Sterling jerked to his feet and paced a figure eight around her swing, caging her in unintentionally while he worked out his fury.

“Sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”

That probably wasn’t good for pregnant women. He sat on the edge of the swing, no longer lazily kicking off with his feet as he listened to the lovely lilt of her voice. Despite all her years in and around the city, she didn’t have an accent. She sounded like music: soft, husky, accidentally sensual.

And she’d given all of that to that asshole who was threatening her.

He wasn’t a man of wild passions. Some of the criticisms levied against him in the dating arena were valid, and his unwillingness to put himself on the line emotionally was one of them. He’d never felt enough to bother getting worked up.

Except, evidently, when it came to Angelina McFee.

“Who is this guy?” he questioned, balancing his fists against his knees. “Give me a fucking name and I’ll bury him by close of business today. Metaphorically,” he added at her horrified look. “I’m not only a bodyguard. I’ve made some limited forays into the field of private investigation and I’m going to get my license. But even without it, we can nail him to the wall.”

“I…I’ve never seen this side of you before.”

“You think I’m all kittens and rainbows. I’m not.” Especially when it comes to those I care about. He didn’t say it though, because she looked unsettled enough.

“No, I don’t. But you’re a businessman, not a—”

“Hired muscle? You’d be surprised. I can hold my own. You’ve had no reason to know that part of me.” He’d also never had quite as much motivation to bring it out before.

“No.” She gripped her throat and tipped her head back to stare at the sky. “I don’t want you to do anything with what I tell you. You have to promise. Not until I’m sure what’s what. Until we’ve figured out a plan.”

The way she said we warmed him to his soles. He hadn’t been part of a we in eons.

Too bad he wasn’t now either. He wasn’t the most adept at pushing the feminist agenda at the best of times, but when an already vulnerable woman he cared for was put in an even more vulnerable state, he lost all concern for her feminine pride. He’d be damned if he’d tiptoe carefully around her feelings at a time like this. He wouldn’t see her hurt. That was one thing he could never abide.

“I have a plan. We study the facts, and if they line up against this bastard, we cripple him financially and with the law until he’s unable to worry about anything but pulling his head out of the hole he’s in. All perfectly legal and ethical.”

Her soft, sexy mouth curved. “Even when you’re bragging about your muscles, you always fall back on your biggest organ.”

What would Jax say at a moment like this? “Not my biggest,” he said, mainly to see how she’d react.

Her eyes went wide. “Did you just—are you referring to—”

“I count my portfolio as a body part,” he said smoothly before she went into apoplectic shock.

“Oh. Oh. Thank God. I thought you meant your penis.”

Someday maybe he would when he made a statement like that. But not tonight. She didn’t need a man throwing around ego-saving innuendoes when she was clearly on an emotional precipice. He wasn’t Jax Wilder, and now wasn’t the time to pretend.

“Would I ever say something like that?”

“No, I didn’t think so, but you never used to throw around threats with impunity either.”

“It’s not a threat if you intend to follow through. Then it becomes a promise, and I don’t break those.”

She rubbed the knee of her pants. “I was mostly joking about hiring you. I wouldn’t want to bring you into my situation.”

He cocked a brow. “Perhaps we haven’t met. I’m Sterling Vance, and I don’t back down. Ever.”

“Okay, okay. Duly noted.”

“Your situation is mine now. If you wanted to toil alone, you shouldn’t have opened your pretty mouth. I’m happy you did,” he added softly when her big gray eyes clouded. “But words have power. With yours, you’ve invoked mine.”

“You sound like Darth Vader.”

“I don’t wear a mask and I have no hidden goody-two-shoes sons.” Only when her cheeks paled did he realize that talking about hidden children hadn’t been the best tactical move. “Besides, I’m an old family friend. I have a responsibility to your parents.”

“No, you really don’t. I got myself into this mess and I need to get myself out. Leaning on you right away was a crutch. I have to stop falling back on those.”

“You impregnated yourself, did you? Tell me how that works. I’m truly fascinated.”

She flushed and shifted away, twisting her swing until it creaked. Her waistband slipped down, exposing a hint of her lower back and the top of her bottom.

