Wedding Party Collection: Always The Bachelor. Barbara Hannay

But as she told Deidre, she didn’t need a man to complete her. And if she was looking for sexual release, she didn’t need a man for that, either.

      “And you’re basing this assumption on what exactly?” she asked Dillon.

      “Though you try to repress it, you’re a very passionate person. Passionate people need sex regularly or they get cranky. And darlin’, you are about as cranky as they come.”

      Did it ever occur to him that he was the one making her cranky?

      “It can’t be just any sex, either,” he went on. “It has to be damned good, preferably with someone who knows exactly what it takes to light their fire.”

      And she was pretty sure he was offering to do the job. Did he honestly think he could charm his way back into her bed? Could he possibly be that arrogant?

      Of course he could.

      The real question was, what did she plan to do about it? How would she put him in his place and teach him a lesson he should have learned a long time ago?

      She would do the one thing he would never expect. The only thing that would knock him completely off balance.

      She stopped abruptly, right in the middle of the street, in front of God and everyone, and turned to face him. Before he could get his bearings, or she had a second of clarity to talk herself out of it, she reached up and curled her fingers into the front of his shirt. She wrapped her other hand around the back of his neck and tugged him down to her level.

      He smelled of soap and shampoo and his hair was soft around her fingers. His wide-eyed surprise was the last thing she saw as she planted a kiss right on his damp and slightly parted lips.

      Just when Dillon thought he had Ivy pegged, she did something completely off the wall and totally out of character. He’d expected some sort of reaction from her. One of those cool, deadly stares or a snippy remark. The last thing he’d expected was a kiss.

      And he sure as hell hadn’t expected to enjoy it.

      One brush of her full, soft lips, one taste of her sweet mouth, and the memory of the fighting, the bitter, angry words they had flung at each other like daggers, misted like the ocean spray, then evaporated in the hot, dry Mexican air.

      It came on swift and sudden, like a sniper attack, and before his brain had a chance to catch up with his body to process the acute physical response, it was over.

      In a flash he was back on the noisy, crowded street. Ivy stood with her hands propped on her hips, looking up at him. Her eyes cold. In that instant he understood exactly what she was doing and what she meant to accomplish. And for reasons he didn’t understand—or didn’t want to admit—he felt cheated.

      No one had looked at him with the same genuine and honest admiration as Ivy had. As long as he could remember, his family name had afforded him certain privileges. With little more than a snap of his fingers he could have had any woman he desired.

      Ivy had been the only one he’d ever needed.

      She saw through him, to the real man inside. She understood him in a way no one else had. Or May be she had been the only one who bothered to try.

      She studied him for a good thirty seconds, looking almost bored, then shrugged. “Nothing.”

      Ouch. She’d scored one on him, no doubt, and it had been a direct hit.

      “I guess you just don’t do it for me anymore,” she said apologetically. “But I appreciate the offer.”

      She spun away, skirt swishing around her legs. Only then did it register; the slight tremble in her voice, her pulse throbbing at the base of her throat and the smudge of color riding the arch of her cheeks.

      A man didn’t spend a year of marriage without learning a woman’s signals. And he could read hers loud and clear. He wasn’t the only one turned on by that kiss. She wanted him, too.

      This called for a slight change of plans. There was only one thing that could possibly be more fun than annoying Ivy, and that would be getting back into her panties. That would be the ultimate payback.

      He was smiling as he set off after her. It looked as if they would be taking this competition to an all new level.

       Six

      Divorce recovery typically takes two full years. Take it day by day. Trust me, the time will soon come when you’ll look back and wonder what you ever saw in him.

      —excerpt from The Modern Woman’s Guide to Divorce (And the Joy of Staying Single)

      Kiss your ex-husband. Brilliant idea.

      As fast as her wobbly legs would carry her, Ivy headed blindly in what she hoped was the general direction of the villa, praying that Dillon didn’t follow her.

      Weathered stucco buildings, brightly colored canopies and an ocean of moving bodies blurred together like smudged oil paint on a three-dimensional canvas. Voices and sounds echoed through her ears and jumbled around inside her head, disorienting her. Her hands were trembling and her heart beat hard and fast in her chest.

      One stupid kiss and she was a walking disaster area.

      What had she been thinking?

      It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. She was supposed to be proving how over him she was. She wasn’t supposed to enjoy kissing him.

      She wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

      And if she had to feel something, why couldn’t it have been hate? Disgust would have been a good one, too. Or good old-fashioned anger.

      And what if by some remote chance someone recognized them? Someone who had read her book? What if word got out that she was messing around with her ex? What would people think of her? How could her readers, not to mention her patients, trust her if she couldn’t even follow her own edict?

      This was bad.

      Really, really bad.

      Although she had to admit that seeing the stunned look on his face, knowing that for once she had flustered him, had almost been worth it. In a sadistic sort of way. Like cutting off her nose to spite her face.

      “You sure move fast when you have something to run from,” Dillon said from behind her, and Ivy cursed under her breath.

      Oh, crud.

      She needed a minute to pull herself together. She couldn’t let him see her thrown so far off-kilter.

      This was just a fluke. She’d been too immersed in her career, too swamped promoting her first book and writing the second to even think about sex, so, yeah, she’d overreacted a little.

      Okay, she’d overreacted a lot. But she would have gotten the same result from kissing any number of men.

      She tried to conjure up a name, an appealing, eligible man in her life. May be one in the office building where she worked, or at the club where she used the pool. Or even at the grocery store. There had to be someone.

      Yet not a single one came to mind.

      Oh, hell, who was she kidding? She could continue to blame her busy schedule, but deep down she knew that was bunk. The reason she hadn’t slept with anyone in…well, longer than she wanted to admit, was because she hadn’t met anyone she wanted to sleep with. Up until today.

      Oh, no. She did not just think that. She didn’t want to sleep with Dillon. Not now, not ever.

      “And what is it exactly that I’m running from?” she asked. She even managed to keep her voice steady and vaguely disinterested.

      The deep baritone of laughter that followed rubbed across every one of her nerve endings until they felt raw and exposed.

      He knew. He knew exactly what that kiss had done to her, and he would spend