon did look smarmy. The idea of Carrie taking up with him didn’t sit right with him, either. It sat so wrong, in fact, that when she took a step in Beldon’s direction, Ry snagged her arm and tugged her back down onto the seat.

      “Beldon?” he asked, ignoring her sputtering protest for him to let go of her wrist while trying to convince himself that the coiling sensation in his gut wasn’t an unsolicited curl of jealously. “You want to put the moves on Dr. Beldon?”

      She stilled, shot him a considering look, then smiled. It was not a sweet smile. Neither was it innocent.

      “Well, I hadn’t thought of it in exactly those terms, but thanks, Ryan. Great idea. I’ll ‘put the

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