NICE GIRL TO LOVE (THE COMPLETE THREE-BOOK COLLECTION)(19)

She had to stop. He couldn’t take much more of her innate niceness; he didn’t deserve it, didn’t have the first clue what to do with it. “Oddly enough, I do want to talk about my case with you. Hell, I want to share my whole day with you. Which is why I need to do this.” So quickly it surprised even him, he swooped onto the couch and lowered his mouth down to hers.

Just one taste.

He just wanted one little taste before his hunger got out of control. Before he started craving things he couldn’t truly have.

Like a nice girl he had no business wanting.

He stopped himself mere seconds before his lips made contact though...shut his eyes and took a steadying breath. Then another. And then finally backed away.

Christ, that was close.

But just when he’d gotten a handle on his roiling emotions, just when he thought he could be the good guy for a change, he felt two gentle hands smooth over the sides of his face.

And he was lost.

Because that was when she kissed him. Just once. Softly. Not at all like how he’d intended to kiss her, not at all like he normally kissed, period.

Yet it was the most memorable kiss he’d ever experienced.

“Just because we can’t have sex doesn’t mean you can’t keep trying to convince me otherwise,” she murmured against his lips.

Hot damn. Everything male in him lit up to all systems go. He blinked down at her smiling face, not sure whether to be amused or turned on. Past experience dictated the two were mutually exclusive emotions for him. Not so with Abby. “You’re that confident in your ability to resist me?”

“Of course not. But resisting you and sticking to what I say I’m going to do are two completely different things.”

“How do you figure?”

“I could, and very likely may fail at the first, but there isn’t anything you could possibly do to make me fail at the second.”

Brushing his lips gently against hers in a barely-there tease for them both, he whispered back in a thick voice he hardly recognized, “Challenge accepted.” He’d never been good with folks telling him there was something he couldn’t do.

She smiled. “I was simply stating a fact. But if you want to take it as a challenge, feel free. Just so you know, if you do, it becomes a two-way street.” So saying, she slid open those long curvy legs of hers and pulled him flush against her body. “Still up for the challenge?”

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

A second later, she was kissing him again and he definitely wasn’t sure. The way she kissed. Hell. It wasn’t that she did some fancy new tongue trick or anything like that. It was just…nice. And outrageously arousing.

“I better go pack,” she said abruptly, pulling away well before he was ready for the kiss to end. “I’ll see you in the morning, Connor. Thanks for being my dinner company tonight. It was fun for me, too.” With that, she gave him a final kiss goodbye and stood up, by all accounts in total control of her senses.

Unlike him.

Well, shoot. There was a chance this was going to be a lot harder than he thought.



“So tell me, this bad boy reputation of yours—did it start in your personal life and bleed over into the courtroom or vice versa?”

Connor frowned as he helped Abby carry the last of her luggage up to his biggest guestroom, the only one that could accommodate the huge desk he’d relocated from his study.

At first, when she’d arrived at his house with three gigantic suitcases, he’d been shocked and a bit disillusioned. She hadn’t seemed the type. But now that he saw them each flipped open and filled to the brim with books and folders, and stacks of Xeroxed sheets and scribbled notes, he realized the small duffle bag on her shoulder was the only thing not carrying her research.

Now that seemed much more Abby.

He belatedly considered the question she’d asked. “That depends on who’s doing the commenting about my reputation, I guess. Why?”

“I just wanted to see how accurate I was. Seems you have an unofficial coalition who thinks your licentious ways are going to be your downfall at the firm. I argued it couldn’t possibly be, not with those very qualities being the ones that turned you into the kickass lawyer that’s probably bringing in more money than over half the other lawyers there.” She smirked at the memory. “I don’t think those women like me very much now.”

He leaned against the dresser and scowled, upset not on his behalf but hers. “Who were they? Was this on the night of the cocktail party?”

“Yup. A small group of corporate wives, one of whom I think might be an actual vampire, all rushed over to warn me away from you almost immediately after they saw you talking to me.”

He discharged an irritated breath. Cassandra and her minions. She was more a shewolf than a vampire but it was still an apt description. She certainly had a reputation for sucking men dry. Why his colleague Edward had thought it prudent to become husband number three for her was a complete mystery. “I don’t get why those women gossip about me. I’m not really all that interesting.”

“They seem to disagree. They went on and on about pool hall brawls and sex clubs.”

He rolled his eyes. “The first is only partly true and the second not at all.”

“Aw. Brian will be so disappointed,” she teased. “He’s been making cracks about all your sexual conquests for at least the last decade or so.”