Drop Dead Gorgeous. Kimberly Raye

in a small town. Last year Diana Trucker had been spotted buying a pregnancy test at the local pharmacy. By the time Meg had heard the news from Corny, the woman had been six months pregnant with quintuplets.

      People had a way of exaggerating everything.

      Which meant, until she saw actual proof of Dillon’s newfound sex appeal, she wasn’t buying one word of Corny’s gossip.

      She had her own sex appeal—or lack of—to worry over.

      She’d just finished an online How to Sex Up Your Image seminar in addition to several self-help classes at the local junior college—Dressing for Sexcess and How to Lick Your Lips Like You Mean It. If that wasn’t enough, she was now taking carnal Classes being offered in the lobby of the Skull Creek Inn.

      At least that’s what she told herself as she showered and dressed. She didn’t want to be late for tonight’s class.

      SHE HAD TO BE SEEING things.

      Meg sat in the motel parking lot near the corner of the building and stared across the dimly lit walkway that ran the length of the first floor. She stared through the windshield of her Mustang and her gaze zeroed in on the profile of the man who stood in front of the doorway to room four.

      He wore snug, faded jeans, a fitted black T-shirt and a pair of black cowboy boots. A black Resistol tipped low on his forehead and cast a shadow across the top half of his face. Dark blond hair curled from beneath the hat brim and brushed the collar of his shirt. He was tall and muscular and…Dillon.

      She blinked, but he didn’t disappear. And neither did the beautiful woman pressed up against his back, her arms locked around his waist as she waited for him to slide the key into the lock and open the door.

      A heartbeat later, the door opened and he pried the woman loose long enough to step aside and motion her into the room. She slid by him, her hands brushing his crotch before she disappeared inside.

      He quickly followed and Meg was left to wonder if Corny had been right and she’d just witnessed the transformation of a lifetime. That couldn’t have been Dillon Cash.

      Yes. No. Hell, no.

      The next few minutes were spent debating between the three as she gathered up her purse and Pleasure Manual, climbed from the front seat and headed for the hotel lobby.

      She didn’t mean to slow down, but she couldn’t help herself. She paused briefly at the door to room four, but the only sound she heard was the frantic beating of her own heart.

       2

      “LET’S DO IT RIGHT NOW,” the soft, breathless voice slid into his ears and sent a burst of yeah, right straight to his brain. “Please.”

      Dillon Cash stared at the woman who’d preceded him into the motel room, her eyes gleaming with a mix of passion and desperation. He barely resisted the urge to pinch himself.

      No way was this happening.

      This was Susie Wilcox, a former Homecoming Queen and now the hottest divorcée in Skull Creek, according to the local paper and Tilly Townsend who’d given the sexy blonde the number one spot on last year’s Hot Chicks list.

      Rumor had it Susie was a shoe-in for this year’s list, as well.

      She had long, silky hair. Legs up to here. Breasts out to there. Her tiny waist begged for his hands and her heart-shaped ass made his mouth go dry. She’d been the star of his wettest dreams back in high school, and a few dozen erotic fantasies in the twelve-plus years since.

      She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman and she was here.

      Now.

      With him.

      And she was getting naked.

      She kicked off her high heels, grabbed the edge of her tank top and pulled the cotton up and over her head. Popping the buttons on her jeans, she shimmied the ultra-tight denim down her long legs and stepped free. Her fingers went to her bra clasp and just like that, her impressive DD’s popped free. She stood before him then wearing a pink mesh thong that left little to the imagination and a rosy red flush that said she was as hot and bothered as a woman could get.

      Surprise snaked through him, but he tamped it back down and focused on the hunger stirring deep inside of him.

      “I can’t stop thinking about you,” she said. Her gaze, intense and unwavering, glittered with passion. “About us.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why, but the first moment I saw you tonight, I knewwewould end up here.” She smiled. “I feel like I can’t keep my hands off of you.” The smile faded into a look of raw, inexplicable need. “I feel like I’m going to explode right nowif I don’t get close to you.” She moved toward him, eating up the distance between them with determined steps. “Very close.”

      Maybe she wasn’t privy as to why she wanted him so badly. And Dillon wasn’t about to tell her.

      It had started two months ago when a stranger had ridden into town. Jake McCann had turned out to be more than the average drifter. He’d been a vampire determined to lay his past to rest, to slay his demons. Literally. And Dillon had gotten caught in the middle of the struggle.

      One minute Dillon had been trying to protect an old friend and the next, he’d had a pair of bloodthirsty fangs—courtesy of Jake’s nemesis—gnawing at his neck. He’d come this close to dying, his life spilling away on the pavement of the town’s main square, but then Jake had stepped forward, shared his own blood, and changed Dillon forever.

      Thankfully.

      Sure, it wasn’t the most practical lifestyle—no more lounging on the beach or scarfing chicken fried steak. But being bitten and turned into a vampire who thrived on blood and sex—especially sex—wasn’t such a bad thing.

      Not to a man whose parents had been a pair of obsessive-compulsives who’d worried about everything, particularly the health and well-being of their only two children. Dillon and his younger sister, Cheryl Anne, had been smothered and coddled to the point that they’d been isolated from their peers. Harold and Dora Cash had never taken their children on a trip to the beach—and risk the possibility of sun damage? Nor had they allowed them to eat chicken fried steak or anything with an overabundance of trans fat.

      Dillon had grown up playing solitaire and chess while other kids went camping and joined Boy Scouts. He’d also been a computer whiz who’d spent his summers reading and taking online courses instead of catching fireflies and going on picnics or swimming down at Skull Creek river.

      At thirty-one, he’d become his own boss—he owned the only computer store within a fifty mile radius that handled both new sales and repairs. He was independent, financially solvent, and still a major geek.

      Up until two months ago, that is.

       “Once a geek, always a geek.”

      Susie’s words echoed in his head. That’s what she’d told him back in high school when he’d worked up the nerve to ask her out. He’d gotten a new haircut and ordered a cool pair of jeans and an AC/DC T-shirt online. He’d even invested the money he’d made typing English papers on a pair of contact lenses. But it hadn’t been enough. By then, the damage had already been done, his reputation established. His new look had failed. Even more, one of his contacts had popped out and Susie had ground it into the concrete as she’d spun on her heel, told him to get lost and walked away.

      Her rejection had set the stage for many more to come. He’d gone on to have a measly three sexual encounters in his lifetime (not counting the experimental petting he’d done with his buddy Meg back in the ninth grade), and not one woman had ever come back for seconds.

      In fact, he’d had a pretty hard time talking them into firsts.

      All that had changed the