Stranger in my Arms Read Free

expanse of shapely legs. Her heels and upswept hairstyle put the top of her head at his shoulder.
    â€œPlease call me Merrick.” His voice was low, calming. “And whom do I have the pleasure of rescuing from the Big Bad Wolf?”
    A soft laugh escaped her parted lips. “Alexandra Cole. But everyone calls me Alex.”
    Merrick’s dark eyebrows lifted with this disclosure. “Well, because I’m not everyone, I hope you don’t mind if I call you Ali. Alex is for a boy.” And there was nothing about Alexandra Cole that even hinted of boy. Not with her curvaceous little body.
    It was Alex’s turned to lift her eyebrows. Over the years, she’d been called Alexa, Lexie and Zandra, but never Ali. “No, I don’t mind.” Merrick moved closer and she felt his heat, inhaled the haunting fragrance of his cologne that was the perfect complement to his natural body scent.
    â€œI can think of a way where you can really thank me, Ali.”
    Alex went completely still. Merrick had gotten rid of one nuisance only to become one himself. “I don’t think so, Mr. Grayslake. I don’t date.”
    It was Merrick’s turn to recoil from her unsolicited frankness. A shadow of annoyance crossed his face. “I wasn’t going to ask you out, because like you I don’t date.”
    She tilted her chin, the gesture obviously challenging. “Are you married?”
    Merrick’s impassive expression did not change. “No.”
    â€œEngaged?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDo you prefer men?”
    He blinked once and forced back a smile. “No. And to put your mind at ease, I absolutely have no interest in you romantically.”
    A becoming blush darkened her face. Alex didn’t know whether to be annoyed or embarrassed. Her quick tongue had gotten the better of her—yet again. She closed her eyes for several seconds as heat singed her cheeks. “I’m…I’m sorry, Merrick, but I—”
    â€œIt’s all right, Ali,” he interrupted. The smile he’d struggled to hide softened the angles in his rawboned face. “There’s no need to apologize. I can assure you that I’m not like your boyfriend.”
    Her delicate jaw tightened when she clamped her teeth together. “Donald is not my boyfriend.”
    â€œThat’s not what he said.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œYou were lovers.”
    Alex’s eyes conveyed the fury racing through her. She should’ve let her brothers take care of the drunken liar. “He was never my boyfriend or my lover.”
    Merrick felt a strange numbed comfort with her disclosure; he’d thought Alex and Donald were having a lovers’ spat. “Good for you.”
    â€œWhy? Even though you’re not interested in me romantically you think you’d be better for me than Donald?”
    He was momentarily speechless in his surprise. Alex Cole was as outspoken as she was beautiful, a trait he wasn’t used to in the women with whom he’d been involved.
    â€œNo. That’s because I’ve never been a good boyfriend.”
    Alex took another sip of water, staring at Merrick over the rim of her goblet. “Do you realize you’re an anomaly?”
    â€œWhy would you say that?”
    â€œMost men would never admit to being less than perfect in the romance department.”
    â€œThat’s because some of them are either liars or fools.”
    â€œAnd you’ve been neither?”
    Attractive lines fanned out around Merrick’s luminous silver-gray eyes when a natural smile slipped under the iron-willed control he’d spent most of his life perfecting. “Wrong, Ali. I’ve been a fool a few times.”
    He’d become a king of fools when he’d trusted a woman whose duplicity had cost him a kidney and a career with the Central Intelligence Agency.
    What he didn’t tell Alex was that whenever he’d gone