Read Bad Boy (An Indecent Proposal) for Free Online Page B

window.
    Another
fifteen minutes passed. I began to scan the menu, my feet tapping the floor
impatiently.
    Had he
forgotten about our date? Or had he been too much of a coward to decline my
invitation? I mean, how hard could it be to say, “Sorry, but I’m not
interested.”
    “Can I get
you something?” the waiter asked me again—for the umpteenth time. He
didn’t look older than twenty.
    “Yeah,
scotch on the rocks, please.”
    Sighing, I
scanned the menu again, which I was sure I could recite by heart.
    The waiter
brought me my drink, which I nursed for all of five minutes before dawning it
in one gulp.
    I had
enough—of men, of dates, of anything that involved romance and sex and
everything else that tended to mess with my life.
    I ordered
the restaurant’s ‘special’ and a glass of red wine. I had just finished my
dinner and was halfway through my glass of wine when the door swung open and in
walked three guys. The moment the door closed I could feel their gaze on me,
scrutinizing the fact that I was in a bar restaurant sitting at a table alone.
    “The curse
of the single woman,” I muttered under my breath and slumped deeper into my
seat in the hope I’d magically develop the ability of turning invisible.
    “Hola,
señorita.”
    I turned
sharply to regard the uniformed guy in his mid-thirties. He was standing so
close his naked forearm almost brushed my shoulder. Even in the dim light the
gun holster around his waist was clearly visible, drawing my attention to it,
and for a moment my heart picked up in speed and my brain struggled to make
sense as to what I might have done wrong to catch his attention.
    The guy was
a cop, so I must have done something.
    “Sorry, I
don’t speak Spanish,” I said.
    “You’re
lucky I speak English.” He plopped down in the seat opposite from mine and
waved at his colleagues who were busy ordering drinks at the bar.
    “You can
have the table. I was about to leave.” To prove my point, I slung my handbag
over my shoulder and sat up when he leaned over the table, his hand clasping
around my wrist.
    “Not so
fast.”
    My pulse
started to race.
    I stared at
his fingers as they remained wrapped around my skin.
    “Excuse
me?” I asked.
    “You’re
such a beautiful girl. Why leave so soon? The night’s young.” He pointed to my
half-finished glass. “And you’re not finished.”
    I frowned
at him as I watched his tongue run over his lips.
    Oh, for crying out loud.
    What was it
with me and my tendency to attract all the wrong guys?
    First,
Chase turned out to be more of a frog than a prince, metaphorically speaking.
    Then, my
date stood me up.
    Now, some
cop was trying to chat me up.
    And not
just any cop.
    A Mexican
cop who had probably participated in his fair share of dangerous busts and was
most certainly used to violence. Or seeing that things went his way.
    Something
was wrong with the world—or me.
    Under
normal circumstances I would have told him to get his dirty hands off me but I
was in a foreign country and drawing attention to myself was the last thing I
wanted.
    “You’re
really pretty,” he said and leaned closer until I could feel his breath on my
skin. His fingers trailed along my arm. I flinched when he touched my hair to
brush it away from my face.
    “What do
you want?” I asked warily, frozen to the spot as his hand moved from my hair to
my shoulder.
    “Just a
chat?”
    He made it
sound like a question. Like there’d be way more than a chat later on.
    As if.
    I swallowed
hard and forced a cold smile to my lips. “It’s been a long flight. I need to
get back to the hotel.”
    “Where are
you staying?” someone asked behind me.
    I turned
and realized that his two friends had joined him. Unlike the cop, they were wearing
jeans, but their hard faces looked threatening enough, as if they would not
hesitate to drag someone through the backdoor to beat them to a bloody pulp and
then fill out a report about how they acted in