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  Tavia almost choked on her merlot. What the hell would a guy like Bolt know about—

  As Tavia forced the gulp of wine down her throat, Bolt’s gaze narrowed on her date. His nostrils flared and his eyes glinted with a metallic sheen. The big man knew he was being baited. “Right now,” Bolt answered slowly, “I think just about everything’s headed downhill for a while. At least, that’s what my analysis program indicates.”

  “Analysis program?” Alex lifted his eyebrows. “I was thinking the same thing. Even the technology sector?” he asked sharply.

  Bolt inclined his head. “Especially technology.”

  “What program are you using?” Alex asked with sudden interest.

  Bolt shrugged but his eyes smoldered. “It’s just something I wrote myself, based on integrals. I’ll get a copy to you if you’d like.”

  “Integrals? Why integrals?”

  “To smooth out the market variations so you can pick out the trends more clearly.”

  Tavia pressed her lips together while Alex looked stunned. The big man had to be faking it—throwing out words and phrases he’d picked up from some financial news television program. Still, she fought the urge to laugh at Alex’s expression.

  “What…what are you investing in then?” Alex finally coughed out.

  “Nothing right now,” Bolt returned. “I bought a lot of gold three years ago and I’m just holding.”

  “Gold? The price of gold has tripled over the past two years.”

  “I didn’t buy it because I was smart,” Bolt drawled. “Just lucky. My best friend suggested I pick some up. She’s a mining engineer.”

  Tavia rolled her eyes at this false display of humility. If the guy sitting across from her owned any gold, it was all in his teeth! And it would be easy to know that precious metals had skyrocketed during the last few years. So the guy had a smattering of knowledge where investment was concerned—big deal!

  Alex’s disgruntled expression fixed on the wall behind Bolt where a new piece of artwork hung. The blond’s face relaxed as he focused on the canvas. “Is that a Dalton?” he asked Tavia. His golden eyebrow arched upward with more than a hint of superiority.

  She smiled as she nodded. “My publisher has contracted him to do my next three covers. He sent that small one as a gift.”

  “I like his work,” Alex told Bolt.

  Bolt nodded. Then without even turning to look at the canvas on the wall, he added, “That’s not surprising. He draws beautiful women then adds a lot of color. Since most men are a bit colorblind, they find his oil pastels refreshingly bright while women find them stunning and bold.”

  Okay. Now Tavia was staring. So was Alex.

  Again Bolt shrugged in his lazy, self-diminishing way. “At least, that’s what Dalton says.”

  Okay. So he’d read a magazine article about the popular pastel artist while waiting somewhere for a haircut. But. Jeez.

  “But enough about art.” Bolt fixed his malicious gaze on Tavia’s elegantly groomed date as one bronze eyebrow winged upward in challenge. “How much can you bench press?”

  Tavia laughed out loud as Bolt followed this with a cat-like grin in her direction and Alex’s mouth flattened into a thin line.

  When Alex steered the conversation toward politics, Bolt was carefully quiet as he finished his steak and worked his way through a large serving of apple pie and ice cream. Evidently, Alex had hit on a subject that Bolt couldn’t fake—either that or the big man preferred to keep his political opinions to himself. While Bolt demolished dessert, Tavia and Alex discussed America’s foreign policy.

  She was arguing with Alex when the door to the kitchen cracked open behind him. Bolt’s gaze flickered that way as Tavia’s Spanish-speaking cook stepped into the dining room. Unaware of Maria’s presence, Alex continued, “I’m just saying that the current policy toward immi—”

  The next thing Tavia knew, Bolt was nudging his beer bottle up against Alex’s full glass of red wine. The glass tipped over with a sharp crack and Alex’s chair scraped backwards as he jumped to his feet, cursing.

  Bolt stood up with him, apologizing all over the place while gracing little Maria with the sweetest smile Tavia had ever seen on such a patently mean mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” the small woman faltered. “I was getting ready to leave but I couldn’t get my car started. Could somebody perchance give me a jump?”

