Rhonda Nelson – Blazing Bedtime Stories, Volume IX: The Equalizer (страница 9)

Frankly, only the possibility of doing more harm than good for the clinic had kept her from taking a more forceful approach to collecting the outstanding pledges. Robin was better connected, better insulated and could do much more in that regard than she could.

She nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll meet you there.” This was a slippery slope and she was clinging determinedly to the edge. She didn’t trust herself enough to allow him another home visit. Intuition told her if Robin crossed her threshold again, he’d be doing more than breaching her inner sanctum, he’d be invading—with her full cooperation—her bedroom, as well.

From the moment she’d seen him last night, every bit of forgotten longing and unresolved sexual frustration had boiled to the surface, making her feel feverish and jittery, spun up and wound tight. Like a coiled spring ready to snap. Every moment spent in his company only compounded the issue and eroded what little remained of her self-control.

Robin stilled for a fraction of a second, his easy smile turning brittle. “I’ve just invited you to the Red Ball and you said yes. It’s a date, Marion,” he explained with exaggerated patience. “I’ll pick you up.”

The breath in her lungs thinned. A date? Well, yes, by that definition she supposed it was. Her head spun. A date. Right. She cleared her throat, tried to gather her fractured thoughts. “Part of the service, is it?” she asked, her voice weak.

He smiled, the corner of his mouth hitching into that grin she couldn’t resist. “In a manner of speaking.”

A date …

God help her. She was so going to need some divine intervention.

WELL, THAT CERTAINLY HADN’T gone as planned, Robin thought as Marion led him through the clinic. Though he could tell she’d made various improvements and, as usual, had everything as efficient and streamlined as possible, he could barely hear her from the noise in his own head.

Date? Yes, he’d asked her to go with him to the Red Ball, more as a ploy to get to spend some more time with her—and to show off, if he was honest, because he’d devised some pretty devious ways to get people to part with their promised money—he hadn’t actually meant it to be a genuine honest-to-goodness date.

At least, he didn’t think he did, but at this point, who the hell knew? Perspective—if he’d ever had any to begin with—had gone by the wayside. He just knew that when she’d offered to meet him—meet him, for crying out loud—at the venue … something had just snapped inside him. Her determination to keep him at arm’s length, even when he was trying to help her, galled him to no end.

She might as well have waved a red flag in front of a bull.

While “retreat” might be in other men’s character, it wasn’t in his.

Her little attempt to dodge him only made him want to advance and reload. Made him want to grab hold of the long braid presently bobbing between her shoulder blades and tug her to him, then lick the sweet spot on the back of her neck. She was in another long and flowing dress today, this one a dark purple with a fitted bodice that fully covered her breasts, but somehow managed to display them to perfect advantage anyway. The color accentuated her pale skin, made it glow, even in this horrendous commercial light.

And the way she moved … She didn’t just walk. She glided, head high and swanlike.

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