The Bodyguard And The Bridesmaid. Metsy Hingle

want Sean or Michael, not you.”

      Ryan grinned. “Sorry, Duchess. That’s not an option.”

      “But, I—”

      “Even if I were inclined to give you up, which I’m not, my brothers are tied up on other cases, and I’m not trusting this to an operative. So, you’re stuck with me.”

      “Stuck is right,” she muttered.

      “Come on. If you give me a chance, you’ll find out I’m really a nice guy. Want me to provide you with references?” he teased.

      “From who? Your legion of lady friends?”

      “Legion?” Ryan repeated, amused. “You overestimate my appeal to the fairer sex. Besides, there’s only one woman I’m interested in,” he said, skimming a finger along her soft cheek. “You.”

      Those forest-green eyes of hers darkened a moment. He spied the telltale quickening of the pulse at her neck. Then she shoved his hand aside. “Forget it, Fitzpatrick. I’m not buying.”

      “I wasn’t aware I was selling anything,” he told her, dogging her footsteps to her car.

      She made a most unladylike snicker as he opened her door. “Oh, you’re selling all right,” she told him as she slid onto her seat and fastened her seat belt.

      “Yeah?” he said, feigning innocence. He draped his arm over the top of the open door and admired the way the shoulder belt outlined her breasts.

      “Yeah,” she mimicked.

      He dipped his head inside the car to see her face more clearly. “And just what is it you think I’m selling?”

      “You and I both know what you’re selling—a quick tumble on the sheets and promises of paradise in your arms.”

      Ryan nearly groaned at the images her words evoked. He was already aroused—a constant state, it seemed, whenever he was within five feet of the woman. And now he was as hard as a hammer and itching to take her in his arms. “I don’t know about the quick part, but I sorta like the idea of us finding paradise together. I’m game, if you are.”

      She bristled. If she had been a cat, every hair on her back would be standing straight up, Ryan thought. Damn, if she didn’t turn him on even with that schoolmarm scowl on her face.

      “You needn’t bother wasting that sexy little grin on me, Fitzpatrick,” she told him in that prim voice. “I’ve told you before, I’m not interested.”

      “You sure about that?”

      “Yes.”

      He traced a fingertip along her neck, watched surprise flicker across her face. Her pulse began another frantic dance. He saw her gaze drop to his mouth, her eyes darken to a green as deep as a magnolia leaf. Heat flooded his body, and Ryan moved a fraction closer, eager to sample her lips again, to taste all that sweet heat she kept locked up in the ice.

      “Let’s make sure,” he whispered against her lips.

      Clea’s look moved up from his mouth to his eyes. She blinked. Were it not for the painful ache pressing against the zipper on his jeans, he would have laughed at her half horrified, half aroused expression. She pushed at his shoulders and Ryan stepped back. “I’m already sure,” she told him, leveling him with a look as cold as a Minnesota winter.

      “Why don’t I see if I can change your mind?”

      She yanked the door closed. “It’d be a waste of time because I won’t,” she told him and started the car.

      “You wouldn’t want to make a little wager on that, would you now?” he asked, wanting to see that fire darken her eyes again.

      “I don’t gamble,” she told him, going all prickly just as he had known she would. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t bet on me having a change of heart. Now get out of my way.”

      Ryan jumped back as she gunned the engine and took off down the street. “Oh, but I am betting on it,” he said as he hopped into his convertible and took off after her. He zipped through a yellow light and whipped around a comer behind her white sedan. A smile tugged at his lips. “You might take me on one hell of a chase, Duchess,” he murmured as she made another swift turn. “But make no mistake about it. I am going to catch you.”

      

      Oh, what a royal idiot you are, Clea Mason. She pulled the car to a stop in front of her condo. “A first-class, certifiable idiot,” she muttered, reliving those moments outside the Donatellis’. She slammed the driver’s door closed and walked around to the trunk of the car to retrieve the briefcase she had been in too much of a hurry to unpack before she had left for dinner.