money. The shoes, the dress, the Birkin bag that was nearly identical to the one his ex-wife carried? All that screamed money to him. No one was that unimpressed by money except people who have it.
Before entering the house, she paused on the front porch and glanced back at the gate.
“What?” he asked.
“Pretty fence,” she said. “Traditional Kentucky rock fence.”
“Glad you like it,” he said, admiring the view from the porch. The perimeter of the Lockwood property was a rock fence built in the nineteenth century. “I had it built just for you.”
“To keep me in or to keep me out?”
“To keep you surrounded by beautiful things. As you should be.”
She raised her eyebrow slightly and without another word turned and walked into the house. If she hadn’t been looking, McQueen might have patted himself on the back. Good line.
“Welcome to Lockwood,” McQueen said, glad it was late enough all the staff but his security guard were gone. “Hope you like it.”
“Very nice,” she said, barely giving the opulent interior a glance. McQueen didn’t mind that much. He’d rather she looked at him than his foyer, and she was definitely looking at him. Women considered him handsome, and even if they didn’t, they considered him rich, which was usually enough to close the deal.
“I’m the fourth generation of McQueens to live here. My great-grandfather bought this house when he came over from Ireland,” McQueen said. It was summer, warm, and she wasn’t wearing a coat for him to offer to take. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. At his age he should have his seduction skills down by now, but Paris made him nervous for a reason he couldn’t name. “He’d planned to settle his family farther west, but the hills reminded him of home. So he stayed.”
“And here we are. What would your great-grandfather have said about you bringing me to his home?”
“I’d like to think he’d have taken one look at you and said, ‘Good job, lad.’”
“I’ll be the judge of how good the job is done.”
“Maybe we should get to work, then.” He reached for her and kissed her under the crystal chandelier, which before today had looked elegant to him, but tonight seemed ostentatious compared to the elegance of this woman in her red dress. She tasted of apples and bourbon when he kissed her and she was right—it did burn, but once he had his first taste, she was all he wanted in his mouth.
McQueen pressed her back against the banister of the spiral staircase that led upstairs. He hooked her leg around his hip, slid his hand up her long bare thigh. She had panties on, but they weren’t enough to keep his fingers out of her. He stepped back, pulled them down her thighs and left them on the floor, where he hoped they would stay until morning.
“Did you plan to seduce me when you came to the bar?” he asked against her lips.
“Yes.”
“Are you after my money?” He sensed such a woman wouldn’t be insulted by such a question.
“Only your bourbon, Mr. McQueen.”
“You want to see my collection?” he asked. “I promise it’s nothing but booze. I don’t own a single etching.”
McQueen and his world-class bourbon and whiskey collection had recently been profiled in Cigar Aficionado magazine, inspiring a few phone calls from collectors trying to buy some of his rarer vintages, but she was his first official bourbon groupie.
“Eventually,” she said, spreading her legs a little wider for him, inviting his fingers a little deeper. “Once you’re done showing me everything else you’ve got.”
McQueen showed her. First he showed her right there against the wall. Then he took her up to the master bedroom, a room baroque with ornamentation and ostentation. Even the bed was gilt. He never actually slept in the room if he could help it. He found other uses for it, however. And that red dress of Paris’s looked about as good on his floor as the priceless gold-and-green Persian rug it lay upon.
When it was all over, Paris reached for her red dress, and it occurred to him that if he let her leave now, he wouldn’t be likely to ever see her again. Something told him he shouldn’t let her go. Something told him if all he did was sleep with her, he would forfeit something, a victory or a prize.
“Don’t leave,” he said as he obliged her by zipping the dress up for her. She had such a lovely back and the