Fool Me Once: A Bad Girl Romance Read online

  I put the last sheet of paper from my stack into its corresponding employee folder. "What does that mean?"

  She slammed her drawer shut, turning to look at me. "I mean that you look like a stuck-up ass, and I should have just kept my focus on taking your money instead of getting distracted by my own drunken urges-"

  Damn, but she looked really cute when mad. Something about the set of her chin when she planted her hands on her hips seemed to stir something inside of me. The way that she threw back her shoulders in defiance really made her generous chest almost leap out at me, tugging at my eye. I'd kept my gaze up, in safe territory, all night so far.

  But she had honored her promise to me, spent the night doing what I wanted after I won the poker game. Despite that crooked streak, a mile wide, that still ran through her, she'd fulfilled her side of the bargain.

  So as she opened her mouth to keep ripping into me, getting out all her anger, I stepped forward. Her mouth continued to hang slightly open as I moved into her personal space, although the words died on her tongue.

  "What are you-" she began, as I slipped my arms around her.

  "Thanking you," I murmured back, dipping my head down to kiss her.

  She didn't pull away.

  Strangely enough, I'd expected her to taste hot, almost, like the taste was an embodiment of her fiery and combustible personality. Instead, however, she tasted cool and fresh, almost gentle as she first met my lips. Her body was stiff for a second, resisting me, but then melted in against my own, sending another rush of sparks up and down my spine from all those points of delectably soft contact.

  I felt almost hesitant to release her for a moment, fearing that she might haul off and slap me for daring to act so impudently. Indeed, for just an instant, I saw that little wicked gleam in her eyes, promising imminent violence. I held my breath as she opened her mouth.

  "Okay, Mister Aristocratic," she murmured, suddenly flipping into a soft, sensual smile. "That wasn't too awful."

  "What did you call me?" I asked, blinking.

  She just smiled. "You know, the night's not completely over yet. Why don't you take me out and buy me a drink, thank me for doing all of this hard work for you?"

  To be honest, a drink didn't sound too bad right about now. "I suppose that I owe you that much," I admitted. "Shall we get out of here?"

  "Yes, let's." She shuddered, looking around. "You know, I hate even just being here now, after hours. I could never bring myself to work in a place like this."

  "Hey, I work here," I pointed out, although I couldn't bring myself to feel too offended. Honestly, I knew exactly what she meant. "At least it's a steady paycheck."

  "Yeah, in exchange for being chained to a desk," she snorted. Fortunately for me, at least, she hadn't pulled away from me just yet, and her body still nestled very comfortingly against my own. "Doesn't sound like much of a life to me. Get me out of here, before I change my mind about getting that drink with you after all."

  Well, we couldn't have that. Slipping my hand down along the curve of her back, highlighted so delightfully by that tight little dress, I led her back out through the maze of cubicles. Before we reached the elevator, however, Ruby suddenly spun away, darting off towards the huge offices of the executives.

  "Hey!" I burst out, belatedly chasing after her.

  "Wow," she marveled, peering in through the floor to ceiling glass wall that separated one office from the rest of the floor. "Check out this one! Now, if you had an office more like this one, maybe you wouldn't hate your job quite so much!"

  "Not likely," I said, pausing to tap the nameplate on the door. "This particular office belongs to Walker himself."

  "Who?"

  "Karson, Karson Walker," I elaborated. "He's the CEO of IDS, this company." And a huge prick, I added privately to myself.

  Somehow, Ruby managed to at least partially read my mind. "You're not telling me something about him," she guessed, leaning in and blinking brightly up at me.

  I tried my best to keep my big, fat mouth shut, but those long lashes and innocent gaze was impossible to resist. "He's a total ass," I revealed. "Acts like he's God's gift to the world, goes strutting around like he can do no wrong. Whenever our stock price goes up, he claims personal responsibility, but he never hesitates to blame someone else when it takes a dive. It's always everyone else's fault, never his own. If he left his office unlocked..."

