The Devil and Ms. Moody (23 page)

“Now I have my uncle’s stock-brokerage firm to contend with, plus his other holdings and a fifty-acre estate in Connecticut.”

“Heavy responsibilities.”

“Not really. I can handle the portfolio, and I figured Killer might like to get his hands on the brokerage, Braxton Securities.”

“Killer? On Wall Street?”

“Why not? The kid’s a genius. He’ll either make us all fabulously wealthy or bankrupt the entire country. Either way, it should be fun to watch.”

Edwina had caught the collective term. “Make ‘us’ wealthy?”

His smile was suddenly a grin, raffish and irresistible. “Yeah,
us.
As in me and someone else. That’s the other thing I have to do, Ed. Find the right woman, settle down, and have a tribe of kids. I’ll never be able to spend all that money by myself.”

“You?
Settle down?” The question came out so spontaneously, she didn’t have time to tone it down.

He feigned displeasure. “You sound like you think I’m genetically incapable.”

That was the moment that Edwina realized she didn’t know whom she was dealing with. The outlaw biker she’d fallen in love with
was
genetically incapable. Diablo had had an unbridled lust for freedom in his blood. Diablo had been untameable. She had loved that about him. And yet this man, Chris Holt, had a quality that Diablo had fought against ferociously. Edwina didn’t know how to describe it except with one very inadequate word.
Vulnerability.
There was a hard and beautiful vibrancy deep in Chris Holt’s emerald eyes, as though he’d lived through a hellish pain in the last few days and had emerged on the other side of the turmoil, knowing what he wanted. Chris Holt could admit that he needed a woman, she realized. Diablo could never have done that. Diablo couldn’t allow himself to need anyone.

“If I’m the right woman,” she said, “I think you’d better tell me. Quick.”

“Can you rope a pig?”

She laughed as he caught her face in his hands.

“Ed, I love you,” he said, his voice wondrously rich and husky. “I’m going to say that to you a lot if you’ll let me. I’m going to say it until you believe me.”

“I think I do believe you, but say it to me anyway.”

He bent to take her lips, and Edwina felt herself sinking into the emerald green of his eyes, drifting in the wondrous heat and strength he gave off,
drowning sweetly in his arms.
He curved a hand to the nape of her neck, deepening the kiss, and she let out a sound that was soft and alarmed.

“Mmmm,” he said, whispering against her lips. “I love the noises you make.”

“That’s me—noisy.”

He turned serious then, his eyes intent as they probed hers. “I’m not trying to press you, Ed, but did I mention the estate in Connecticut? It’s a hell of a big place. You could probably round up all the kids and senior citizens in Connecticut and still have space left over.”

“What do you mean? My agency? My
day-care
agency?”

“It had better be
your
agency, because the only thing I’m good for is teaching lunatic women how to ride motorcycles.” A melting tenderness infused his laughter. “Whatever you want, Princess. Anything you want.”

She had successfully forestalled tears several times that night, but he was pushing her endurance to its limits. It was a priceless gift he was offering. She felt as though he’d repaired a favorite broken doll and handed it back to her. As he brought her curled hand to his lips and gently kissed her knuckles, she began to blink furiously, then to cry. No amount of sighing or headshaking could stop the hot flow of tears welling up in her eyes. Her aching heart was too full of joy and simple gratitude.

“Now why did you want to go and do that?” he said, his voice hoarsening as he thumbed a huge tear from her cheek and pulled her into his arms. “There aren’t too many situations I can’t handle in this world, but this is definitely one of them.” A fierceness took him as he held her tightly and buried his face in her hair. “Don’t cry, Ed.
Don’t,
baby. I ache inside when you cry.”

His admission made her cry all the harder, of course, tears that flowed like a river, turning the tip of her nose red and making her voice crumble with emotion. “I can’t help it,” she said. “This is the most beautiful, incredible moment of my life, and I don’t want it ever to end. Do you suppose we could ride around in this limo forever?”

“I’ve got a better idea. Let’s have a whole bunch of moments, one right after the other. Then we’ll never have to be afraid when one ends.”

Edwina exhaled all the shaking air in her lungs as he rocked her gently. She buried her face in the warmth of his shoulder, wondering if it could possibly be true. Was she supposed to have her agency
and
him? Was that what Providence had in store for her? She couldn’t imagine what she’d done to deserve that much happiness. Not that she was complaining ...

