“Then how did you know all of that stuff?” Again his breath brushed her skin.
Shivering with a reaction straight out of one of her books, Sam fought back the urge to run her lips over his jaw. “Please enlighten me further. All of what stuff?”
“Your hero-who just happens to look like me-amazingly seems to have been patterned after other things about me as well, and I want to know where you got personal information that I have never willingly shared with anyone in my entire life.” His voice was a sexy, threatening rumble close above her ear. She could hardly frame a lucid thought as that powerful body brushed against hers and she gave a little whimper of awareness. Oh Lord. She felt just like a dog that chases cars, barking furiously. She wanted desperately to catch him but then what the hell would she do with him once she had him?
Panic began to rise into her throat. She fought to remain lucid. She had to get away from him, far enough away to be able to think straight. She tried to sidle the other way but a very large, strong hand caught the back of her neck and she felt his fingers tighten slowly as he forced her face up to look into his eyes again. Fear tinged her voice. “I swear to you I know absolutely nothing about you. I don’t even know who the hell you are!”
He smiled crookedly. “My name is David Chance.” His eyes sought some kind of reaction. He got one.
She yelped in shock. She shook her head fiercely. Her heart bounded madly inside her chest, like some animal trying hard to leap free of a cage. “No. I don’t believe you!”
The hand behind her neck slipped down her nape to her back then moved back up slowly to tangle itself into her hair.
“Why not? Because your hero’s name just happens to be Chance Davis?” She closed her eyes with reaction as his hot breath brushed her cheek.
She shook her head again and fought to calm the dizziness his nearness was causing. “That’s totally impossible,” she whispered.
“Want to see my driver’s license?” Her chin was dragged back up and she unwillingly opened her eyes to stare at him in pained disbelief. She tried to get control over her chaotic thoughts. How the hell had this happened? She must have seen him. A photo, maybe. Or maybe she’d seen his face on TV?
No. She had seen his face in a dream. This man just happened to look a lot like her dream. Did that make sense? No. She licked her upper lip and shook her head again.
Expecting to hear the Twilight Zone theme song wafting through the air of the stockroom, Sam swallowed hard. “I know you will never believe this, Mr. Chance, but I have been dreaming about your face for the past twelve years. And the name Chance just popped into my mind when I was trying to find an appropriate name for a man who lived his life on the edge. Believe me or not. If you want to sue me for using your likeness on my book covers, that’s fine. But until today, I had never seen you. I wouldn’t have forgotten you if I had.”
She winced at her own words. He would certainly think her nuts. Good God. She sounded so pathetically ridiculous. This was not going well at all.
Chapter Two
David Chance had been shocked as hell when his manager had tossed a hardcover book onto his dressing table a few weeks back and frowned. “You could sue her for that, you know. She’s using you for her book covers, and that’s not the only one. There’s a series of five so far. She’s even using your name. Sort of. A fan mailed this in to ask if you’d autograph it for her.”
The sight of his own dark eyes staring up from the glossy dust cover of a romance novel had floored him at first. Christ almighty. It was him. He’d been so pissed off at the idea of someone blatantly using his fame and his face to sell some crappy mush-filled novel, he had almost called his lawyer on the spot. But then he’d turned the book over and had stared down at the photo of the author and he’d drawn a deep breath. The eyes that met his as he gazed at her photo on the back cover held something that had grabbed his gut and twisted. Made his cock jerk and come to life.
He hadn’t called his lawyer.
Instead, he had taken the book home with him and he’d opened it in curiosity, reading the fast-paced, steamily erotic novel in one night. And he’d found himself tied up in sexual knots like some fucking teenager reading a porn magazine he’d found in his dad’s closet. The woman could write. And she damn well wrote like she knew him inside and out. Knew what made him tick. Knew exactly how he felt and thought and reacted. How the hell could she possibly know all this? It was just too fucking hard to believe it was simple coincidence.
He’d kept looking back at her photo over and over, trying to place her face, with no success. He’d even torn the dust jacket in half and placed her photo next to the amazingly sexy cover where that uncanny spitting image of him was stripped to the waist, with a gorgeous, half-naked woman clinging to his leg and reaching her hand up over his groin to touch his six-pack.
Now there was something that could put a guy in a lather.
It brought to mind pictures of the book’s author, gazing up at him with those sexy eyes, her slim hands clinging to his leg and reaching for his damn fly. Opening it with those delicate fingers. Reaching inside to cradle him and…
He had gone out the next day and bought all five books, signed and gave the fan’s book back to Frank for mailing, and then he’d read the other four just as quickly, horrified to see himself laid out so embarrassingly in print. Amazed at the potent sensuality of the books and, realizing she wrote like a man who knew what a man felt, he wondered about the woman who had written those books. It was as if she had known him-his life-intimately. It was as if she had somehow gotten inside him.
He’d mulled over the irking “coincidences” for weeks, deciding how to handle this. He had been traveling back from a pay-per-view tour on the East Coast and had picked up a paper while in Cleveland, waiting for his next flight. It contained a bookstore ad for a book signing. Hers.
Frustrated and angry, he’d switched his ticket and had laid over in Cleveland another day. He was damn well going to the bookstore to see the woman who had bared his soul to the world. And he was planning to scare the hell out of her and find out her sources. Find out how she knew him. At least, that had been the plan. Until he’d gotten here. Until he’d seen her.
He had entered the bookstore at the rear of a milling crowd and picked up a book from an open carton by the counter. He paid for his book, handing over twenty dollars to an older man who took his money and put the book into a bag without even glancing at him. He’d covertly watched from the shadows of a narrow aisle between tall bookshelves as that long line of women, all eager to meet their beloved author, patiently waited.
He’d watched the way she responded to her fans-that dimpled, sexy little grin, the flash of brilliant green eyes. With every laugh, his groin had tightened like it had a damn mind of its own. With every flick of her tongue over those lush lips, he had found his breath catching in his throat and his heart amping up. And as he watched, he’d found himself imagining how fucking good she would feel as he dragged off her prim clothes and rode her with slow, hot strokes, skin sliding over sweat-dampened skin.
He’d stood watching for well over an hour. Fantasizing. Aching. Wanting. What the fuck? Women just didn’t have this kind of effect on him. He’d never before seen a woman he’d felt such an instant, hot attraction to. He was like some horny kid chasing after his first piece of ass. Get a grip, man.
Unable to stand it any longer, he’d stepped out of the shadows and had butted into the line, smiling down at the startled woman behind him and asking her to just let him sneak in front for a moment. An odd glazed look had come over the woman’s face and she’d simply nodded jerkily as he thanked her and waited for the young woman ahead of him to finish.