SmokingHot by Sommer Marsden

Chapter One
     
    I have to admit, when I opened the door to Sean, I almost
shut it again. I had told Clarice tall, dark and handsome. She’d gotten one out
of three. Sean Tierney was tall and blond and so pretty I felt like a troll
doll.
    “Hi there,” I said, faking a smile, calculating sixty
different ways to string Clarice up by her thumbs and torture her.
    Green, green eyes flashed at me, making me think of feral
cats and wild things slinking in the night. Okay, so that was a pretty damn
sexy image and looking at Sean Tierney was not hard to do.
    “Hi, there, to you. Van, is it? Did I get that right?”
    I nodded. “Yep. Like the shoes.”
    “Short for…” He waited, toeing the threshold of my home with
a big, beat up black boot. Boots. Nice. So, Clarice gets a point. That’s two
points. One for the eyes, one for the boots.
    “Vanessa. Vanessa is way too stuck-uppity for me. So it’s
been Van since, oh, about kindergarten.”
    He looked me up and down and I considered shutting the door
again. I’m usually the captain of the ship. The one in charge. I say jump and
my date says how many times. But the way Sean Tierney looked at me, I felt like
I should buckle my seat belt and hold on. I cleared my throat and he smiled—his
full lips a pale shade of pink. Rather striking for a guy, and hot as hell with
the green flashing eyes and the shaggy wheat-colored hair.
    “Are you dressing up?” he asked, shifting gears. “Are you?”
I countered, suddenly feeling not so sure of myself. Less annoyed with Clarice,
more annoyed with myself for being so rattled by a pretty boy.
    Sean glanced down at himself, faded jeans, charcoal-gray
button-down, cuffed casually, left to hang loose over the jeans and
beat-to-shit motorcycle boots. “Nope. Not unless I have magical powers. But you
know…ladies—” he caught himself and stopped, another heart-pounding smile
spreading across his lips.
    “Ladies what?” I snapped. “They get all googety over
dressing up?” Why was I getting so cross? Why was I being such a bitch? Why, oh
why, were my panties so wet? Damn!
    “Googety?”
    “I made up a word for ya,” I sniped. And then just for fun,
“Is there a bike to go with those boots or are you one of those men?”
    He stepped back as I stepped out and locked the door behind
me. No, I was not going to let him in, so sue me.
    “Those men?” he asked. He looked handsomely confused and for
some reason that annoyed me more. How dare this stranger I did not want to go
out with anyway have the nerve to make me be attracted to him. For shame.
    “The ones with the boots and the leather cuffs and—” I
snorted to show my derision, “the wallets on chains and no motorcycle to show
for it.”
    He smiled, laughing softly and put his hand on my lower back
to guide me down the wooded path from my townhouse to the parking lot. He might
as well have put a match to my skin. The pressure and electricity from his hand
on my body was like licking a light socket. Or so I imagined. I was having a hard
time concentrating with him touching me. Which simply pissed me off, if you
must know.
    “I do have a bike. An Indian. Was my dad’s. I got it when he
died.”
    I stalled out, verbally and physically. I turned to him,
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
    “Thanks. Anyway, I do have a bike but I didn’t bring it
because some folks are pretty anti-bike and I didn’t want to start our date
with me asking to borrow your car because you’re afraid of motorcycles. I
figured if we hit it off…next time.”
    I felt a blip of disappointment because deep down I truly
loved riding on a motorcycle. And riding on an Indian would be so kick-ass.
“Oh,” I said, having nothing mean to say about that. He hadn’t brought it to be
considerate.
    Fudge.
    “Where are we going? I know it’s a party but whose party?”
    When he stopped in front of a cobalt blue ’66 Mustang my
mouth went dry. He unlocked the door and opened it for me. “My friend
Patrick’s. New