She resurfaced finally, nestling the back of her head into the curve of his shoulder as they streamed through the neon lights of Broadway and the colorful squalor of Times Square. It was going to be quite an experience getting to know Chris Holt. She could hardly wait to take him home to Mother. A smile broke as she imagined Katherine’s reaction: “He seems like a nice boy, dear, but that hair....”

A crazy thought hit Edwina then. What if it had been Diablo she was bringing home! The Moody household would never be the same. She actually felt a little pang of disappointment that the outlaw biker was gone. Beautiful, angry, sexy Diablo. Lord! She was going to miss him.

She needn’t have worried.

“Where are we going?” she asked a short time later as the limo pulled into an alley behind a multistoried hotel and came to a stop.

“Another one of those moments I promised you,” he said, opening the limo door. “Wait here.”

Edwina watched in confusion as he walked to a dimly lit alcove a few feet away and stripped off his jacket and shirt. Muscles rippled in his shoulders as he untied his long hair and shook it free. His eyes flicked her way briefly as he pulled on a black leather vest and tossed his head, sending his long hair streaming, as she’d seen him do so many times before.

As he turned in the light, she was aware of sinewy arms, breadth of shoulders, and a dark diamond of chest hair. There was only one more detail to complete the transformation. Edwina’s heart began to pound as she watched him dig the red bandanna out of his vest pocket and tie it around his head.

His green eyes flashed in the dim lights. His profile shimmered with quick, cold arrogance. He was the outlaw again. The devil. Diablo.

A moment later he was rolling a gleaming motorcycle into the lights. Edwina saw the fiery skull and crossbones emblazoned on the gas tank and smiled. It was his bike. He’d either had it shipped or ridden it across the country. And if she knew Diablo, he’d ridden it.

As he returned to the limo and to her, Edwina realized what he had planned. He was going to abduct her on his bike. He would sweep her away to some tiny dark motel and make love to her—roughly, passionately, without preliminaries. He would take her with all the sweet savagery in him.

He opened the door, black leather gleaming in the moonlight, long hair flying. Edwina’s heart jumped painfully as he stared down at her, his eyes drifting over her features, lingering on her mouth. A smile flickered as he held out his hand and asked her the same question he’d posed the day they met.

“Trust me?”

Then it had been a lifetime’s prudence and a moment’s indecision that had held her back. Now it was her thundering heart. Chris Holt had picked her up in a limo, promised her the world, and asked her to marry him. But it was Diablo who wanted her now.

She took his hand.

Suzanne Forster, the
New York Times
bestselling author of more than forty romance novels, was on a career path to becoming a clinical psychologist until a life-altering car accident changed everything. While recovering, she tried her hand at writing to pass the time and quickly found that it was her true passion. Before she was ready to return to school, her first manuscript had won second place in a contest sponsored by the Romance Writers of America for unpublished writers. Before she knew it, she sold her first novel,
Undercover Angel
(1985), and embarked on a new path.

Throughout her career, Forster has made unconventional plot choices for the romance genre, such as setting her novel
The Devil and Ms. Moody
(1990) in the gritty world of motorcycle gangs, an idea her publisher resisted for years. The hero, Diablo, an intimidating yet tender rogue in black leather who rides a Harley-Davidson, was given the WISH (Women in Search of a Hero) Award by
RT Book Reviews
. For her Stealth Commandos trilogy she chose mercenaries and bounty hunters as her heroes.
Child Bride
(1992), the first in the trilogy, became her publisher’s top-selling series romance that year. The romantic thriller
The Morning After
(2000) appeared on several bestseller lists including the
New York Times
.  

RT Book Reviews
has twice honored Forster’s work, first in 1990 with a Career Achievement Award in Series Sensual Romance, and again in 1996 in the category of Best Contemporary Romantic Suspense. In 1996 she was also a nominee for the Romance Reader’s Anonymous Award for Best Contemporary Author. Her mainstream debut,
Shameless
(2001), won the National Readers Choice Award. Forster’s 2004 novel
Unfinished Business
was made into a movie, called
Romancing the Bride
, for the Oxygen Network.

Forster lives in Southern California with her husband, and has taught women’s contemporary fiction writing seminars at UCLA and UC Riverside.