  “Let me take a look at that,” Bolt offered immediately, striding across the room and holding the kitchen door open for Tavia’s cook. From beneath the thick fringe of his eyelashes, he shot a smiling glance back at Tavia.

  Tavia stared at the door as it swung closed. Was that what she thought it was? In spilling the wine all over Alex, Bolt had stopped her date from making a potentially embarrassing comment in front of her Spanish-speaking cook. Had Bolt been trying to save Alex’s ass or had he been acting on behalf of Maria’s feelings? It had to be Maria, Tavia thought wryly. Her little cook from south of the border—while perhaps five years older than her dinner guests—was both petite and darkly attractive.

  Distracted by those thoughts, Tavia herded Alex into the kitchen. The door leading outside to the driveway was open. She heard the heavy, metal creak of a car hood moving upward. “I’ll get some club soda for that stain,” she told Alex as she headed for the fridge, passing the large granite-topped island in the center of the kitchen.

  When Bolt stepped back into the kitchen a few minutes later, Alex was grumbling about Maria while pouring club soda over the front of the pleated gray slacks he wore. “This isn’t the first time she’s needed a jump start,” Alex complained in a tight voice.

  As Bolt made his way to the kitchen sink, he frowned at the blond. “Maria’s Honda should be good from here on out,” he growled quietly as he soaped up his hands. “The battery posts were corroded. I cleaned them off.”

  Alex grunted as he surveyed the damage to his slacks. “I’m going to have to take these off long enough to run them under the tap.” He cut a glaring glance in Bolt’s direction as he strode from the kitchen, ostensibly making his way to one of the bathrooms down the hall.

  Wiping his hands on a dishtowel, Bolt glowered at the swinging door as Tavia watched him. “I take it you don’t much care for my boyfriend,” she stated carefully.

  “Boyfriend?” Bolt snorted as he wadded the towel into a ball and slung it at the counter. “That guy isn’t interested in you.”

  Tavia couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d slapped her. She probably couldn’t have been more hurt either. It felt like somebody had punched her right in the heart.

  Bastard.

  “Oh yeah?” she returned icily. “I guess that’s why he proposed to me last week then.”

  Bolt’s eyes snapped to lock on hers. “He what? What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I’d think about it.”

  Impatiently, Bolt rolled his eyes. “Give me a break, Tavia. That guy’s more interested in me than he is in you.”

  “Then why’d he ask me to marry him?”

  “I don’t know,” he cut at her. “How much are you worth?”

  She felt the pain tighten around her heart. Tighten cruelly. “Fuck you,” she snapped back at him, fighting an unexpected surge of tears. “So you think Alex is only interested in my money. Thanks a lot, Bolt. But just because you think I have no sex appeal whatsoever—”

  “What? Don’t you go putting words in my mouth, Tavia. There’s nothing wrong with your sex appeal—believe me. But that guy wouldn’t know sex appeal from apple peel.”

  “What?”

  “And I can prove it,” he told her in a rich, deep rumble of sound.

  “You can prove it?” she demanded with as much scorn as she could muster while blinking back hot, angry tears. “How?”

  For about two seconds he glowered at her. Then he took a step toward her. His thick-lashed gaze fixed on her mouth as he lingered in front of her. Dark heat rolled off his body in waves, wrapping her in
his provocative male scent. “Because this is the way a man acts when he’s interested in a woman,” he growled, pushing her up against the edge of the island anchored in center of the kitchen. His body was hard and hot as he forced hers to yield beneath his. “This is the way he looks at her,” he rasped out. His eyes were half-closed as he looked down on her, his keen gaze locked on her lips as he studied her mouth with intense interest. “This is the way he touches her,” he murmured as he caught her chin in his palm. “And this is the way he kisses her.”

  Chapter Three

  Tavia held her breath as Bolt angled his golden gaze down over her lips. His fingertips trapped her face in an iron cage as his thumbs stroked into the corners of her mouth. Her lips responded to the tender stimulus, swelling with anticipation, parting to give him entrance as a longing wisp of sound escaped her lips.