  "You'd what? Take a dump on his desk?" Ruby asked, not sounding nearly as put off by the idea as I'd have expected.

  I grinned. "Hah, I'd probably have to wait in line behind every other employee."

  She laughed along with me. A nice laugh, high and filled with genuine happiness. I had to keep on pinching myself, reminding myself about her crooked streak. If I wasn't careful, I suddenly thought to myself, I could easily let my guard down – and she wouldn't miss the opportunity to strike.

  "Okay, drink time," I said after another second of her gazing into Walker's opulently decorated office. "Let's get out of here before the man himself shows up and fires me for daring to look upon all his expensive art."

  Ruby nodded, letting me guide her back to the elevators. I caught her glancing back over her shoulder, once, and that little sixth sense of foreboding inside my head pricked up its ears, suddenly alert.

  Relax, I told the little voice. She's not going to try anything. I'll make sure that she gets out with me tonight, and that will be the end of it.

  Dumb of me, I know now. I should have listened to that little voice, kept my guard up instead of letting Ruby sneak in past my defenses.

  Hindsight is twenty-twenty, I suppose.

  Chapter Eleven

  DANE

  *

  Twenty minutes later, I'd forgotten all about that little warning voice in my head and, much to my own surprise, I was having a good time with Ruby!

  I know, I know, such a shocker. Don't act quite so surprised.

  After we got out of the IDS building in downtown, I brought Ruby over to a favorite bar of mine – one with a lot less noise and scheming than DeMarco's turned out to contain. This place, known as The Local, was a quieter watering hole with a diehard group of regulars. Their combined glares and surliness kept away most of the younger crowd, although I'd somehow managed to earn my own acceptance at the place. None of the other drinkers would play against me at billiards, but they greeted me with nods when I entered and always made room for me at the bar.

  "Really? This place?" Ruby wrinkled her nose as I held the door open. "Seems like a bit of a letdown, especially after DeMarco's."

  "Oh, you mean the place where we were almost hustled, and then nearly got killed before managing to escape?" I shot back at her. "Yeah, a quiet and comfortable place to sit and enjoy a drink sounds just way too dull in comparison."

  With any other girl, I would have expected her to get angry or defensive. In fact, I'd already started to brace for Ruby to snap back at me – but instead, she just grinned, suddenly all smiles and happiness once again.

  "Look who's got a smart mouth on him!" she said, slipping past me and into The Local. "Or are you speaking before you think?"

  I wisely decided to say nothing, just following her inside.

  At the sound of the bell ringing above the front door of The Local, the other drinkers had turned to examine the newest arrival. I saw several stormy frowns at the sight of Ruby in her tight little mini-dress, along with a couple looks of hungry, lustful interest. Those men with the lusty looks groaned, however, as I appeared in the doorway behind her.

  "Just Dane, dragging in another girl wildly out of his league," called out an especially big fellow to the bartender, not bothering to even pretend to lower his voice. He flicked his eyes over at me, grinning for a second before wiping his face clean and forcing an expression of disapproval back across his broad features. "What is this, Dane, the fifth one this week?"

  "Ignore him," I told Ruby, giving her a nudge towards the bar. "That's Matt, the local idiot. They ke
ep him around a bit like a court jester, because you know that he's going to say the dumbest lies."

  Matt, who'd easily caught my retort, just shook his head. "It wounds me," he said aloud to no one in particular. "Wounds me deeply, being insulted that way."

  I socked him in his big shoulder as I moved up to the bar beside him. "You know that I can't beat you in a fight, you overgrown lug, so words are all I've got left for fighting."

  It was true; when Matt Nathaniel stood up, he needed to take care that his head didn't scrape on the ceiling. He stood close to seven feet tall, although he was probably the gentlest guy I'd ever met in my life.

  ...gentle, that is, when he wasn't trying to sabotage the first girl I'd taken out for a drink in months.

