Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 53764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
She reached down and began digging around in a purse that was almost as old and battered as her car. When she successfully located what she was looking for, she handed it over to him through the window.
Marco noticed a few things immediately when he took her license. Her name was Natalie Lambert and she wasn't nearly as young as she appeared at first glance. She was twenty-four. The moment he calculated her age from her date of birth, he felt an internal shift in his body temperature. She wasn't a girl; she was a woman, and he looked her over again before reading the rest of her information, wondering what it was about her that made her appear so young. Now that he knew her age, it was easy to see. The rest of the information was basic. She was from out of town, her eyes were blue, she was an organ donor, and her height was five foot three.
Fuck--five foot three.
He'd always had a thing for small women. He'd deny it to his grave, but he had a basic, visceral reaction to them, especially those like the one in front of him with soft silky hair who looked helpless in the extreme. It was a knee-jerk, caveman reaction, but he couldn't shake it. Yeah, it was something he'd never, ever admit to. It wasn't politically correct, there wasn't anything intellectual about it, it had basic written all over it, but there it fucking was. It was a compulsion he almost always fought, because he didn't want his sexual partners to get too close to him. But there was no doubt that his fantasies always included a petite partner, and the thought of sliding into a narrow, tiny opening never failed to arouse him.
It was arousing him now as he looked down at her sitting demurely and nervously behind the wheel of her car, waiting on him to make a decision that might impact her life.
Incendiary heat rushed through his veins.
He couldn't see much of her behind those damn glasses and short of asking her to remove them, there wasn't anything he could do at the moment to see her better. Her hair, medium length, was a mess and just an average, brownish color, but she was looking up at him with a soft trembling of her incredibly full lips, and although he was pissed about his car, he was fighting a hard-on big time--and a goddamn urge to protect her from the mess she had created for herself.
He shook his head at his own reaction to her. This was absolutely not what he needed right now.
He turned away from her to look at the traffic and then turned back again, letting out a pent-up breath. "Here's what we're going to do. We're going to pull into that parking lot over there and figure this out. If you have a problem with that, I'm calling the police."
"No, I don't have a problem. I'll follow you," she agreed quickly.
Marco pocketed her license instead of returning it to her, turned to his car and with economical movements slid behind the wheel and eased back into the flow of traffic.
He watched the rear-view mirror carefully for any sign that she might bolt, but she seemed to be following him as promised.
****
Natalie breathed a sigh of temporary relief and followed the jaw-dropping, incredibly handsome man in the suit to the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express that was off the feeder directly across from where they had collided. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. At least there was a chance she wouldn't be getting a citation. She hoped, anyway. Unless he changed his mind.
She pulled in beside him and tried to brush the wrinkles from her shirt as she climbed from the car. He was already standing between their cars, talking into his phone, and she tried to listen unobtrusively to the conversation he was having. It appeared he wasn't on the phone with the police, thank God, but was speaking to someone about cancelling his afternoon appointments.
Damn. She'd made him miss something that was probably important. Another bad point against her. Could this get any worse? Her life sucked right now. So badly. "F.M.L," she muttered under her breath as he was ending his call.
He turned to face her with what seemed to be a perpetual scowl on his granite features. "I'm sorry?"
"Nothing." She blushed.
"Answer me. What'd you just say?" His eyes had narrowed on her.
"F.M.L," she repeated softly. At his blank look, she continued in a stronger voice, "You know, eff my life?" God, now he was going to think she was crude. Just a ridiculous, stupid woman who didn't know how to drive and had the vocabulary of a sailor. Way to go, Natalie.
He frowned as his eyes ran over her. "I haven't heard that one."