LITMIR.BIZ

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to disapprove of.”

      Dinner was less tense than the drive to the restaurant. Nearly everyone attending the dinner was a celebrity. She counted four actors, two actresses, a comedian and an R & B singer, along with their respective dates. During dinner Wolf discussed politics with Rye and the R & B singer, and Alexandra was rather surprised by his depth of knowledge regarding world economics and the U.S. trade policy.

      “Do I know you?” the man to her left asked when Alexandra turned from Wolf’s conversation to her dinner salad.

      She recognized the man—an actor named Will Cowell—but they’d never met before. “No,” she answered, cutting the apple in her salad.

      “Are you sure?”

      She stabbed her fork into lettuce, apple, and blue cheese. “Quite sure.”

      “Hmm.” Will studied her, elbow on the table, expression teasing. “Then I should know you.”

      She chewed her salad diligently, hoping he didn’t see her blush. Swallowing, Alexandra wiped her mouth with her linen table napkin. “Why is that?”

      “Because you don’t look like a bimbo—and God knows I need a break from bimbos.”

      Alexandra laughed. She couldn’t help it. “What makes you think I’m not a bimbo?”

      “No fake boobs or collagen-plumped lips.” He smiled charmingly. “I’m an expert in those things, you see.”

      Her eyebrows arched, but she took another bite of salad instead of replying. It seemed safer to eat the sweet-tart vinaigrette salad than discuss his expertise in fake breasts and lips.

      “Can I have a word with you alone? In private?” Wolf suddenly growled into her ear.

      She turned toward him, apple and cheese skewered on her fork. “Why?”

      His dark eyes snapped with fire. “Alone,” he repeated. “In private.”

      Wolf stood up, pushed his chair back and took her by the elbow.

      With his hand on her lower back, he pressed her through the restaurant and down the hallway until he found a small alcove by the pay phones.

      “What are you doing?” Wolf demanded, turning on her. “What game are you playing?”

      Alexandra shook her head, nonplussed. “Game? There’s no game. I was having dinner, talking to Will—”

      “Will’s pathological. He has to get in every woman’s pants.”

      She jerked her head back as if slapped. “Well, he’s not getting in mine, and we were just exchanging a few words. Pleasantries, that’s all.”

      Wolf’s features tightened. “He was looking at you as though he’d devour you any moment.”

      “If you didn’t notice, I was devouring my salad.”

      “You’re supposed to be devouring me.”

      Alexandra gasped with outrage and shock. Her jaw dropped, her eyes grew wide. And then she snapped her jaw closed and came out swinging. “Sorry, Wolf, but I’m afraid I don’t have the experience!”

      She gave him a shove, her hand connecting with his chest, and she’d pushed at him so hard her wrist did a painful little snap, but he didn’t budge.

      Wolf felt her hand hit his chest, but he didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t. He was wound too tight.

      No one and nothing got under his skin, not anymore. He wanted to believe that, but since meeting Alexandra Shanahan, she’d lived under his skin.

      His gaze swept her face. “What do you mean that you haven’t the experience?”

      Her dark blue eyes snapped at him. “I mean that I’m not an actress and I haven’t devoured lots of men and I can’t do whatever it is you want me to do.”

      “Are we talking oral sex or intercourse?”

      He watched, fascinated, as a wave of color stormed her cheeks.

      “And that,” she choked out, tendrils of hair falling around her face, “is none of your business.”

      “Just like my sex life is none of your business.”

      “That’s because you have one and I don’t!”

      He leaned toward her, trapping her between the pay phone and the wall. “You could.”

      Another wave of color surged through her cheeks, darker, hotter than before. Her blue eyes shimmered. “It’s not in our contract,” she said through gritted teeth, nose in the air, cocky as a little girl in a denim skirt and cowboy boots.

      “No,” he muttered, “but this is.” He closed the distance between them with one aggressive step.

      Alexandra’s heart thumped wildly and she pressed backward, her hands behind her, knuckles tight against the wall. He loomed over her, so tall, so big, so much more powerful, and it wasn’t even his height that made him strong or his frame but the force inside him, that fire. He was alive and intense, engaged and aware.

      She didn’t want him to kiss her, didn’t want him anywhere near her. But once his head dipped, it was like last night at Casa Del Mar’s Veranda lounge.

      Bolts of electricity shot through her, and that was even before his mouth completely covered hers.

      And then when his lips did take hers, she felt the electricity again, hotter, brighter, sharper.

      He felt good. He felt amazing. Unreal.

      Her mouth softened. The pressure of his lips increased and her heart raced, fast, faster, as fire and hunger whipped through her.

      She groaned as he parted her mouth with his tongue, groaned again as his tongue flicked the inside of her inner bottom lip, tasting her, teasing her, making her want more of him.

      This wasn’t a kiss, she realized, dazed. This was his first step in seducing her, taking her, and he intended to do it. Despite the contract.

      But would that change when he realized she really was as inexperienced as she said?

      Back at the table, Wolf sat with his arm draped over the back of Alexandra’s chair. And her chair was close to his—so close that no one could mistake his actions for anything but a sign of possession.

      He was claiming her, marking his territory, letting the other men know to stay away and letting other women know he was taken.

      Alexandra, he noticed, didn’t like it.

      “You might as well put a Sold sign on me,” she said through gritted teeth.

      “That’s not a bad idea,” he answered, smiling faintly at her pink-cheeked indignation. He’d never met a woman who blushed so much—or made a simple blush so alluring.

      Studying her profile, he found it hard to believe she was as inexperienced with men as she claimed. How could she be when she was so ridiculously pretty?

      He looked at her thoughtfully, almost clinically, trying to understand what it was about her that made him want to put that Sold sign on her.

      Maybe it was that leggy tomboy stride of hers, or her mouth that was endlessly expressive, sometimes set, sometimes pursed, sometimes smiling most beguilingly.

      Wolf didn’t know which he liked better—that full mouth with the tiny indentation in the bottom lip or the midnight-blue eyes set so wide beneath winged eyebrows.

      Or her sharp mind and sassy tongue.

      His sardonic smile stretched.

      She was a breathtaking combination of girl and woman, funny, sensitive, proud, uncertain. Unlike the women in Los Angeles who pursued him, women who blatantly advertised their interest and availability, Alexandra didn’t project her sexuality. It

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