  I decided to take the high road and ignore any further remarks, instead waving my fingers to Freddie, the bartender. Freddie caught the signal and grabbed a couple heavy pint glasses, filling them up and sliding them down to us.

  "Not some fruity cocktail, so I hope you'll survive," I told Ruby as I handed over her drink.

  Her frown cleared as soon as she took a sip. "Damn, this is good. What brand of beer is this?"

  "Surly, brewed locally," I told her. "Freddie knows that it's my favorite, and it's always on tap here."

  "Well, it's good." She took another pull, and then looked around. "Maybe this place isn't all bad. Are we going to grab a seat?"

  We settled into one of the booths against the back wall, and fell into an easy conversation. Ruby wanted to know more about how I'd pulled the swap with the cards back at the poker game, and after she wriggled close to me a couple times and ran her hands up and down my upper arm, I agreed to dig out a deck and show her. I slowed down the moves that I'd practiced over the years until her eyes could follow each move.

  "Wow, that's great," she exclaimed, clapping her hands together at the vanished card as if I'd pulled a rabbit out of a hat. "Can I try?"

  "Sure, but it's tough to get the hang of at first-"

  The rest of my sentence died in my throat as Ruby expertly flipped the card out of her palm and back against her wrist. Since she didn't have any sleeves, it promptly dropped back down onto the table, but she'd executed the maneuver perfectly.

  She smiled sweetly up at me. "I guess I'm a quick learner," she replied to my stunned expression. "Got any other tricks for me to master?"

  "None that I want to show you, now," I answered. "You're going to steal them!"

  Her smile grew wider as she leaned in against me. "Not likely. I only steal from people who deserve it."

  "And you're saying that I don't deserve to get robbed?" I asked. "Because that's not what you were telling me earlier tonight."

  'That was before you bought me a drink." And kissed you, my mind added privately in my head. Ruby kept on leaning in against me, however, making it very tough to focus on her words. "Now, it's getting late. So what do you want to do next?"

  "You know, I'm not quite sure," I shot back. "How about we get to know each other a little better? Why don't you tell me something about yourself?"

  I saw Ruby's mouth turn into a pout at the question. She'd been expecting me to want to get to know her a little better in a much different way.

  Okay, and to be honest, I really did also want to get to know her in a carnal sense. I'd been straining to be the good guy all night, not staring at her and fantasizing about doing all sorts of nasty, despicable things to that wonderful body that she insisted on putting on such blatant display.

  But I wasn't going to let her know that. So instead I just smiled and waited for her to lie about herself.

  After a second, however, she shrugged, seemingly not bothered by my prying into her personal life. "I mean, I'm a pretty average story," she said, looking down at the scarred wooden table in front of us. "Just your everyday girl who couldn't figure out what she wanted to do with life, so she started working out how to keep herself alive. Pretty soon, I realized that I was a lot better at helping myself along than I ever would be at some job – and besides, I couldn't bear the thought of sticking myself behind some desk for eight hours and answering to stupid customers." She spread her arms out wide for a moment before dropping them back down on the table. "And it seems to be working pretty well for me so far."

  "Except for losing a bet and getting stuck filing papers for several hours," I countered.

  Her mouth quirked up a little at one corner. It was a very cute smile, especially because I knew that it was real, and she was trying – and failing – to hide it. "True. Except for that, that sucked."

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but she beat me to it this time. "And what about you?" she asked, turning and regarding me. "You seem like a pretty clean-cut, average guy. Nice and dull, just what most girls want to bring home to their parents."

  "Thanks, I think."

  "So why are you hustling with card tricks? Where'd you pick those up? Seems like there's a story there." She grinned, and this time she was the one sizing me up to see whether I'd lie or tell the truth.

  The truth it was – although not all of it, naturally. "I had a bit of a sketchy past," I revealed. "Maybe a little bit like yours. But I decided that I was going to go straight, get out of that life before it ended up killing me. So I happily went to my desk job, and never looked back."

