horror of that day had gripped him as effectively as a choke-hold around the throat, making it impossible for him to stay sitting there while she went up alone.
Shit! He tore his mouth away from the kiss. ‘The taxi.’ He’d told the driver he’d be back in a few minutes.
‘Send it away. Now,’ Annabel ordered, even as her questing hands ran down his back to grasp his arse cheeks and pull him impossibly closer. It seemed whatever the circumstances that had led to his current loss of control, she wasn’t complaining. ‘Hurry,’ she demanded again, this time grinding herself against the rock-hard ridge of his erection.
‘Fuck,’ he gasped harshly, head snapping back as hot needles of pleasure lanced through him. One look at Annabel’s half-closed green eyes and half-open smudged red lips had him crushing their mouths together again as his hands tunnelled beneath her overcoat. Under it, she was dressed in her usual severe work attire – a black skirt suit so sharply tailored he was surprised not to feel his fingers sliced to bits. Her hair was pulled back in its trademark perfect twist, leaving her looking as impeccably, formidably stunning as the first time he’d seen her in Cluny’s dining room. She hadn’t been at all happy that day, returning to work from a week’s leave to find he’d been taken on as head barman without her consent. Yet even as he’d endured the full blast of her icy disdain, he’d known he’d do almost anything to muss up that perfection she wore as armour.
And that thought was all it took to have the caveman part of his brain stomping its big hairy feet to know why the hell she wasn’t mussed right now. He retracted his hands from the recesses of her coat and raised them again to her head to hunt out and remove the clips that held her hair tightly tamed. Spearing his fingers into the long, heavy mass, he fanned them through to the ends.
Pulling back to watch the soft locks cascade over her shoulders, he realised he had a correction to make. Annabel wasn’t as stunning as she’d been the first time he’d seen her. She was more so. The colour of her hair then had been a dyed ruby red, but she’d allowed it to return to its natural flaming riot of spun gold and copper and cinnamon – a sight that made him very happy indeed. He’d always had a thing for redheads, but most especially for this one.
Before he could lean in to claim her mouth again, Annabel used the small distance he’d put between them to push a hand against his chest. ‘Taxi,’ she panted. ‘Now.’
He’d already forgotten. ‘Wait right there.’ He tore himself away, heaved the door open and raced for the stairs before his synapses could relay the urgent message to stop and turn around.
He was back in less than five minutes. And she was waiting for him. Watching through her little spyhole. Flinging the door open before he had to knock.
Then he was inside again, noticing she’d ditched the coat as, without a word, he pushed her back up against the wall and kissed her hard until neither of them had any breath left.
She pulled away first, sucking in air through lips his rough kiss had left red and swollen. Her hands were busy with the remaining buttons of his coat while his skimmed down over the tailored curves of her waist and hips.
‘Off!’ She wrenched the lapels back over his shoulders. He took his hands from her only long enough to help shake the coat from his arms and then he put them right back where they’d been.
‘Your turn,’ he ordered, bending to kiss her jawline while his fingers began gathering the fabric of her skirt, rucking it up. ‘Lose the jacket.’
Annabel moaned and let her head drop back against the wall, surrendering to his mouth as it closed over the pulse banging below her ear.
Hands working urgently in the tight space between their torsos, she managed to wrestle her jacket off while he got her skirt bunched up around her hips. As he felt her palms clasp his shoulders, his own slid downwards over her newly exposed thighs. What his touch discovered there had him smiling against the tender skin of her neck.
Straightening, he looked down into her upturned face. ‘Tights, Ms Frost?’ he questioned with a whiff of disapproval, as he’d done once before – on the day he’d decided that the only way he’d ever get past his manager’s frosty defences was to risk something daring. ‘Really?’
Her eyelids snapped open at the words and, when she would have lifted her head, he wrapped a hand around her throat, setting the pad of his thumb against her chin to hold her where she was.
‘Remember what happened the last time I found you in tights?’ he asked, because he sure as hell did. He recalled every heart-pounding second of the scene that had started as a tease and had spun way out of control down in the wine cellar of Cluny’s, leaving Annabel standing in a ruined pair of tights and him wondering if he’d lost his job as well as his sanity.
Her throat moved against his palm as she swallowed. ‘How could I forget? You were so over the line I should have had you charged with indecent assault.’
He flashed a grin. ‘Indecent?’ He leaned close to bring his mouth to hers and licked slowly from one corner of her bottom lip to the other. ‘I doubt you have the first clue of just how indecent things would have become if I’d not called a halt to that little episode – if I’d carried on and done all the things I’d wanted to do to you.’
‘I would have stopped you,’ Annabel said, baited no doubt by his deliberately cocky tone.
Although the heat sparking in her eyes had little to do with anger.
‘Would you?’ he asked, unable to resist teasing her a little more. ‘So far as I remember, you didn’t look like you were up for stopping much of anything.’
She stiffened. ‘Of course I would have. I didn’t want it.’ She tried to escape his hold, but he tightened his grip at hip and throat and lowered his mouth to hers again. This time he captured her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked on it until her eyelids fluttered closed and he felt her annoyance start to melt back into desire.
He loosened his hold on her hip and ran his fingers along the leg seam of her briefs, tracing the inward line through the sheer barrier of the tights. Releasing her lip, he murmured, ‘Do you want it now?’
Her lashes parted to give him a flash of green as she sighed and murmured back, ‘Fuck yes.’
With that he hooked his fingers into the sheer fabric and with a sharp tug, tore through the tights.
Annabel jolted, her mouth and eyes rounding in shock. While he locked his gaze onto hers he ripped an opening large enough to allow him access, then his fingers were burrowing into her silky underwear, brushing against soft curls and into the slick, soft heat of heaven. He groaned deep and low in unison with Annabel – felt her push against him, forcing his touch to slide deeper into the welcoming wetness.
God Almighty. He wanted her naked and on her back now. Wanted her legs spread and his face buried hard between her thighs. Wanted her mindless and arching against his mouth as he tasted every inch of her and drove her to come on his tongue.
Withdrawing his hand, he silenced her sudden aggrieved growl with a deep, demanding, open-mouthed kiss that conveyed the promise of the more intimate kiss to come. Enfolding her in his arms, he lifted her off her feet and made his way down the hall.
The feel of Annabel’s legs wrapping around him, the plucking of her fingers at his clothes as he carried her towards her bedroom, only maddened his lust further. He heard her shoes hit the floor behind him as he
