on the overhead console. A man could dream about making love to a neck like that. Feathering gentle kisses along the pale-blue pulse that beat beneath her ear. Stroking his tongue down the feminine cord of her neck, lower and lower until he bit softly at the curve of her shoulder.
Heat flooded his groin, driving his body to full, pulsing life. What the hell was he thinking? Holly wasn’t some potential conquest to reignite the flame of hunger his wife had annihilated with her deceptions. Yet, for some reason he couldn’t tear his eyes from her throat, and his mouth dried as he imagined living out the fantasy of the image playing in his mind.
At their floor, the doors slid smoothly open and she stepped out ahead of him, affording him a delectable view of her smooth straight back. Her skin glowed with a hint of colour that made him wonder if she’d be that colour all over.
A jolt of need struck him, deep and hard. Suddenly, Lord help him, it was crucial to find out.
Three
“It always feels weird being here when everyone’s gone home.” Holly retrieved her suit carrier and handbag from the cupboard in her office.
“Yeah,” Connor agreed from where he leaned against the wall, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets.
Holly turned, startled by the odd note to his voice. He watched her, his dark black-brown eyes unblinking. The burning heat in them made her stomach lurch with a nervous flip-flop.
She needed to get this business about Christmas Day sorted now. “About tomorrow—”
“I’ll pick you up in the morning. I’ll need your address.”
He pushed off the wall and came to stand closer. The fresh citrus scent of his cologne together with the underlying spice of pure male filled her nostrils. They flared involuntarily, as if trying to inhale his scent deeper. Instantaneously she shut down the urge to breathe in deep, switching instead to short, shallow intakes through her mouth. It was one thing to believe yourself in love with your boss but quite another to believe he was interested in return. Somehow he must have unconsciously picked up the message that she was attracted to him, more than attracted if her wildly chaotic hormones were anything to go by. He was strong, he was male, no doubt he was reacting instinctively to whatever signals she’d been sending. The signals had to stop here and now.
“Look, it won’t be necessary. I’ll call your father in the morning and make my apologies. You don’t need me gate crashing your family’s special day.”
“Nonsense. You’re coming.” Connor strolled towards his office, loosening his tie before discarding it on the couch against the wall. “And speaking of special days, how come you never told me it was your birthday?”
He knew? “It’s not important,” Holly responded sharply.
“All birthdays are important. Besides, I got you something. Come in here for a minute.”
Holly’s heart hammered in her chest like a woodpecker at a tree trunk. He’d bought her a gift?
She placed her things carefully on her desk and stepped into his office. The door swung silently to a close behind her as he turned from his desk, a large cellophane-and-tissue-wrapped parcel in his hands.
“I noticed today how much you seem to like these things, but I wanted to get you something a bit different. Here, happy birthday.”
Connor stepped forward and placed the white poinsettia in her hands. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry until weary emotion got the better of her and sudden tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked, hard, and kept her head tilted down, not trusting herself to speak. She would not break down in front of him.
“It’s beautiful, Mr. Knight. Thank you.”
“Hey, I thought we’d agreed you’d call me Connor.” He lifted a long finger and tipped up her chin so she couldn’t avoid drowning in the concern reflected on his face.
Her breath hitched, and she blinked again. Except this time she couldn’t stem the acidic burn of moisture in her eyes.
“Tears, Holly?” His eyes narrowed as one fat tear hovered for a brief second then spilled off her lower lashes and tracked its inexorable path down her cheek to the corner of her lips. She turned her face, pulling away from the tenderness of his fingers, the pity in his gaze.
She’d had a lifetime of pity and she couldn’t bear to look up and see more from him. Not now. Not ever. She swallowed against the lump in her throat, instinctively reaching for the anger she knew she needed to shore herself up and carry through with the rest of this farce.
“It’s nothing. Just a headache, that’s all.” She held the gift with numb fingers, the crunch of the cellophane rippling in the air over her laboured breathing.
Connor stepped forward and removed the plant from her hands. “It doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
He put the plant back on his desk, then turned and caught her hands in his, drawing her closer until her breasts brushed against the fine-textured cloth of his suit. Beneath the fabric of her gown her nipples tingled and tightened almost painfully.
Her reaction to his nearness, to him, didn’t go unnoticed. His eyes gleamed like black fire, his pupils dilating, almost consuming the rich dark brown of his irises.
For an infinitesimal moment Holly allowed herself to dream, to believe he might want her. To believe he might return her love. In that moment, she was certain, her heart laid itself bare to his scrutiny, her own eyes the shimmering window to her feelings.
But then the smouldering anger flamed back into life. Love, ha! He didn’t love her. He pitied her. Otherwise why would she be here, pressed up against the hard wall of his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing as it matched her own. She couldn’t allow herself to be so vulnerable. Vulnerability was an indulgence she simply couldn’t afford. She pulled free of his hold, her body mourning the loss of his heat even as she did so.
“I must go. Thank you for the plant.” She wrenched the poinsettia back off his desk and swivelled on her heels to leave, silently castigating herself for a being a fool to want more than she had a right to.
Three weeks away from work, away from Connor Knight, would be a godsend right now. She wanted distance and she wanted it now. Yet a tiny chink in her rapidly assumed armour whispered, Liar. You want him.
“Holly—?” He caught her by her elbow and swung her around to face him.
Refusing to make eye contact, she stared blindly past his shoulder at the sparkling vista of the Auckland city lights, dazzling like a pirate’s treasure against the skyline and inky black harbour beyond. He could keep his wretched pity and he could keep his blasted plant along with it.
He brushed another errant tear from her cheek with the back of his hand, his touch igniting the banked embers of desire she was working so hard to contain.
Contain it be damned.
She’d probably regret this in the morning. Heck, probably, nothing. Regrets were for the weak. If life had taught her anything it was how to be strong. To grab what you wanted and hold on tight. And right now, more than anything, she wanted Connor Knight.
The poinsettia dropped, unheeded,