  "Really?" she challenged. "Never looked back? And so you just happen to still know all your old card tricks because you've got a perfect memory? And you wanted me to file all those papers for you because you were trying to show me how great it can be to work as a mindless drudge in an office?"

  "Exactly." My own smile widened. "Did it work?"

  "Not even remotely." She raised a finger and tapped on my chest. "And I think that there are some more secrets in there, ones that you aren't telling me."

  "Well, if there are – and I'm not saying anything – you're going to need to wait for them to come out on their own." I looked down at where her finger still lay against my chest, nestled in between my pecs through the fabric of my button-up shirt. It wasn't thick enough to keep me from feeling the warmth of her touch. "And you can't dig them out, either."

  She didn't take her hand away. She let it slip to press flatly against my chest instead, leaning in closer. "You know, I've nearly finished my beer," she murmured.

  I looked at the glass still sitting in front of her, nearly three-quarters full. "Uh huh."

  "And it's very late, and I'm very tired."

  That part was true. Any moment now, Freddie would ring the bell to mark last call, and all the regulars would groan as they finished off their drinks and headed out into the night. But I just kept waiting, looking down at Ruby.

  Finally, her lips turned up. "And I was going to stay with my friend Kelsey, but you dragged me off, away from her, when we went running out of the club. Her apartment's a long way away. I don't know what I'll do for accommodations tonight..."

  I knew exactly what she was getting at – but I wasn't going to say no. That rush of carnal hunger came surging back up inside my chest, even stronger than before. I knew, I told myself, that Ruby was just using me, but so what? Maybe a part of me wanted to be used. And I suspected that I'd have a very good time getting used by her, especially given the way that her fingers were now rubbing gently against my chest, back and forth.

  "My apartment, as it happens, isn't too far from here at all," I heard myself say.

  Her smile grew wider. "I was hoping that you'd tell me some good news like that."

  Okay. This was happening. But it still didn't mean that Ruby now got to call all of the shots. "But there's one thing that I truly can't abide," I went on. "Do you know what that is?"

  She shook her head. "Falling asleep with a hard-on?" she tried, her glance at my crotch making it abundantly clear that she knew what reaction was happening right now in my pants.

  "Nope." I pointed a finger at her pint glass. "Wasting beer. So we'll go – but not until after you've finished. There are poor sober chil
dren in Africa, after all."

  This got another smile out of her – but this time, it was a genuine smile, one that also crinkled at her eyes and made her whole face light up. I liked those a lot more than her sexy smiles, I decided right then and there.

  "Fine," she said, picking up her beer glass. "No wasting good booze." And as I watched, she gulped down the whole rest of her pint! Somehow, that made her seem even more impressively attractive to me. I liked a girl who could polish off a beer like that.

  I finished off my own beer, stopped at the bar to settle my tab, and then held the door open for Ruby. Some of the regulars hooted and hollered at me as I left, but I didn't acknowledge them – except by raising my middle finger as I let the door swing shut behind me, panning it around the room before the heavy wooden door closed.

  Outside, I saw Ruby shiver a little as the cold night air hit her exposed skin. I peeled off my jacket and slipped it around her.

  "Right this way," I said, steering her towards my apartment.

  Chapter Twelve

  RUBY

  *

  Okay, I admitted to myself. Maybe Dane isn't as bad as I first judged him. Mister Aristocratic seems to at least have some things going for him. A sense of humor, for one thing.

  Oh, and a really nice, incredibly well decorated apartment.

  "This place is yours? Just yours, not shared with, like, a million roommates?" I asked as I turned around, taking in the interior. "Are you secretly related to the Queen, or the illegitimate son of some billionaire?"

  Dane laughed, returning from the kitchen with two glasses in his hands. "Afraid not," he said, passing one of the glasses to me. "In fact, I've done a lot of this by myself."

  "What, like with power tools and stuff? Super manly things?" I took the glass and lifted it to my lips, but frowned at the taste. "What is this, water?"

  "Yes, water. And yes, with power tools." Dane shrugged. "I like working with my hands."