It was his turn to shift on his swing. Her bottom mattered little now.

“Thinking you have to do everything alone is the real crutch,” he went on. “You don’t.” You won’t, he reaffirmed silently. “What do your parents think?”

She bit her lip and twisted her swing, sending herself in a spiral until she groaned and clutched her stomach. “Ugh, remind me not to do that again.”

He barely repressed a sigh. “Your parents don’t know.”

“No.”

“About being harassed or the whole thing?”

“I should get back inside.” She started to rise.

Moving quickly, he stood and seized her swing. Holding her in place whether she liked it or not. “They don’t know you’re pregnant either.”

“No. No one knows except my advisor at NYU, my ob-gyn, my friend Brandy and now you.” She grimaced. “Oh, and Pete.”

“So your plan, such as it was, was to pretend none of this was happening until your belly popped over your pants and you couldn’t deny it anymore? Was that what Europe was about?” He shook his head. “Trying to outrun your life never works. It always catches up with you.”

Meeting his stare, she lifted her chin defiantly. “Pete paid my way to Europe so I could get a discreet abortion. I took the trip and skipped the other.”

Dull horror curdled in Sterling’s gut. “The baby’s father paid for you to get an abortion you didn’t want?”

“Actually, he paid for me to get a fancy-ass baby bag decorated with frogs wearing tiaras, but yes, the abortion was his intention. Luckily I don’t give a shit about Pete’s intentions. It’s bad enough that I’m going to have to think about him every time I wear a halter top for the rest of my life, but I’ll be damned if he colors my feelings for my baby.”

“Good for you,” Sterling said faintly, though he was still stuck on her halter-top comment. He was tempted to pursue it but figured now wasn’t the time. “You’re making a brave choice. Your child will thank you someday.”

She shrugged. “I’m making the only choice for me. It’s not heroic.”

“Says you.” His opinion differed vastly.

“That’ll teach me to stay out of Shooters Bar. And the alley next to it.” At Sterling’s look, she shrugged with obvious disgust. “The first time we hooked up was next to a couple of trash cans. Not exactly the classy lifestyle you’re used to, huh?” A quick glance at her watch had her rising. “I really do need to get back inside. I’ve only been working here for a few days and I’ve gone way past my break. Plus I need to swallow some gasoline to get rid of the sick taste.” She made a face. “Sorry. Not very sexy.”

He took her elbow and guided her toward the entrance, pretending he didn’t see the amused glance she tossed his way. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to be sexy with me.”

She stiffened and stopped, proving once again that he did not understand women. He’d been trying to be comforting, and yet she was looking at him as if he’d just told her that her baby was ugly.

A fact he knew would be patently impossible, because Ang was gorgeous. Long hair or short, markered or chalked or whatever she did to it, with makeup or without, even with fatigue lines bracketing her normally clear gray eyes. He found her stunning regardless.

Pete must need to get his eyes checked. And his brain analyzed.

“What is it?” he asked when she didn’t move forward.

“Nothing.” She shook herself and kept walking, directing a pointed look at where he cupped her elbow. “I’m steady as can be. I can make it back inside okay.”

“Indulge me.”

“Sure you want the nonsexy preggo to do that?” Her overly bright tone lay at direct odds with the sudden flash of her stormy eyes.

Maybe her annoyance was a natural pregnancy-related occurrence. Or maybe he needed to stop talking to women at all. Jax had suggested a more physical-based plan to rid himself of his recent curse with the fairer sex, and he was beginning to see the appeal. A quick screw to relieve tension—

“Sorry.” Big doe eyes drilled into his, catching him in a tractor-beam gaze he couldn’t drag his focus from if he tried. “I know I’m being obnoxious. It’s hormones or stress or just…I don’t know, tension.” She rubbed the small of her back as if it ached. “I need to chill. I’m turning into an über bitch.”

