The Last Groom On Earth. Kristin James
And the IRS could be off track. Unfortunately they usually manage to run something down.”
Angela sighed. “I’m beginning to feel paranoid.”
“The IRS can do that to you.”
“I tell myself that if we haven’t done anything wrong, we don’t have anything to worry about. But they’re making me jittery. I keep thinking that somewhere we must have made a mistake and I just can’t see it. That’s why I told Mother the other day. I shouldn’t have…I knew it would worry her.”
“I’m sure she was glad you told her. She wants to help you.”
“I know. And she always expects that she’ll have to. That’s what makes it so galling.” Angela grimaced. “I hate to screw up in front of her.”
Bryce looked amazed. “But Marina’s very patient and understanding about mistakes. That’s why she’s such a wonderful teacher.”
“Yeah, well, it’s probably different when you’re a student rather than her daughter. When I didn’t understand things in math, she acted like I was being purposely obstructive. She couldn’t believe that I didn’t get it. Finally she came to realize that I really didn’t understand these things that seemed so obvious to her. Then she’d get this—I don’t know, distressed sort of look in her eyes. And I’d know that I disappointed her. I think she was afraid that I was mentally impaired.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bryce said gruffly.
Angela glared at him. How could she have forgotten that she was talking to the man who thought Marina Hewitt could do no wrong? “I wouldn’t have expected you to understand.”
“Your prejudice is appalling.” He got up and strode across the room to where she stood.
“I’m not prejudiced!” Angela retorted, stung.
“I’m sure you’re not about all the politically correct things, but you most definitely are about people who are logical or mathematical. You presume that if a person understands numbers, they don’t understand anything else, that they’re emotionless robots. Being logical doesn’t mean that you can’t understand feelings.”
“You, I’m sure, are in touch with your feelings.” It galled her for him to lecture her, as if she were still a child.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re too stiff and uptight to even know that you have feelings. Look at you…here it is…six o’clock, in your hotel room, and you’re still wearing a tie—knotted at the top! I’m surprised you even took off your suit jacket. You were the same when you were nineteen, too. Stiff, dry, logical. You looked at my friends and me playing in the pool like we were creatures from another planet. And when I played a joke on you, you never even got mad. Any normal person would have blown up, but you just got stiffer and quieter. No doubt it wasn’t logical to get mad.”
Bryce stared at her in disbelief. “What should I have done? Tell my hostess’s child what a spoiled brat she was? Of course I held my tongue. To have said anything would have been hurtful to Marina. No doubt you think it’s ridiculous to be courteous.”
“Of course not!” Red flamed in Angela’s cheeks. She felt foolish and embarrassed and oddly hurt by his opinion of her. “But you can be courteous and still be capable of human emotions. You don’t have to be a statue like you.”
Bryce knew that was how she saw him, as a bloodless, passionless person, more a wax figure than a man. The idea infuriated him, all the more so because right now his blood was thrumming through his veins and even as they fought he could not stop thinking how desirable she looked. Angela was thoroughly annoying, but some elemental instinct in him wanted her, and that fact was as irritating as she was.
Suddenly, surprising himself as much as her, Bryce reached out and grabbed her shoulders. Angela froze in astonishment, staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes as he pulled her to him and took her mouth in a long, searing kiss.
His lips were hot and demanding; his tongue slid along the seal of her lips, seeking entrance. Angela shivered, her knees amazingly weak, and opened her mouth to his seeking tongue. It was not a sweet kiss; it burned with anger and resentment…and passion. There was nothing emotionless or saintly about him now. His body curved around hers, his arms pressing her into his hard chest and thighs, and the heat was enveloping, enervating. His mouth possessed hers as if by right, his tongue exploring, challenging.
Angela sagged against him, and her fingers dug into his shirt in the back as she clung to him. His kiss made her tremble, made her forget who he was and what he was to her. She tasted the driving hunger that aroused her own, and she wanted more. Her tongue wound around his, stroking and seeking. She felt his breath shuddering out, hot upon her cheek, and his kiss gentled, no longer demanding, but coaxing and enticing her. His hand stroked up and down her back, pressing her into him. Angela wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to his kiss.
Bryce’s lips moved over Angela’s, deliciously firm and warm. His hand slid down her body and onto her hip, then slowly back up. His thumb brushed against the side of her breast, sending a quiver of desire through her abdomen.
He lifted his mouth, but only to change the slant of his kiss. His kiss deepened; his tongue invaded her mouth. Angela answered eagerly, tasting the dark, silky pleasures of his mouth. She felt weak and strangely helpless, not like herself at all, but somehow the feeling was pleasurable as well as scary, as if she were about to step onto a wild ride at an amusement park or enter a new adventure. She wrapped her arms around Bryce’s neck, clinging to him.
For a long moment they were lost in intense pleasure, their mouths locked together, their bodies straining against each other. Then there was a knock on the door, breaking into the enchantment, and a bored voice drawled, “Room Service.”
Angela jumped, startled, and her lip came into painful contact with Bryce’s teeth. She stepped back, one hand pressed to her smarting lip, and stared at Bryce dazedly. This couldn’t be happening. Bryce Richards had just kissed her—and she had enjoyed it.
“Room service,” the disembodied voice repeated outside the door, and Bryce jerked into movement.
“Yes. Coming.” He started toward the door.
Angela cast a wild look around the room, then sank into a chair, pushing her hands back into her thick, curling hair. She tried to pull her thoughts back into some semblance of order while Bryce dealt with the hotel employee.
She had done some impulsive things in her life, but it occurred to her that this was probably the worst. Bryce Richards disliked her; he hadn’t kissed her because he was attracted to her. He had done it because she had made him mad. He had done it to establish that he was in control, to prove her wrong. She had insulted him, more or less accused him of being without passion, and he, of course, had to show her that he was not.
And she, like an idiot, had responded to his kiss! Angela couldn’t imagine what was wrong with her that she had acted that way. He was handsome, of course—in a cold way, she reminded herself—but he was all the things she disliked in a man: a staid workaholic with no sense of humor, a man who did things only because they made sense. She could not imagine Bryce Richards, skipping a day of work to go out and have a picnic. He was the sort of man who would bring a woman flowers because that was the accepted thing to do, but he would never think of surprising her with some odd little present that had irresistibly reminded him of her. He would make plans for an evening and follow them to the letter. In short, he was the sort of man with whom she would be bored in an hour or two—no matter how much she might feel an utterly inexplicable physical attraction to him.
It also occurred to Angela that right now Bryce was probably regretting what he had