  With her face caught in the uncompromising steel of his calloused hands, Bolt handled her with surprising gentleness. Tavia had never felt so fragile, so treasured, so…feminine. She felt his other hand slide around to the back of her neck as he cupped her nape. Slowly, he lowered his mouth across hers.

  He rubbed his wet mouth across hers in a slow, teasing pass. She felt his breath against her lips, warm and enticing. For an instant she caught a taste of his rough, masculine flavor. Words couldn’t come close to describing what happened next. Bolt’s lips crushed down on hers like an avalanche and Tavia just hung on for dear life as his mouth dominated hers with a mixture of soft and wet and overpoweringly insistent male.

  His tongue took her mouth immediately, forging between her teeth and sliding in a hot, sensuous scrape against her own. Stunned beneath the dominance of his kiss, Tavia held her breath for a very long time before she finally heard him gasp and reposition his mouth over hers. She sucked in a breath at the same time. The dark heat of his mouth moved against hers in a slide of wet lips and thrusting tongue as a deep growl of hunger vibrated within his chest. His body moved against hers in a hard surging wave—slow, sensuous, suggestive and very, very demanding. She melted against him, riding a heady wave of arousal, feeling soft and pliable.

  Ready.

  I-want-a-man-and-I-want-him-now ready.

  His open palms brushed down her arms on the way to her waist. With his hands gripping her middle, he hitched her backside up onto the edge of the island, forcing her legs to open for his hips, pressing between her legs—all without breaking the branding kiss that dominated her mouth. His blunt fingers dug into the cushion of her bottom as he held her into his groin and ground the long, thick line of his erection into the fleshy seam between her legs. She could feel his cock stiffen and grow as he shoved his sex against the pout of her parted pussy. Her sex warmed for him—softened and moistened and thrummed with a dark, eager hunger.

  He broke from her suddenly, panting roughly. “Shall I go on?” His eyes narrowed on her swollen lips. As if he couldn’t resist, he leaned forward again, his lips crowding briefly against hers as he bit at her lower lip. “Shall I?” he demanded.

  Dazed, she stared up at him. Without thinking, she nodded.

  He growled a rough burst of laughter against her neck. His hands slid beneath her skirt and up her thighs, working the flimsy fabric up her legs. “You sure? Do you want me to show you how a man fucks a woman when he’s interested in her, Tavia? Because that’s what comes next, baby doll. Are you ready? Just let me know,” he murmured in a wash of damp heat against her ear. “Because I can get my cock out of these sweatpants before you can say ‘fuck me now’.”

  Tavia heard the kitchen door creak on its hinges then stared, alarmed, into Bolt’s eyes. He focused his malicious, golden gaze on the door behind her. Beneath the thin material of her skirt, his hands tightened on her backside—a clear message that he didn’t intend to give up a single inch to the man who stood behind her.

  Alex.

  Bolt cleared his throat. “Sorry about the slacks, Alex. Let me know if you need help getting your car started.”

  Alex’s voice was cold behind her. “Are you trying to tell me something, Hardin?”

  “Yeah, I am.” Bolt laughed, low and wicked. “I don’t know what you had planned for tonight, but you might find it a bit crowded in Tavia’s bed.”

  “Fuck you.” Sweeping across the stone-tiled floor, Alex jerked the exterior door open. He shot a look of vehemence back at Tavia as he stood with his hand wrapped around the doorknob. “Tavia,” he ground out between clenched teeth, “you don’t even know this guy.”

  She stared at him blankly.

  Alex stalked through the door then slammed it behind him.

  As the door banged closed, Bolt’s cock pulsed against Tavia’s pussy—a virile, male declaration of victory, claiming the right to the space between her legs.

  She burrowed her face against his shoulder as she stifled a moan of anguish. Her cheeks were burning up in shame.

  Bolt’s gaze was slanted toward the exterior door. “Don’t go away mad,” he muttered in a pleased, dark murmur.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Tavia moaned. “I’ve been going out with Alex for months.”

  “You wasted months on that guy?”

  “I’ve only known you…Jesus. I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  He nuzzled his mouth against her neck, initiating a sharp shimmer of desire. The wanton sensation flashed over the surface of her skin, wrapping around her aching nipples and scraping at the nerve endings enclosed within the wet heat of her pussy.

