Page 3 of Flirting With Disaster

Her mouth dropped as The Beast’s smirk widened into a full-out, condescending grin. His teeth were remarkably white—Hollywood, toothpaste-ad, white. She squinted and looked a little closer at his canines for extrusive points. “Are you a…vampire?” she slurred.

Jude Duffy never slurred her words. She hiccupped, and quickly covered her mouth. Maybe The Beast/Count could use those beautiful, sharp, white teeth on Evan’s cheating penis.

She laughed into her hand. Needing a respite, she stood to leave, but her foot tangled with the leg of the stool. Her body tilted, the floor approached…

A muscular arm wrapped around her waist and righted her descent.

Nailed it.

His alluring scent wrapped her in a cocoon of seduction that was completely unfamiliar. “Maybe I should escort you.”

Escort. Is that what Count Vampire was? A male escort supplied by the Castle to entertain plain, boring spinsters like her? “Is that your game, sir? Are you planning on taking advantage of me, by ravishing me to satisfy your primal urges for sexual satiation?”

His grin mocked her. Her hand rose to touch the offensive brute’s bladed, scarred cheekbone, an insatiable need to assess the contradiction of perfection and destruction. His features froze, a portrait of impassioned torment. She quickly recovered and clenched her fingers.

He stepped back, the movement so fluid she was momentarily drawn toward him. “No ravishing tonight, Ms. Darling,” he stated blandly. “Consider me only your polite escort. Management rules.”

Jude tried to organize his words in her foggy brain, but she kept getting mired in his thick, masculine purr. “So, you’re an escort? A male escort? And you are rejecting me based on management rules?”

Her virgin-self, damned the management. So unlike her. Dr. Jude Duffy was polite, polished, and poised. She tucked a fallen lock of hair back into her tight bun. Her life was perfectly ordered. It was safest that way.

“It’s for the best.” His features gave nothing of his thoughts away. “Trust me.”

“Fine.” Insulted, she slung her Nina Ricci bucket bag over her shoulder. She took one step and found the floor wasn’t as level as she’d expected. It was an old castle.

Count Beast steadied her again with the agility of an athlete. His touch electrified her. The tingling vectors shot through her body like a lightning storm. It was…mystifying. Familiar in a way no stranger’s touch should be, yet utterly compelling. She melted into his arms, wanting to stay there forever, his spicy scent enveloping her in a fog of comfort, need, and…lust.

Just how un-orderly could the resident gigolo, Beast-Count make her life? Because, incontestably, order and management hadn’t done shit for her up to this point.

She righted herself and teetered toward the exit before any other frivolous, foreign feelings invaded.

A burst of laughter shot from a group of three couples, sitting abreast the huge stone fireplace, surveying a cell phone in harmony. “How the hell did she not know? Just look at him. He’s wearing blush and he’s prettier than my first wife!”

She stopped in her tracks and her ass landed on the nearest barstool. “Steven! Another iced tea, please. No, scratch that. I need something stronger. Give me that Screaming Orgasm from a Fucking Rock Bear!”

And Jude Duffy never cursed.

Two

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”

Albert Einstein

What the hell was she doing here?

Fate was a villainous bitch.

Beckette Slader let the cold water cascade over his body, hoping it would calm the massive erection he’d acquired ever since meeting prim, proper, Jude Darling Duffy.

He’d recognized her immediately, but he had no business approaching her tonight. No right to infect her life, once again, with the specter of his noxiousness. That was his cross to bear.

He’d ruined her future long ago, unbeknownst to her. He wouldn’t do it again.

So why had he approached her? Why was he so drawn to her after

only one, short meeting?

He’d never been attracted to gingers. He hadn’t been attracted to any woman in forever. That flaming red hair, bolted to her head like a sniper’s helmet. How was it she didn’t have a massive headache? The pale skin, the freckles—he hated freckles—and those slanty green eyes? She resembled an evil, orange tabby.

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