He tried to breathe past the obstruction in his chest. The angle as she leaned slightly backward made her body appear more lush than he’d ever seen it. Which made sense, now that he thought about it. But he’d never before been confronted with the pronounced swells of her breasts. Not that he paid attention to them as a rule. And even her stomach had a slight—so slight as to almost be indistinguishable—curve outward. Emphasizing her vulnerability and her beauty, both of which now seemed capable of knocking him flat on his ass if he didn’t watch his step.

His mouth opened. Words pounded in his skull. Urgent, vital ones. None completed the circuit to his lips.

“Sterling?” She blinked up at him, all innocent confusion. Perhaps not that innocent in light of recent confessions. “Are you okay? You’re breathing funny.”

Unsurprising, since he feared he’d soon be walking funny. The insistent press against his zipper evidenced that well enough.

It had been a year since he’d been in a relationship. Or had sex. As much as he saw physical release as a biological imperative, he wasn’t the type to have dalliances based merely on the whims of his loins. He believed in sex within the bounds of commitment. Some called him old-fashioned. He figured it was practical. He had no time for pleasure-seeking flights of fancy. A stable, long-term union called to him in more ways than he could name. He liked the familiarity of a known partner. Shared jokes, shared routines. The deeper intimacy that could be reached when involved with someone for more than the time it took to shed his pants and belt them on again.

But since Tricia had left him, he’d found himself looking at women more often. Not in a creepy fashion—he hoped—but in a curious one. From his reading, most men had a type. Long legs, big breasts, redheads, blonds. A particular combination that instinctively spun their cranks.

He’d been unable to decipher such a discernible pattern in himself. All of his exes looked different. Some short, some tall, some brunette, some not. He simply liked women. Their smells, their smiles, their softness against him. He’d begun to believe he had no particular thing that flipped his switch.

Until now. Now he knew the undeniable, vaguely disturbing truth.

Pregnant women made him hot.

Ang stepped closer and lifted her hand to Sterling’s shoulder. It required a bit of stretching, since he was a good half foot taller. “Are you okay?” she repeated. “Are you ill?” She had lots of experience with that nowadays, though she was willing to bet his sickness wasn’t caused by the same thing.

He caught her hand halfway up his chest, seizing her fingers in his iron-like grip. “Don’t.”

His abrupt tone surprised—and okay, hurt—her. He’d rarely spoken a sharp word in her direction. In anyone’s direction, that she’d seen. “Sorry. Nonsexy preggo chicks should look, not touch.” She tugged her now-cold hand back and pushed it into the pocket of her pants. Where it continued to tingle, oblivious to any and all pleas to just stop it already.

Sterling had never been in her sphere as far as inappropriate tingles went. Now he existed in a whole other solar system.

Pete Lamont was the sort of guy she fit with. A guy like Pete, not Pete himself, since hello, douche. But someone a little edgy, a little foul-mouthed, a little wild. The kind of man who wouldn’t balk at pushing her against the wall and taking liberties with her very willing person.

Sterling had probably never had sex outside of a bedroom. Classical music playing, silk sheets, slick bodies writhing…

She pressed a hand to her lower belly. Holy shit, could she come just from having a fantasy? Was that a pregnancy perk?

“You said Pete fathered your baby.” Sterling’s jaw tightened until she thought it might crack. “I only know one Pete. Surely you don’t mean Pete Lamont?”

“Surely I don’t,” she mumbled, hurrying away from him before the lower belly clenching stopped and her tears reappeared. With her current hormonal confusion, perhaps she could self-pity sob and climax simultaneously. She didn’t want to push her luck.

“You can’t be serious.” His impatient footsteps hitting the concrete followed. “He has a mohawk,” he finished as she whirled to face him.

“So?” she demanded. “So what? I have a tattoo. I have piercings. I might even get my nipples pierced. Does that make me less than acceptable to you too?”

He shoved a hand through his normally perfect hair. The dark silky strands slid away from the crown to fall over his forehead, and their inky blackness near the winter blue of his eyes only made them seem brighter. “One has nothing to do with the other. You’re free to tattoo and pierce whatever parts of yourself you see fit.” He waved at her body without looking at it. Actually, he was not looking at it so hard he was practically talking out of the side of his mouth. “But that doesn’t change that my impression of Pete Lamont has not been a favorable one, the mohawk being the least of his issues.”

