The Perfect Husband Read Free Page B

you.”
    “Won't you please just hear me out?”
    “One.”
    “I'll pay you.”
    “Two.”
    “Vincent did not tell me you were a pigheaded drunk!”
    “Three.”
    “I need a professional!”
    He turned, his arms crossed over his bare chest, his expression bland. “Four.”
    Her face grew red. Frustration animated her body, bringing up her chin, sparking her eyes. For a moment she was actually pretty. “I'm not leaving!” she yelled. “Goddammit, I have no place else to go. If you'd just stop feeling sorry for yourself long enough to listen—”
    “Five.”
    “I won't leave. I can't.”
    “Suit yourself.” J.T. shrugged. He placed the empty margarita glass on the table. Then, and naked as the day he was born, all one hundred and eighty pounds of muscle and sinew, he advanced.
     
TWO
     
    SWEAT BEADED HER upper lip. Her eyes took on a dangerous sheen. Her gaze shifted from side to side. She jammed a hand inside her purse. J.T. pounced, hurtling his full weight upon her. They went down with a thunder, the contents of her purse spilling, a silvery gun skittering across the patio. She bucked like a bronco and attempted to scratch out his eyes with her ragged nails.
    He slapped her wrist down hard. He lay on top of her, trying to keep her still while protecting the more sensitive parts of his anatomy from her lashing feet. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked.
    “Shit!” He jerked his head free, snapped his fingers around her wrist, and slammed it down.
    She winced, but when she looked at him, her eyes still contained fire. He was bigger than her, stronger than her, and a helluva lot tougher than her. She wasn't going anywhere, and they both knew it.
    She made one last futile attempt to jerk free.
    “Come on,” he goaded unkindly. “Try it again. Do you think I'll suddenly change my mind and let you go? Look at me, sweetheart. Vincent didn't do you any favors by giving you my name. I look like the devil and I am the devil. Genetics decided to play truth in advertising.”
    “I have money,” she gasped.
    “Who cares.”
    “One hundred thousand dollars.”
    “Ah, honey. That's much too cheap for me.”
    “Funny, you don't look like the expensive type.”
    He arched a brow at her unexpected barb. She wasn't struggling anymore, so she wasn't totally naive. He took the time to give his uninvited guest a more thorough inspection. This close, he could see that she was truly ragged around the edges. The back of her neck was whiter than the front, as if it had been recently protected by long hair, then ruthlessly exposed by desperate scissors. The roots of her dull black hair appeared blond. Her fingernails seemed to have spent quality time with a cheese grater. She had the peaked look of the anemic. For chrissake, she probably had a large target tattooed on her back.
    “Little girl, don't you have enough to worry about without picking fights with me?”
    “Probably,” she said gamely, “but I have to start somewhere.”
    She lashed out with her foot. He shifted and stopped the blow in time. Just as he began to grin smugly, she sank her teeth into his forearm.
    He paled. His neck corded and pain shot through him, sharp and deep, as her tiny white teeth found a nerve.
    Rage, primal and ugly, rose up inside him. The need to lash back. The need to return the pain inflicted upon him. He felt the jungle drums in his veins and suddenly he was hearing his father's boots rapping against the hardwood floors. His grip on her left wrist tightened. She whimpered.
    “Fuck!” He yanked his arm from her mouth. Blood dewed the dark hairs and made him even angrier. With a heave he was on his feet, fists clenched, eyes black, anger barely in check.
Control, control
. He hated men who took it out on women.
Control, control
.
    The silver Walther .22 semiautomatic that had been in her purse now lay just six inches from his feet. He kicked it into the pool. It wasn't enough. Once he got good and pissed off, nothing was