Bravo Unwrapped by Christine Rimmer Page A

can’t just—”
    â€œTwo weeks.”
    Something happened in her eyes. Something…accepting. Or at least, acquiescing. His hopes soared. She said, “I’ll speak with your agent tomorrow.”
    Bingo. He had her. “Fair enough.”
    And then she said, “No sex. That would have to be understood.”
    Scratch the bingo. And so much for his hopes soaring. Now, if he was hoping for anything, it was only that he hadn’t heard her right. “Why do we have to make a deal about sex? Can’t you just say no on a per-incident basis? Are you that afraid that you might end up in bed with me?”
    â€œWell, to that I would have to say, yes.”
    â€œSo why is it a problem, then?”
    â€œTake my word. It just is.”
    â€œLet’s look at it logically.”
    â€œLogically? Are you kidding?”
    â€œYou want it. I want it. We’re both free to want it. From each other. What’s wrong with that?”
    â€œEverything—and this is not a point up for discussion. This is, quite simply, a deal-breaker. No sex. And no tricks involving sex, or the deal is off.”
    â€œTricks?” He put on his most reproachful expression. “B.J. You wound me. Deeply.”
    â€œHah. I get at least eight hours a night in my own room—alone. Understand me? Yes, I agree to be with you, right here in Podunk, U.S.A. But not for twenty-four hours a day. I’m not…sleeping in your room or anything. Are we clear?”
    â€œSleeping in my room. Why didn’t I think of that?”
    â€œNo tricks. I mean it, Buck. Or the deal is off.”
    Now he was the one turning to look out the French doors. The damn moon looked back him, giving him nothing—just like the infuriating woman sitting behind him, straight-backed, on the bed.
    Look at it this way, he thought.
    He’d come this far. Yeah, he wanted her in his bed, where he was more than reasonably certain she’d always belonged. But then again…
    She was giving him the two weeks. During thattime, she would go with him wherever he decided to take her. She would be with him whenever he wanted her to be—except in bed.
    It wasn’t perfect. But it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
    And who was to say she wouldn’t change her mind on the issue of sex? Some rules, after all, begged to be broken.
    He faced her. “All right. Two weeks. No sex. My byline.”
    She sat up even straighter and muttered curtly, “Agreed.”

Seven
    A fter making her deal with Buck and finally ushering him out through the French doors to his own side of the balcony, B.J. grabbed her robe and headed down the hall to her bathroom.
    A box of drug-store bath beads waited on the white wicker stand next to the tub. Just what she needed. Calgon, take me away. Please.
    She sprinkled the beads liberally into the tub, turned on the water, locked the door, got undressed and sank gratefully into the hot, slippery, foaming bath.
    It was fabulous. She soaked for an hour, her head pillowed on a towel, staring at the white beadboard ceiling, wondering what she’d gotten herself into, back there in her room, with Buck.
    Okay, he’d slipped under her defenses by apologizing like that. She hadn’t realized how much it would mean to her, that he could say flat out, “I’m sorry,” thathe could stand there and take it while she told him exactly what she thought of what he’d done six years ago.
    It meant a lot. It kind of…cleared away the old garbage between them. At least, to a point, it did—and no, that didn’t mean she planned to try again with him. She did not.
    Just because Buck was a better man than she’d thought he was didn’t make her a better woman. She had to remember Wyatt the weasel—and the others before him. She was the Manhattan man-eater, after all. Genetically unsuited for the male/female relationship game.
    Which was why she’d insisted on