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“How many girls have you kissed, anyway?”
Ritz slanted a long-lashed glance at his cut lip.
“Not enough. Do you want to be next?” Roque asked.
“No!” All of a sudden, Ritz was staring again at his wide, sensual mouth and wondering what it would feel like on hers.
“Are you sure about that?” He twisted the key and punched on the radio. His fingers tapped on the dash to the salsa beat. “How about we get out and dance?”
“Here?”
His hand brushed her cheek. Electricity sparked through her. She shook her head and he laughed. The shade of the live oaks seemed to wrap them in darkness as they sat there. Beyond his chiseled profile the world was bright, the grasses high and brown, the sky cobalt-blue. And yet being in the darkness with him held more mystery and appeal than anything.
Reaching across her lap, Roque took her hand in his, startling her. When he kissed her fingers, one by one, unfolding them, she burned and ached all over.
“Come on, Ritz, let’s enjoy being outlaws together,” he whispered in a velvet, low tone that was as fascinatingly beautiful as the rest of him.
Also available from MIRA Books and ANN MAJOR
WILD ENOUGH FOR WILLA INSEPARABLE
THE HOT LADIES MURDER CLUB
Marry a Man who will Dance
Ann Major
I dedicate this book to my beloved mother, Ann Major, whose only advice on the subject of marriage was “Marry a man who will dance.”
Acknowledgments
We make plans. Then real life happens. So it was with this book. I had a vision. Then I wrote something entirely different. During desperate creative moments when I struggled to see my way clear, several people held my hand.
First, I must thank my editor, Tara Gavin, for all that she always does and does so well. All of my books are better because of her. Next, I must thank my husband, Ted, for his infinite patience. My agent, Karen Solem, was extremely helpful. I would like to thank Dianne Moggy and Joan Marlow Golan, as well.
Kay Telle and Cathy Mahon helped me with the horse research by lending me books and letting me visit their horse barns and cherished horses. Dick and Ann Jones are always helpful when it comes to ranching. Geri Rice helped with the completed manuscript and Lydia Suris with the Spanish.
Contents
Prologue
Beside the fire, as the wood burns black, A laughing dancer in veils of light, Whose dance transforms the darkness to gold
—Adu Abd Allan ben Abi-I-Khisal
Prologue
Houston, Texas
April, 2001
The Harley roared and bucked and writhed under his muscular thighs as wildly as a fresh border whore. And since he was half-Mexican and half-Anglo, and oversexed to boot, Roque Moya was just the man to know.
Not that anyone in Texas called him Moya. Here he was Blackstone, a name he hated, a name most people hated. But not nearly as much as they feared it. His father had seen to that.
The stripes that divided the interstate lanes blurred into a fluid white line flying beneath his wheels. His thickly lashed eyes flashed on the speedometer. One hundred and ten.
He was in too big of a hurry to slow down.
Only when he passed the world famous R.D. Meyer Heart Institute on the outskirts of Houston a few miles later, and the traffic began to thicken, did he use his left foot to gear down.
Fury knotted his gut.
Don’t think about her!
Cities. It was cities he hated. They always seemed like filthy jails. Even up here in el norte, on this side of the border where they were supposed to be safer, cleaner, and more respectable, they were still prisons.
Especially this city which happened to be where his once rich daddy had made himself so notorious by manipulating juries he despised