“Then why did you mention it?”

“Would you rather I say he’s a known womanizer? I trust you’d prefer I besmirch his hairstyle in lieu of other potentially hurtful things.”

His fussy speech took some of the bluster out of her fury. Why did he have to be so cute? It made it impossible to be mad at him for long. “I know all that now. Even if I’d known before we hooked up, it probably wouldn’t have changed anything. Women like to try to fix bad boys.” She shrugged. “It’s a thing.”

“Why wouldn’t you just skip the bad boy altogether and get a man who was already fixed? In a manner of speaking.”

“That takes away some of the thrill. We’re no different than men. We like to conquer too.”

“That makes no sense.” Before she could rail at him, he cocked a brow. “And why on earth would you pierce your nipples? Wouldn’t that hurt?”

“You’re just full of questions today, aren’t you?” She started walking again to hopefully keep him from seeing the flush creeping up her throat.

“You opened the line of inquiry. Don’t slam the door shut now. I’m truly curious.”

She didn’t doubt it. Sterling seemed to be curious about everything. He also didn’t worry about discussing nipple piercings with his friend’s daughter in a church parking lot, because he wouldn’t see it as anything but a simple information exchange. It wasn’t as if he was…flirting with her.

Sterling didn’t flirt. Ever. He commanded, he planted his flag and he went home. He had no need to cajole.

He certainly didn’t when it came to her and her damp panties, that was for damn sure.

“Nipple piercings act as adornment, as do other kinds of piercings.”

“You already have ear, eyebrow and lip piercings. Why do you need more?”

“Then there’s the heightened sensitivity aspect,” she continued, pretending he hadn’t spoken. “Piercings in certain areas are supposed to increase sexual pleasure. Hardly a bad deal, right?”

He cast a dubious look at her midsection—though her tits weren’t where they’d been a month ago, they weren’t swinging that low yet—and frowned. “I’m assuming that hasn’t been a problem for you in the past?”

It took her a moment to catch his drift. Once she did, she hauled off and hit him in the arm. It felt good, so she did it again. “There is nothing wrong with a woman enjoying sex, you fifties’ reject.”

“What did I say? I merely indicated your condition suggests that perhaps you’d enjoyed sex without enhancements to your breasts. That’s all.”

“Newsflash, dude—a chick can get pregnant without coming. It happens. Our coming isn’t necessary to the process. As usual, it’s all about the men.”

Instead of looking put off by the conversation as she’d assumed—hoped, because seriously, this was not the time or place to be discussing the birds and the bees, plus she had to go wring out her panties—he appeared fascinated. Naturally. “I just assumed. Do you typically have trouble reaching climax through intercourse?”

“Sterling,” she gasped.

“What?” He tucked his hands in his pockets and started walking again. “I’m not trying to talk dirty to you. I’m trying to understand why you’d mar what is undoubtedly perfect pink flesh with the same kind of rings that go through the nose of a bull. That is all.”

She stared after him, barely breathing. She must be imagining this whole conversation. There could be no other explanation.

Talk dirty? Talk freaking dirty? She didn’t know he even knew about such things. That wasn’t a usual boardroom prerequisite.

When she didn’t follow, he let out a heavy sigh and halted, swiveling to look at her for a slow, drugging moment. She half expected sultry music to swell in the background like they were in some racy movie instead of a short distance from a raucous bingo hall, complete with boisterous grannies and the smell of burnt popcorn hanging in the air. The zings she got from that simple glance were just not right in any way.

Then he had to spoil it by speaking.

“You need to get back to work. I’ll pick you up after. What time are you finished?”

She gaped. A common reaction when it came to the man. “Thank you, but I have my car.”

“I will pick you up,” he said again, his expression turning to granite. “You can follow me in your vehicle if you wish.”

“If I don’t wish, what am I supposed to do with my car? Just leave it here to be towed?” She crossed her arms and gave up trying not to glare. She’d seen him strong-arm others, of course—he came from a long line of powerful men who didn’t take anything less than an enthusiastic yes for an answer—but she’d never gotten the personal treatment.

