Bargain With the Irish Devil (paperback)

“Hey, sweetie, why don’t you be a good girl and run along and get me, Ethan? I need to see him, now,” a husky voice drawls from behind me.

Excuse me? I look up from the filing cabinet drawer I’m bent over to find a man eying my ass like it’s a glass of water and he’s thirsty. The idea anyone is eying my ass already has me out of sorts. Then I realize, holy shit, it’s Chris Baldwin. The baddest boy in baseball, as the tabloids liked to call him. All I can think is, he is no boy. Baldwin is all man, and a damn fine one at that. His skin the color of rich honey has me drooling as I wonder if it tastes as sweet. Wait, what?

His eyebrows go up, as if he can hear my crazy thoughts. The coal black of the perfectly scruffy few days’ old beard matches his hair equally overgrown by several weeks, enough to make it glaringly obvious he refuses to conform to rules other than his own. My fingers are tingling to discover if his hair is as silky as it looks, if they’ll get tangled in it when I pull him down to me. Okay, seriously? Where are these insane thoughts coming from?

I don’t drool, I don’t have naughty thoughts about men. I’ve seen pictures of him in magazines and on the internet, where he’s swooned over. He first caught the attention of the media ten years ago when he played for a team in Pennsylvania and they won the World Series.

At twenty-five he was only three years into his baseball career—he’d been drafted out of college to play with a team in Michigan. He was the young, cocky stud with a diamond in his ear and tattoos appealing to young men and women, but he also had the goods with the stats to back it up, gaining fans who were lovers of the game. It won him endorsements from all the major companies.

In person, I finally understand his appeal. His high-carved cheekbones still manage to have the kind of dimples that just aren’t fair. With an aggressive jaw and a strong, thin blade of a nose he is already gorgeous, then factor in his eyes, a deep bright blue, and he catapults to stunning. Yet, it’s his mouth I can’t take my eyes off of. Clearly defined, perfectly molded, full and wide with a pouting bottom lip I’m dying to suck on—okay, what the hell was that? I understand how he’s made it into the 50 Most Beautiful People in People magazine, twice.

In all those pictures, in all those commercials, none of them captured the aggressive male air surrounding him. He’s in jeans with a dark blue wash to them and a black cashmere mock turtleneck. His body is sin, tall, lean, muscled without bulging. When my eyes flick back up to his, he’s smiling knowingly with a damn dimple showing.

Don’t blush, don’t blush, he called you a girl. He has a diamond in his left ear the size of a dime, a tattoo on the back of one hand of an old worn baseball, and on the other hand is a baseball glove, in a vintage style much different from those of today and also looking old and worn. I’ve never been into men with tattoos and earrings, or assholes who didn’t bother trying to remember a woman’s name and so called them all by something generic. I’m not generic and refuse to be treated as such.

I kick in the drawer with a hard click. “Ethan isn’t here. He’s on vacation. He’ll be back in two weeks. I’ll let him know you came by.”

I’m proud of the way I turn my back on him before going to the next file cabinet drawer and pulling it out. Even though there is no way the file is in here. I’m buying time, so I don’t keep staring at him. The man is so hot he’s melting my common sense. Then he helps me out.

“No, darlin’, that doesn’t work for me. I want Ethan’s ass back here now or I take my business elsewhere.” The asshole actually snaps his fingers, my back goes stiff at the sound. “Why don’t you run along and find me your boss or someone who can get ahold of Ethan for me?”

Working to control my anger isn’t easy, and it’s harder with that stupid drawl of his turning his words ridiculously sexy. I know he was born and raised in Texas then went on to Vanderbilt for college, where he made all the major league teams salivate. Several offered him contracts he declined, saying he worked hard enough to get his scholarship that he wasn’t about to throw it all away. Just when I think I have myself under control, the drawer is pulled from my hands when the asshole closes it then leans against it. “Darlin’, are you hard of hearing or something?”

Wow, how has he not been decked more in his lifetime? I turn; holy freaking crap, he’s only inches away. He is tall, looming over my own five-foot-five frame by at least a foot. Oh damn, up close the man is devasting, destroying all the things I thought I knew about myself. Maybe earrings and tattoos aren’t so bad after all.

Then I see the knowing look in his eyes. Well fuck him, so he’s hot—it doesn’t stop me from wanting to smack his beautiful face. “My name is Amelia Bishop, not sweetie or darlin’. I do not run along anywhere. I’m also a lawyer here. I’m handling Ethan’s clients while he is on vacation. Since the man hardly ever takes a vacation and he only left a few days ago, I sure as hell am not bothering him for you. If you want him so badly you can wait for him or you can take your business elsewhere. Overpaid players are a dime a dozen in this city. Ethan and this firm will survive if you find someone else.”

He grins wide, showing off dimples and tipping over a hive of bees I didn’t know were in my tummy. Then he leans in until only inches separate us. He smells of leather, fresh grass, and rain, and I can’t fucking breathe at the desire burning into me from sky blue glowing eyes. “Sugar, why didn’t you just say so? I would love for you to be the one to handle me. I would like that a whole hell of a lot.”