Belle and Valentine by Tressie Lockwood Page B

him, wrenching away from his touch. “Why are you up here?”
    He smiled, so unlike Sam, always ready with that charming way of his. “I thought you needed help.”
    She glared. “You’re what, thirty-five, Fane? When are you going to stop with the bad boy façade?”
    “You think I’m a fake?”
    “Aren’t you?”
    “What you see is what you get, beautiful. If you want to see more, just ask.”
    “Please.” She started to turn away, but he caught her wrist and drew her to him. Struggling did nothing but incite him to hold her closer.
    “You were about to cry. I want to know why.” Once again, his breath stirred her hair, but it wasn’t the only thing. Zuria knew her panties were good and soaked within an instant of flattening her palms against the hardened muscles of his chest. Why couldn’t she be the one woman who was immune to his allure? Well, at least I’m the one woman in a thirty-mile radius who hasn’t spread her legs for him. Some devil whispered in her ear —yet!
    “Don’t play games with me, Fane. I’m not in the mood.”
    He raised her chin and forced her to look at him. Damn, the man was fine. No one person should have sexy green eyes, dark curly hair, a sensual mouth, a hard body, and the unnecessary height of six foot four all in one yummy package. She imagined other men probably wept in the privacy of their own homes after they’d run up against Fane. Especially the men in Aves, North Carolina.
    “Sam told me you were coming for a visit. That’s all he said. Was there more?”
    She blinked at him. Was he serious? Wait, of course he was. Everyone in this town knew everyone else’s business, but if the information depended on her brother to get out, ignorance would reign. Sam knew how to keep a secret, a trait she had always admired. Then again, maybe she was just like him. She had suffered through her husband’s funeral, at the mercy of her mother-in-law’s dislike, gone through the motions at the gathering to celebrate his life afterward, and then promptly barricaded herself in her apartment until she had found out just how much—or, rather, how little—was left in the joint bank account she shared with Richard. Apparently, he had either spent every dime he owned on his mistress, or he had cleared it all out and hid it somehow when he found out she was speaking with a divorce attorney. Either way, she was broke, and she had simply told Sam she was coming home. He knew Richard was dead but not that he’d been cheating, and she would rather it stay that way. Her brother had gone one step further and didn’t even mention the death to his best friend and partner. She wondered if he thought it would protect her from Fane’s advances if Fane thought she still had a husband.
    “No,” she lied. “There isn’t more. Now, if you’ll let me go, I’ll go about my business.”
    She managed to get out of his hold and started to walk away again.
    “Your husband was a stockbroker, wasn’t he?”
    She froze. Was?
    She couldn’t turn around or walk into the bedroom as she had intended. Her legs refused to move, and her breath constricted in her chest. A creak in the wooden floor said Fane had walked up behind her. His hands settled at her waist, and she felt the heat of his body lined with hers.
    “Do you know the first time you wanted me?” he asked.
    She forced herself to swallow.
    “It was when you walked into the storeroom and found me fucking Dixie Ann. You wished it was you.”
    Zuria didn’t think twice. She whirled and smacked him as hard as she could. A stain of red colored his cheek, and her chest heaved so hard she thought she would pass out. When he said nothing and didn’t react, she stomped toward the bedroom.
    “I wanted you long before that,” he said.
    She stopped and glanced over her shoulder at him. No teasing smile lit his face or mocking light in his eyes.
    “I wanted you long before my first time, Zuria.”

Chapter Two
    “He’s rude and inappropriate, and