How to Trap a Tycoon, Elizabeth Bevarly [best smutty novels txt] 📗

Mack, on the other hand…

God knew she worked hard enough to earn more for herself than what she had to show for it. She lived with her mother and didn't own a car. She didn't seem to go out or travel—as if she had the time. He knew her tuition was paid at Severn by the work she performed there as a teaching assistant, and he also knew she made a decent wage at Drake's. So just what the hell did she do with the money that she did make? he wondered. And why did she work so hard? Especially since she had a mother who lived in a posh neighborhood and who dressed like a spread out of Vogue. Why did Mack work herself to exhaustion?

"Have a drink with me, Mack," he heard himself say suddenly. "You look like you could use one."

She had just folded down the flaps on the last of the liquor boxes, and when she straightened, she tossed her head a bit to dislodge a couple of unruly curls from her forehead. The rest of her hair was still bound in the elaborate braid she always wore, and Adam had been itching all night to loose it. Soon, he told himself. Very soon.

She had loosened her necktie, at least, some time ago, and now it hung from her collar. Somewhere along the line, she had also freed the top two buttons on her white shirt and rolled back the cuffs, and the casualness of her uniform, usually so starched and pressed at Drake's, made him smile.

So she could relax when the occasion for such a thing arose, he thought. That was good. Because right now, he felt like relaxing himself.

"All right," she conceded with a tired smile. She retrieved a cocktail glass from beneath the bar and filled it with ice, poured in a conservative amount of Johnnie Walker Black, then splashed a little water on top.

Adam sighed with much disappointment, tipping his head at her choice of beverage. "You drink like a girl," he told her.

She lifted the glass to her lips, sipped it daintily, then softly retorted, "Do not."

He chuckled. "You're right. At least you drink Scotch, like a man. A man who's a total wuss, granted, drinking blended—and with water, no less—but still… At least you don't drink anything that's"—he shuddered for effect—"pink. Call me a traditionalist, but I don't think liquor was ever meant to come in pastel colors."

She eyed him indulgently. "Gee, next you'll be complaining about the feminization of pro basketball."

"Actually," he told her, "I've already complained about that. A lot."

"What? You don't think women have as much right to wear silly-looking shorts, get all sweaty, and chase a ball pointlessly through a gymnasium, as guys do?" She smiled mildly. "Gosh, this'll just ruin the enlightened, sensitive, beta-male image of you that I carry tucked secretly in my heart."

Adam smiled and enjoyed a very alpha-male swallow of his own unblended and unwatered Scotch. "You women are taking everything away from us men," he complained.

She expelled an incredulous sound. "Oh, hang on a minute. Let me go get a bucket to catch the flow from my bleeding heart."

He chuckled. "Well, you are. Don't you read my monthly rants in Man's Life?"

"I don't read Man's Life," she replied readily, unflinchingly.

"Liar," he said with a smile. "You've offered enough commentary on my views over the last few months to assure me that you read my magazine with some regularity."

Her expression remained impassive as she said, "I suppose you feel violated by that, don't you? A woman invading your man's world."

"Not really," he told her honestly. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a chauvinist, a sexist, or a lout."

Her eyes widened in mock astonishment. "I'll alert the media."

He laughed. "I'm not," he insisted. "Never once have I intimated that one gender is superior to the other."

She eyed him intently now, running the pad of her middle finger slowly, methodically, around the rim of her glass. For some reason, as he watched that finger make its slow revolution, Adam's mouth went dry. Hastily, he lifted his own glass for another sip, but the mellow liquor that cooled his throat did nothing to quell his thirst. Instead, as it splashed in his belly, it only warmed him in ways that he really didn't need to feel warm right now.

"You think men and women are the same, then?" she asked him.

"No," he told her. "I think they're totally different from each other."

"And you don't think that's a sexist opinion?"

"Of course not. I don't think either gender is better or smarter or more capable than the other. They're just different, that's all. Each has its own inherent weaknesses and strengths. Actually," he added, "when you get right down to it, the two genders complement each other ideally."

Now she gazed at him with much interest. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Men might have greater physical strength, but women have greater emotional strength. Where men analyze a situation in terms of black and white, women can distinguish the necessary shades of gray. Where men see the quickest, most direct path between point A and point B, women see side trips that can make the journey more interesting and more profitable."

She eyed him with frank astonishment. "Amazing," she said. "We actually agree on something for a change."

"You think men and women are inherently different?" he asked, unable to mask his surprise. "I'd think you were one of those people who considered them to be exactly alike. You seem like such a rabid feminist to me."

"I am a rabid feminist," she said readily. "But just because I think both genders are equally important to the global village, that doesn't mean I think they're the same. I agree with you that men and women are built differently," she told him. "They see things differently, they say things differently, and they operate differently. And only in acknowledging their differences can