All right. Here goes nothing….
* * *
The elevator chimed, and Julian glanced up from the bar and almost dropped the bottle of wine he’d been examining. It was a Penfolds Grange Hermitage 1951—so rare and prized, only twenty bottles were left in the entire world, with the last having sold at auction for almost fifty thousand dollars.
But who cared about that now?
Because an exotic-looking creature resembling Molly had just stepped off the elevator, and something that felt like a paddle struck him in the chest, the gut and right between his straining eyeballs.
Holy mama.
He’d though this morning had been tough, watching that redheaded little package prance around in an old T-shirt of his with those curvy bare legs begging to be stroked.
And now…
He was certain that never in his life, after dating models, actresses and even a pampered princess, had he been as fired up by the sight of a woman as he was this instant, watching Molly Devaney and her pinup body walk toward him in that minuscule black dress.
She looked like a sexpot. A sex goddess. A sex bomb. Awakening every Neanderthal instinct inside of him.
Julian could hardly take her all in with one long sweep of his eyes, he was so dumbstruck.
Her titian hair was drawn back into some sort of careless knot, but several soft wisps escaped to frame her lovely face, the overall look enhancing the delicacy of her doll-like features. Her lovely, heart-shaped lips shone with a peach-colored gloss, and whatever silver-gray shade of eye shadow she’d worn made her eyes look even rounder and bluer than usual. Her earrings were small pearly dots, unlike her usual flashy chandelier style, and they made her look so elegant he wanted to fly her to Monaco on his jet right now and seat her next to him at a baccarat table.
Then the dress. Ahh, the dress. The satiny black fabric fell from her nape to drape over a pair of beautiful round breasts he’d kill to taste while the plunging neckline revealed inches and inches of smooth porcelain skin in the cleavage between. The skirt was barely a couple of inches long, and it hugged her rounded hips like Lycra. Suddenly he wanted to be that skirt. That dress. That cloth that molded to her and felt her and hugged her and practically rode those curves all over the place.
Molly had always been the funniest baby, the happiest baby he’d ever seen in his life. She cackled all the time. Especially with him. Now she was entirely, 100 percent, take-me-serious woman. And Julian was primed to stop mucking around with her and ready to do some serious, serious things with her. Aww, crap!
This was going to be a long night.
Schooling his expression, he set the wine bottle down and noticed his hand wasn’t so steady. Not while his heart was doing vaults and backflips. “Is something wrong with your usual clothes, Molls?” He was amazed his voice made it past his dry throat.
“As a matter of fact, yes.” She planted her hands on her hips, thrusting her chin up in a silent dare. “They’re not sophisticated and sexy, according to you.”
He cocked a brow and remained silent, mentally deliberating what in the world to do now. A part of him wanted to escort this impostor out the door and demand to know where his red-haired, paint-streaked imp was. And another part was just thinking of how good this woman would look in his bedroom. Splayed open
on his bed…where he would give her a goddamned hickey that would sting like hell tomorrow…
Okay, no.
No.
He was not doing any of that.
Not so soon and not like this.
But hell, had she actually picked this dress for Garrett?
His jaw locked in wordless jealousy, his eyes so starved they felt like Ping-Pong balls as they went from her prominent cleavage to her narrow waist to her sexy stilettos and back to the enticing swell of her breasts and to her slim, sleek arms. A torch blazed inside his chest and the heat quickly spread to every corner of his tense body. “You call that sophisticated and sexy?” he asked gruffly.
Yeah. It was definitely sophisticated and it was so damned sexy his eyes were about to burst. But it was also practically nonexistent. And he told her so.
She stuck her little pink tongue out at him. “Eat your heart out, Jules. I look good.”
He was not even going to think of all the places he wanted to feel that little tongue. Really. “Good is not the word I’d use.”
“All right. I look amazing,” Molly countered.
“Says who? You?”