  “Come on, Tavia. You knew you were going to do this. You knew it back on the highway when you decided I could spend the night in your home.”

  “What?” she said slowly as Bolt dragged his teeth around the shell of her ear. “What?” she repeated in a cold, incisive word. She felt him stiffen.

  He stopped mouthing her ear as he regarded her warily.

  “So you just figured a girl like me would be glad to have sex with a guy like you.”

  “Most women are,” he argued with an arrogant roll of his shoulders.

  “But you figured a girl like me would jump at the chance.”

  Like a thin beam of molten fire, his eyes narrowed on her. “Exactly what are you getting at, Tavia?”

  “You figured that because I’m big, I’d jump at the chance to have sex with you.”

  For several seconds he regarded her quietly. “Oh hell,” he finally drawled, “you’re not that big. I’ve laid bigger women than you.”

  “You have?” she blurted out.

  “Yeah. I like big women. They’re great to fuck. ‘The more the cushion, the better the—’”

  Her mouth gaped open. “You’re such a pig.”

  “No kidding,” he murmured against her ear.

  She tried to ignore the dazzling warmth of his breath on her skin. “So you don’t mind having sex with a woman my size.”

  His lips nipped at the flesh beneath her ear. “Nope.”

  “But you’d never consider marrying a woman like that. A woman like me!”

  “I’ve got news for you, baby doll. I wouldn’t consider marrying anyone.”

  “And I’ve got news for you! Alex would!”

  He shoved himself away from her. “Fine!” he shouted. “So marry the guy if you can’t do any better. It’s no skin off my dick.”

  “Can’t do any better? You are the most conceited, most arrogant man I have ever met in my lifetime.”

  He settled against the counter opposite her, folding his thick arms over his wide chest as he directed a lazy smile between her legs. “Get used to it.”

  Tavia snapped her knees together. “You’re wrong,” she told him point blank. “I had no intention of sleeping with you tonight. I had planned on sleeping with Alex tonight!”

  He lifted one shoulder. “Sorry I ruined your plans,” he drawled, sounding not the least bit sorry. His eyes drifted down her legs and fixed on her feet. “You going to wear those shoes for me now?”

  “What?”

  “You promi
sed you’d wear the ankle-straps for me.”

  She shook her head in disbelief as she followed his gaze down her legs to the plain navy pumps on her feet.

  He lifted his gaze slowly to connect with hers. “Are you the sort of woman who breaks her promises?”

  “No, of course not, but—”

  Grasping her wrist in his iron fist, he dragged her off the counter, through the kitchen door, across the dining room, living room and down the hall.

  “Bolt!” she cried. “You’re hurting me!”

  He loosed her wrist as though he’d been stung. While he was stunned, Tavia collected the open doors of her bedroom, slipped through the doorway and slammed them shut behind her.

  “Tavia! I’m sorry, Tavia. Are you all right?”

  On the other side of the doors, Tavia slumped against the red-painted surface that separated her from Bolt. “I’m all right,” she sighed, feeling as guilty as Bolt sounded. Although he had held her wrist firmly, he hadn’t come close to hurting her. Which meant the big lug nut had probably taken special care not to hurt her.

  His muffled voice was deep and troubled. “Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “No, Bolt. I just. It’s just that…you’re wrong. I didn’t bring you home with me so I could sleep with you.”

  There was a lengthy silence on the other side of the door. “I’m sorry,” he repeated in a contrite rumble. The antique glass doorknobs rattled. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  Leaning against the door, Tavia’s lips drooped as she watched the beveled glass doorknobs. She felt so damn sad. She hadn’t brought Bolt home to get him into bed, despite the fact that she wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea after that kiss in the kitchen. But the man’s arrogant assumption was so damn annoying. What a conceited ass. Most women are, she mimicked his response in her mind. Most women are just crawling all over me begging me to fuck them. Why did he have to rub her face in it? Why were men such pricks? Why the hell was she stuck on the wrong side of these doors?