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" Hayley is a bridesmaid in the wedding of her ex, Charlie. To her surprise, Cressida, the bride, asked her to be in the wedding and Hayley couldn&amp;#039;t refuse or people might think she still had feelings for Charlie. Cressida, no dummy, uses the opportunity to make Hayley look every bit the frumpy bridesmaid by putting her in a terrible\u2014and terribly tight\u2014dress. When it splits while she&amp;#039;s standing at the altar, Charlie&amp;#039;s best man, Nico, quickly covers Hayley with his jacket and whisks her out of the back of the church. Nico assumes that Hayley must be mortified about the dress and brokenhearted about Charlie. But he would be wrong.\u2026 &amp;quot;Why the fuck are you here, Hayley? You are the master of bad decisions.&amp;quot; Nico spoke through his teeth, as if he were afraid that if he opened his mouth, a tirade of insults would escape. Frankly, I was surprised to hear him say fuck. But now that he&amp;#039;d said it, I started thinking about it. Not the word, but the act. I couldn&amp;#039;t help it. Truthfully, I&amp;#039;d been thinking about it long before he&amp;#039;d said that word. I doubted any woman could look at Nico and not think this man would know everything there was to know about hard, hot, sweaty sex. For a wild moment, I wanted to ask if he&amp;#039;d impart some of his knowledge, but then I remembered he&amp;#039;d just told me I made bad decisions. There was only so much abuse a girl could take in one day, and I was right up to my limit. When you work in a male dominated profession as I do, you&amp;#039;re used to being judged. Most of the time, I let it wash over me. Occasionally I fight back. Some-times, I take sadistic pleasure in surprising people, but I was damned if I&amp;#039;d allow myself to be told I made bad decisions by a man who never let himself go. I stood up straighter and pushed out my chest (good thing I was wearing his jacket). &amp;quot;What gives you the right to judge my decisions?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;We could start with the fact that you&amp;#039;re half-naked under my jacket. Fix the dress. I&amp;#039;m the best man. I have duties to perform.&amp;quot; And I was willing to bet he&amp;#039;d perform them well. Oh god, I had to stop thinking like that. &amp;quot;The dress is unfixable. And I couldn&amp;#039;t refuse to wear it. This was what Cressida wanted.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Your body on display? I don&amp;#039;t think so.&amp;quot; He threw me a look that would have terrified an entire army into immediate surrender. &amp;quot;But you&amp;#039;re just a girl who can&amp;#039;t say no.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s that supposed to mean?&amp;quot; I exploded, which, considering I was half-naked, wasn&amp;#039;t a good idea. Because I was quite physical, I tended to add emphasis to what \u2028I was saying by using my hands. Up until a moment ago, my hands had been holding together the front of his jacket. Now they were waving around wildly. Unfortunately, they were not the only part of me waving around wildly. His eyes darkened, and I realized he had stopped looking at my face. Suddenly, there were four of us in the room. Me, him, and my breasts. I saw a tiny muscle in his jaw move and then his gaze lifted to mine, and that was the moment I discovered that looking at someone could make you burn inside. &amp;quot;I can say no.&amp;quot; My voice came out croaky, and I knew, I just knew, both of us were thinking about sex. &amp;quot;What the hell are you doing here, Hayley? At this wedding? Have you no pride?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Pride is the reason I&amp;#039;m here. If I&amp;#039;d stayed away, everyone would have thought I was brokenhearted.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And are you?&amp;quot; His question surprised me as much as the roughness of his voice. That was a deeply personal topic, and we didn&amp;#039;t exactly have the sort of relationship that included an exchange of confidences. I had no intention of answering him. &amp;quot;Hayley? Answer the question.&amp;quot; Nico&amp;#039;s voice was raw. I assumed it was out of anger, since that was the only emotion he ever seemed to feel around me. &amp;quot;Are you broken-hearted?&amp;quot; The question hung between us in an atmosphere that was heavy and sweaty. It was stifling in here. &amp;quot;Unless you&amp;#039;re a cardiologist, the condition of my heart is none of your business.&amp;quot; I might have been hiding my feelings, but I wasn&amp;#039;t hiding anything else. I lifted my hands to close my jacket, but he was there before me. Strong male fingers tangled with mine, and the backs of his fingers brushed against my breasts. His hands were warm, and chemistry shot through me. Both of us froze. The only sound in the room was his breathing. Or maybe it was my own breathing. He was standing so close to me, I had a magnified view of hot masculinity. My eyes were level with that darkened jaw, that unsmiling mouth, and those incredible &amp;quot;bed me if you&amp;#039;re lucky&amp;quot; eyes. Right at the moment, I wanted to get that lucky. I didn&amp;#039;t care that I&amp;#039;d be gossiped about for the next two decades. All I wanted was to feel that mouth on mine and find out whether kissing him would be as good as I thought it would. I was about to pull him toward me when he muttered some-thing in Italian and dragged me toward him by the lapels of his jacket. We collided, locked together like wild animals in the mating season. Ripped by Sarah Morgan is from our line of novels, Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Harlequin. Order your copy at Harlequin.com/Cosmo  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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