One Wild Wedding Night_ All the Way - Leslie Kelly [5]
False, as well. He knew that. Just as sure as he knew she was not as aloof as she’d been trying to portray herself to be when he’d first come in.
The woman was interested in being a little wild tonight. She was just unsure, as if this was her first time even thinking about doing something as reckless as picking up a stranger in a bar. Not that he could be sure that’s what she had planned…at least, not until he glanced at her left hand and saw the pale line of untanned skin on her ring finger.
Yes. That pale skin told him she was, indeed, considering a one-night stand. It also told him she was a first timer.
She’d taken off her wedding ring. Not because any guy in a bar with an ounce of testosterone would give a damn that she was married. But because she was already feeling guilty.
Well, she didn’t have anything to feel guilty about. They were just having a friendly drink; she’d done absolutely nothing wrong. Not yet, anyway.
As for the rest of the night? Well, that remained to be seen.
Chapter 2
Gloria Santori knew the incredibly handsome, black-haired man’s name wasn’t Tom. Not any more than hers was really Jennifer.
She also knew she should be feeling a whole lot more nervous than she was. Nervous, guilty, afraid, guilty, self-conscious, guilty. But she didn’t feel anything except excited.
How could she not? She was sitting in a hotel bar, late at night, chatting with a sexy man who’d given her a fake name and who couldn’t take his hot, hungry eyes off her. Oh, yes, she’d seen the look in his dark eyes. He was definitely interested in her. She hadn’t been married and procreating so long that she didn’t recognize pure lust when she saw it.
Lust. She, the harried mommy who was the homeroom mom of her son’s kindergarten class, had inspired heated desire in this big, tall, broad-shouldered hunk.
Nothing would come of it, she knew. She would never have the courage to act on the attraction. But oh, was it nice to feel like a desirable woman again. To be looked at in that way, to almost feel the man’s stare on her face, her throat, the curves of her breasts.
To think, she’d almost missed out on this. She hadn’t planned on coming back downstairs. In fact, she should probably have gone straight to bed to luxuriate in an uninterrupted night’s sleep for a change.
But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d slipped out of her red bridesmaid gown and put on the black dress she’d worn to the rehearsal dinner the night before. She’d come downstairs, heading not for the loud bar she’d seen Vanessa go into earlier, but for the more quiet one.
She’d just wanted one drink. One solitary, grown-up drink in a grown-up place. Wanted to be anonymous and unattached. Wanted to pretend, for just a while, that she wasn’t going to have to express the milk out of her breasts and throw it away to make sure the baby didn’t get himself a little Kahlúa and cream buzz tomorrow.
Then he’d sat down. And drinking alone had no longer been an acceptable option.
“So are you in town on business?” he asked after he’d ordered himself a drink from the waitress.
He’d offered her another one, but she’d refused. The mommy in her might be hiding, shoved out of sight for now, but she was still shouting from deep inside, protesting the thought of wasting all that breast milk.
“No. A wedding,” she admitted, wondering what to be truthful about and when to lie. She was so not good at this game. But she was not ready to give it up yet. Because no matter what else, it was exciting. Her pulse was pounding wildly in her veins, her heart thumping in her chest.
She hadn’t experienced anything like it in a very long time. “What about you?”
“Business. I travel around the world a lot.”
She’d noticed the slight accent in his voice and almost asked if he was European. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. This was just anonymous chitchat. It didn’t have to get any more personal than that—no last names, no phone numbers, no background information.
“So, why didn