So far it wasn’t sitting real well.

“Where are you staying? At home with your parents?” As if he already knew the answer, he shook his head. “No, you’d be telling them you were still in your off-campus apartment, but I have a feeling you’re probably not there any longer. Clean break, right?” At her nod, he sighed. “Please tell me you’re not sleeping on a friend’s floor.”

“Of course not. My roommate’s boyfriend wanted to move in, and I didn’t really want to be around that crowd right now.” She rubbed her damp palm on her hip. “The good news is, I have full use of Brandy’s couch.”

“You’re pregnant. You need to be getting adequate rest without worrying about keeping a roof over your head.”

“I’m not worried. I have money.” Not a lot, fine, but he had no right to barge in and try to take over. Even if she couldn’t help appreciating it a little bit, since just lately the world had seemed quite content to let her fend for herself.

And Brandy’s sofa was lumpy. No two ways about it.

“You’re searching for alternative housing then?”

“Good guess, wise guy. I’m not some helpless, penniless waif waiting to be rescued.”

The beat that passed between them felt charged somehow, full of much more than just silence. His jaw firmed until she wondered if he could snap the bone through sheer irritation alone.

“So you’ll rescue me then,” he said finally.

“Come again?”

“I have plenty of room in my home. Lots of guest bedrooms. I also have a troublesome ex.”

So many questions yet one jumped to the fore. “Why do you have lots of guest bedrooms?”

He cocked a brow. “I’m planning for the future.”

Apparently a future where he created his very own Vance Bunch. She diverted her gaze, unsure of how to respond. Sterling having lots of pretty babies didn’t concern her one way or the other.

“Ang?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Consider this me extending an invitation to you.”

“For what?” When the implication dawned, she shook her head. “Uh uh. Nope. No way.”

“Your presence in my home would act as a deterrent to my ex. I can’t get her to stop pestering me.”

She rubbed the piercing above her mouth as her brain struggled to keep up, then dropped her hand when his gaze tracked the movement. No wonder she couldn’t keep up with this conversation. He kept looking at her like that between those times he pointedly refused to look at her at all. “Why is she so insistent?”

“She…wants intercourse, naturally.”

Ang blinked. Had he really just said that? “Are you that good?” she asked before her brain kicked in. Or maybe it kicked in just fine, because that suddenly seemed like pertinent information.

The question took him aback, but only momentarily. “Of course.”

“So let me make sure we’re square. You claim that you have an ex that is so demanding of your sexual chocolate that you can’t get her mouth off your fruit and nuts?”

“Is that even English?”

She grinned. “Yes. But in layman’s terms—she wants the D.”

Nodding, he gave her a smile. “Uh, yes. All the above.”

Unless she was mistaken, he didn’t even grasp which D she was referring to, thereby upping his cuteness quotient by fifty. “And you need help to get her off the scent? For real?”

“For real.” He cleared his throat. “So you see, your presence would assist me as much or more than I’d be assisting you.”

Damn man knew exactly which card to play, even if she suspected his deck was more than a little stacked. He was probably lying. But even if he was willing to prevaricate in this case, her well-being was important enough to him to cross a line he normally wouldn’t.

Sterling never lied. A cop had pulled him over once when they’d been getting supplies for one of her mom’s get-togethers. When the policeman asked if he knew he’d been speeding, he’d said yes and apologized for going “ten-point-six miles over the posted limit.” She’d never forgotten, mainly because she’d laughed her ass off at his expense.

The man was a saint in yuppie’s clothing.

“Ang? Are you listening to me?”

She was, sort of. Then he stroked his tie and fixed that killer stare on her again and bam, her hearing shorted out. It had to be a coincidence, that stroking thing. His long fingers moving so slowly, mesmerizing her so that she didn’t hear what he said. His lips moved but she couldn’t concentrate on his voice.

Why, oh why did he have such sexy hands?

“Ang?”

“Yes.” Focus. If she didn’t, he was liable to have her booked on a flight to Milan before she checked back in to the conversation.

As it turned out, it was worse. Much worse.

“So it’s settled.” He smiled broadly. “You’ll move in with me.”