the clothes, but couldn’t feel sexy in them because she’d always been so pathetically modest. That had to change. She needed to get past it, needed to garner a little of that feminine energy for herself.
She pulled her car into a parking space designated for Martelli Photography, grabbed her garment bag from the back seat and mentally prepared herself to battle her modesty. Her stomach knotted. She’d find happiness in little victories, she decided as she made her way into the old building. Why? Because men sucked.
The scent of fresh paint hit her the moment she stepped into the old building. She nodded to a couple of workers and ducked under a scaffold in order to reach the antique cagelike elevator. The old Gloria Gaynor song “I Will Survive” played a continuous loop in her head, bringing a smile to her lips and a bounce to her step.
Delaney grinned, pleased with the rush of endorphins this whole new men-suck philosophy had given her. She began to chant it aloud softly—verbal reinforcement—and listened to the words echo as the ancient elevator slowly lifted her to the top floor.
“Men suck, men suck, men suck.” Damn, that felt good, she thought. So good that, since she was alone, she upped the volume and added a little more U.S. Marine oomph! to the suck part. “Men suck, men suck, men suck.”
A deep masculine chuckle reached Delaney’s ears about the same time that a pair of manly bare feet came into her line of vision. As the elevator slowly drew up into what was obviously a penthouse suite, a pair of long denim-clad legs gave way to an extremely impressive bulge centered between a set of impossibly narrow hips. Blue cotton clung to a washboard abdomen, perfectly sculpted pecs and widened into a pair of the most beautifully muscled shoulders she’d ever had the pleasure to pant over.
The man was built like a brick wall, which seemed appropriate, considering she felt like she’d just run into one.
Dark brown wavy hair, a tad too long to be fashionable, framed a sinfully handsome face that attested to pure dumb luck and good Italian genes. His lips were a fraction overfull for a man and presently curled into one of the laziest, sexiest grins she’d ever seen. Dark brown eyes, heavy-lidded beneath slanted brows, glinted with humor, old-soul intelligence, and the promise of unnamed pleasures. Everything about him exuded confidence and strength, and pure sexual heat rolled off him in waves. He was sex with a capital S and to her immeasurable astonishment, she wanted him instantly.
Really wanted him.
The breath stuttered out of her lungs in a whoosh of longing, her womb clenched, her nipples tightened and her very bones seemed to melt beneath the heat of no-holds-barred raw, primal desire.
Mr. Sex anchored one hand at his waist and held a camera loosely in the other. He had great hands, big and tanned with blunt-tipped fingers. You could tell a lot about a man by his hands, Delaney thought absently.
“Men suck, eh?” he asked in a voice that was smooth and deep and sang in her ears like a soulful jazz tune.
Delaney moistened her suddenly dry lips, managed a nod. Yes, they did…and mercy she’d just bet this one would be great at it.
SAM HAD ENVISIONED his first meeting with the legendary lingerie queen Delaney Walker as many things, but he could honestly say that hearing her cheerfully chant “men suck” in that sweet southern drawl as the elevator lifted her up to his loft apartment/studio and then having her stare at him as though he were one of those chocolate bars she purportedly loved to eat, was not one of them.
Sam was accustomed to garnering female interest—he was a Martelli after all, and, among other curious phenomena, his family had never lacked general sex appeal.
But something about the heat in Delaney Walker’s bright green eyes was different from what he typically encountered, went beyond lust, beyond desire. He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly, but it made his scalp tight, his skin prickle and, curiously, the very air around him seemed to change as she blinked out of her lust-trance and breezed past him into his loft.
His gut clenched with trepidation as a thought suddenly occurred to him, but he dismissed it as ludicrous. This bizarre feeling couldn’t possibly be what he suspected.
It could not.
Even if Sam had any intention of ever marrying and starting a family—which he most assuredly did not—he didn’t believe in the “quickening”—the supposed almost supernatural ability for a Martelli to choose his mate. According to family history—and the testament of his various cousins, uncles, brothers and father—all of whom had never strayed and never divorced—a Martelli man simply knew when he’d found the one woman he was supposed to spend his life with. Supposed physical symptoms included gooseflesh, tingling skin and a sense of déjà vu…much like he’d just experienced, Sam realized with mounting disquiet.
Nah, Sam told himself, refusing to even consider the idea. He’d made the decision to remain single years ago, when he’d watched his father mourn his mother until the man was only a shadow of his former self. When he’d watched his brothers—big tough, rough, gruff men—become hopelessly besotted fools over their wives, watched them actually cry when their children were born. The idea of losing that kind of control over himself and surrendering said control to another person completely unnerved him. Sam grimaced.
He’d pass, thank you very much.
Clearly some melodramatic Romeo lurked in the Martelli family tree and had passed the story down from one generation to the next. Sam mentally harrumphed. If there was one thing an Italian loved more than a good marinara, it was a good story. Men simply fell in love and, to preserve the family tradition, called it a “quickening.”
Sheesh.
As for fidelity and divorce being non-existent—the most damning evidence to contradict his theory, particularly in this day and age of the quickie divorce—that too could be easily explained. No brag, just fact, but Martelli men were smart. They were loyal, had a strong sense of family. Particularly his. Case in point, his family met for lunch every day at his father’s house and woe be to he who didn’t show up. His father expected them to be there and so far, regardless of how inconvenient, Sam nor his brothers had ever missed the mandatory meal.
Sam told himself that his peculiar reaction to Delaney Walker was only his overwrought imagination. Just a product of nerves. He’d hyped this meeting up in his head for the past couple of months, had been obsessing over it ever since she’d first called and scheduled her appointment.
Frankly, when the tabloids had reported that she’d been jilted again—bless her heart, the woman didn’t seem to be able to get one to actually say “I do”—Sam had fully expected her to call and cancel the appointment. Curiously, she hadn’t. And he’d never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Sam’s portfolio had been sitting in limbo at Laney’s Chifferobe for months now and this meeting offered him the prime opportunity to showcase his talent and possibly secure a job with her company.
Sam loved women. Skinny, fat, short, tall and all species in between. There was something so intrinsically beautiful about the female form. All that soft skin, those gentle swells and valleys, the intriguing curve of a womanly hip, a silky thigh, a well-rounded rump. Women were utterly gorgeous and their bodies had always held a particularly keen fascination for him.
He’d never understand them, of course—what man in his right mind would even try? Everyone knew they were the most fickle creatures God ever created. But he loved them all the same and he had a real knack for capturing them on film.
With
