As You Like It. Lori Wilde

maintaining a hint of femininity. Tucked under one arm she carried a slim, black leather briefcase and in the other a small blue clutch purse that matched her outfit.

      The only thing about her that was the least bit “out there” were her funky shoes. Fashionable azure-and-silver stilettos completely inappropriate for strolling the French Quarter, but just perfect for showing off miles of long, gorgeous calves.

      Her features were more compelling than beautiful. She wasn’t fashion-model anorexic, and he admired that about her body. Nice breasts, not too big, not too small, in perfect proportion to rounded hips emphasizing her tapered waist.

      Her hair was bobbed in a sleek, chic cut and he could tell she wore wispy bangs in order to camouflage a wide forehead. Her eyes were a little on the small side but he’d always had a thing for women with deep brown eyes that went all squinchy when they smiled. He realized he wanted to see her eyes crinkle and dance.

      And he wanted to touch her.

      No, wanted was too mild a word for what he was feeling. He ached to touch her. To find out exactly what her skin felt like. How smooth, how soft. Suddenly, his fingers burned raw and needy.

      Just looking at her made him think of velvet and midnight and satin sheets and sunrise.

      If he kissed her, would she taste like forbidden fantasies and sensual sin?

      His entire body responded to his unexpected desire and damn if he didn’t feel the beginnings of a hard-on. It was lust at first sight.

      Obviously, it had been too long since he’d gotten laid.

      Remy got up from the table, leaving Beau to observe the newcomer from beneath the brim of his baseball cap, and slipped behind the counter. The woman headed straight for the bar as if she knew unequivocally what she wanted.

      She definitely was not a tourist. The lady was on a mission.

      Beau cocked his head and waited with interest to see what she would order.

      A martini? A Manhattan? A cosmopolitan? Certainly not a beer. Never a beer. Not enough prestige in a simple concoction of barley and hops.

      “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Remy greeted her, purposefully injecting a heavy layer of the charming thick French Cajun accent the tourists adored.

      Beau envied his brother’s accent. Between his world travels and Francesca’s insistence he take allocution lessons to eradicate any trace of what she disdainfully called “Louisiana good for nothing drawl,” he could not shake the resulting smooth, neutral, urbane tonality from his voice no matter how hard he tried.

      “Good afternoon.” The woman smiled at Remy.

      “What you be wantin’, chère?”

      “Perrier.” She undid the clasp of her wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “And some information.”

      “Information?” Remy raised a quizzical eyebrow at the same time he twisted the top off the bottle and poured the iced mineral water into a glass. A glugging, fizzy sound filled the silence.

      As Beau studied the woman, he realized he might have been a bit too hasty in his initial assessment of her. Underneath the indomitable stride, her squarely set shoulders and those forthright eyes, he sensed a certain vulnerability that all the busy activity and high-powered success could not salve. He saw it in the way she hesitated for just a nanosecond, briefly sinking her top teeth into her bottom lip. Drawing her courage?

      Maybe she wasn’t quite as self-confident as she’d first appeared, but she did a pretty impressive job of hiding it.

      That sweet, slight hint of contradiction did something strange to him.

      Bam! His heart rate kicked up a notch and his mouth went irrationally dry.

      Resolutely, she tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, slid her fanny onto the nearest bar stool and hooked the heels of her stilettos behind the wooden rungs. “I’m looking for Beau Thibbedeaux. Would you happen to know where I could find him?”

      Uh-oh. So she was looking for him. Not a good sign. The old familiar queasiness every time his past caught up with him winnowed through his stomach.

      He traced his gaze over her body again, this time determinedly ignoring her lush curves and searching for clues to her occupation. Too finely dressed to be a private investigator. Not obedient enough to be one of Francesca’s handmaidens. If it weren’t for those sexy shoes he would say she was a lawyer.

      She probably was a lawyer in spite of the shoe fetish. Two years later and he was still dodging fallout from the Migosaki deal gone awry. Good grief, would it ever end? Couldn’t they just let a man be?

      Well, Remy had gotten his wish. Beau now had something to occupy his mind.

      Remy shot a quick glance over at Beau. Want me to rat you out or not?

      His preliminary impulse was to shake his head, glide right out the side door and disappear into the crowd. But he knew better. He’d learned the hard way you couldn’t run from your problems.

      Plus this particular problem had the upside of being intriguingly attractive.

      And it had been a very long time since he’d gotten laid.

      But the dark recesses of his brain warned: You know you’re not the kind of guy who can kiss and then sprint.

      It was true. He had never been able to treat sex casually the way most men seemed to be able to. Other than Angeline, he’d only had one other sexual partner and she had been his high-school sweetheart.

      He blamed his inherent sexual loyalty on his basic need for connection. Having grown up in a fractured home with no real place to call his own, getting yo-yoed from one continent to the other, from one step-family to the next, Beau longed for a steady, stable woman he could make a life with. That’s why he’d had such trouble letting go of his relationship with Angeline long after it was evident their basic values clashed.

      But he wasn’t a kid anymore whose mother was too busy pitching hissy fits to pay him the slightest bit of attention. Wasn’t it time he overcame his annoying impulse of equating sex with love?

      Not that he was jumping to any conclusions about Miss New York City. But his unexpected sexual desire for her did raise a few issues.

      “Beau Thibbedeaux?” the woman repeated to Remy. “I understand he’s part owner of this bar. Where might I find him?”

      Beau pushed up the brim of his cap with one finger and settled his chair firmly on the ground. “I’m Beau Thibbedeaux.”

      The woman whirled around to face him. Her eyes widened as if seeing him for the first time. “Oh.”

      “What do you need?”

      She planted an optimistic smile on her face and darn if her eyes didn’t scrunch up in the cute little way he’d imagined. In the blink of a second, she hopped off the bar stool and took two long-legged strides across the floor, her hand extended dominate side up, leaving him with no choice but to get to his feet and accept her proffered palm.

      Her skin was warm against his. Her smell—clean, sophisticated, enticing—teased his nostrils and made him itch to nuzzle the nape of her neck.

      “How do you do, Mr. Thibbedeaux? I’m Marissa Sturgess.”

      Nice name, he thought, but said, “You may call me Beau.”

      Silently he tried it out. Marissa. He liked the romantic way her name rolled off his tongue. He imagined whispering it in the dead of darkness and felt his body heat up.

      Her smile deepened and simultaneously dug a soft place into the center of his solar plexus. He’d had a lot of practice assessing manipulative smiles and he could have sworn hers was genuine.

      “Beau,” she said and the sound of his name on her lips was positively testosterone stoking.

      Bizarrely enough, her eyes seemed to burn him.