Lead Me On. Victoria Dahl

of the crowded bar and across the street to his truck. When they reached the passenger door, Chase stopped and turned to face her with serious eyes.

      “This isn’t something weird, is it?”

      “What?” The tipsiness she’d been comforting herself with made it hard to figure out his strange question.

      “I don’t look like your dead husband or anything, do I?”

      “What are you talking about?”

      He watched her, his fingers sliding more deeply between hers. “You said you’ve never done this before.”

      “I haven’t.” Not recently anyway.

      His eyes narrowed to glittering slits as his gaze dropped to her lips.

      Before she could think what to say, Chase dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers. She wasn’t ready for it. Strange, considering she’d propositioned him just a few minutes before. But she wasn’t expecting the taste of him right at the moment, his lips brushing over hers.

      His mouth was nothing like his hands. His mouth touched her softly, a gentle pressure, testing her, feeling her out. When her shock wore off, Jane finally responded. She parted her lips a little, pressing into him, and Chase took the hint.

      A shock of warmth against her bottom lip revealed itself to be his tongue, touching briefly before drawing away.

      “Mmm.” She sighed, angling her head in encouragement. He tasted her again, teasing her until she followed his tongue with her own.

      Oh, my. His work-roughened hand slipped around the back of her neck as he pulled her closer. Chase’s kiss became deeper, deeper, until Jane found herself clutching his T-shirt and hanging on tight. His tongue thrust slowly. There was going to be no jackrabbit action in this man’s bed. This was a careful, controlled assault.

      The shivering in her knees climbed higher, shaking through her thighs. As if sensing his work was done, Chase brushed his lips over hers one last time before pulling away.

      “Well,” he murmured. “Ready to go?”

      Jane nodded. “Definitely.”

      The truck beeped, the locks popped open and Chase reached for the door handle. “After you, Miss Jane.”

      She flushed a bit at the reminder of who she was to him, but that didn’t stop her from climbing up and snapping the seat belt into place. This was a bad idea, but Jane wasn’t really a good girl and she never had been. She’d been faking it for ten years without a slip. Ten long years.

      Frankly, it was a miracle she’d lasted.

      Now she was tipsy and he was hot, and she wanted to drop the good-girl act for a few minutes. Or hours.

      Chase slipped into the driver’s seat and flashed her a wicked smile. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Jane, but I definitely like it.”

      Finally she could respond to that grin exactly the way she wanted to. Jane smiled and slanted him a look from the corner of her eye. “Just drive.”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      She felt the looks he kept aiming her way as he drove, as if he found her impossibly intriguing. Amazing how an offer of free sex could monopolize a guy’s attention.

      Jane squeezed her thighs together, thrilling at the darts of pleasure that resulted. The dream she’d had the night before had gotten her body primed for pleasure. Now just that one kiss had her squirming.

      Thank God she’d put on sexy underwear that morning. She didn’t always wear lacy bras and panties, but it was one of the small pleasures in her life. Sexy lingerie. A tiny concession to her true nature. A secret beneath her professional clothing. It was a secret she wanted to let Chase in on. Quickly.

      She hid her body beneath perfectly tailored clothing, because otherwise she drew too many eyes. Her curves had drawn attention from the time she’d hit puberty at eleven. The wrong kind of attention for a young girl, but wrong was just what she was looking for now.

      “My place is just around the corner,” Chase said, breaking the silence.

      Only two blocks from Main Street. Wonderful.

      “Are you cold?” he asked. Even though she said no, he pushed the Up arrow on the climate control system. “Music?”

      She shook her head and he dropped his hand. They had nothing in common, nothing to talk about, but Chase seemed determined.

      “Do you live here in town?”

      “Mmm-hmm.” His big hand was sitting right there next to her hip. She wanted to pick it up and put it on her knee, maybe run it up the inside of her thigh so she could feel his calluses rasp against the softest part of her body.

      They turned onto a narrow side street, and Jane held her breath in anticipation, counting the seconds until Chase slowed and pulled up to a three-story building. His brow furrowed. “I’m not sure my place is clean.”

      Jane opened the door and hopped down before he could back out of this. If he backed out, she’d never get the guts to do it again. Clutching her purse, she met him at the driver’s side door, thoroughly enjoying the way his body kept on rising as he stepped onto the driveway and stood straight. God, he was big. “I’m not a neat freak,” she lied. “It’s no problem.”

      He unlocked the door to his condo and stuck his head in to look around before swinging it open. “Good news. It looks okay.”

      It actually did look okay. A bit bachelor-pad, what with the flat-screen TV complete with multiple gaming systems. But it didn’t smell funny and there weren’t pizza boxes lying around. Just a few newspapers and a coffee cup…plus one pair of muddy steel-toed boots. Why, oh, why, did those make her heart pitter-patter when fine Italian loafers made her lip curl?

      She had an illness. Hopefully, sleeping with Chase would work like an immunization. Tetanus shots lasted only ten years. Perhaps degrading sex had the same rate of effectiveness.

      Jane wandered toward the black bookshelves while Chase turned on more lights and picked up the papers. Unsurprisingly, the shelves held DVDs instead of books. Hundreds of DVDs. She peered closer. There were action movies, sure, but they were outnumbered by big award winners. Movies like Being John Malkovich and Atonement.

      “This was a really good book,” she murmured, running her finger along the edge of a case.

      “I don’t read much.”

      She didn’t feel a smidgen of surprise at that. Her family had never had books around either.

      “So,” he said, the word fading into silence as he walked toward his small kitchen and opened the fridge. “I’ve got a couple of beers in here. You want one?” He was jangling his keys nervously, so Jane decided she’d better give him a task. When she asked for ice water, he looked relieved.

      They could draw this out with drinks and awkward conversation, or they could skip all the pretense. Jane moved to the stereo system and the iPod connected to it. She scrolled through the songs, looking for something that fit her mood.

      Before Chase had even shut off the faucet, Jane found the perfect album and hit play. Then she turned the volume up and let the bass beat drown out the voice of the woman she was now. Tonight she was going to embrace the bad girl who lurked deep inside.

CHAPTER FOUR

      WHEN A HARD LINE OF BASS began to pulse, Chase frowned and turned toward the window, imagining some kid driving by with his speakers blasting. But no, the sound was too clear for that. He glanced at the stereo Jane was moving away from.

      “I’m sorry. Did I leave…that…?”

      But Jane wasn’t rushing back to find the stop button. She was walking toward him