woman. The wild and wanton thoughts tumbling through her mind were as new and as stimulating as the feelings surging through her. And it seemed that Cade could read them all...
He scooped her up in his arms. Another first for her. She couldn’t remember ever being carried, though presumably it was her mode of transport before she’d learned to walk.
She was totally unprepared for and completely defenseless against the tantalizing sensation of being lifted in a man’s arms and held against his chest as he strode across the office.
Kylie—the stable, dependable defender of the less fortunate—suddenly felt seductive and intensely feminine, like a character out of one of those romance novels she never had the time or inclination to read. Cade was so big, so strong. He handled her with ease, laying her down on the charcoal gray leather sofa and then coming down on top of her.
Her head was spinning, her eyelids felt extraordinarily heavy. It took too much energy and effort to keep them open so she allowed them to close, plunging her into a dark world of pure sensation.
He kissed her again, and she wrapped her arms around him, savoring the hard warm weight of him. The taste of him, the feel of him was exactly what she wanted, what she needed. She slipped her hands under the jacket of his suit to knead the muscular length of his back. The cloth barrier of his shirt frustrated her; she wanted to feel his bare skin beneath her fingers. She tugged at the material tucked into the waistband of his trousers, trying to get it out of her way.
Before she could succeed, Cade pushed aside her jacket and opened her blouse. Kylie felt his fingers deftly unfasten the front clasp of her bra. She knew she was exposed to him but instead of trying to cover herself, she arched upward, yielding greater access to him.
The touch of his hands on her bare breasts unleased piercing shards of desire deeply within her, too pleasurable to even consider ending. He fondled her, stroking and caressing, making her desperate for more.
“Cade, please!” She hardly recognized that desperate, husky cry as her own voice.
“I know, sweetie, I know.” His voice was thick and raspy. “Me, too.”
Kylie reached up to touch the hard, shaven skin of his cheek. She was charmed by his inarticulate mutter. She needed no translation, she knew exactly what he was saying. That he was as wonderfully out of control as she was. That he wanted her in the same fierce way that she wanted him.
Then his mouth was on the soft skin of her breast, kissing a sensuous path to its taut center that was tingling with arousal. She held her breath as his lips closed over her nipple to gently suckle her, then moaned as flames of desire licked through her. She hadn’t known that a man’s mouth on her breasts could affect her like this. The sensation was so intense, it was exquisite pleasure bordering on acute need.
His fingers slipped beneath the layers of her panty hose and white cotton panties to caress the soft, bare flesh of her belly. She felt him trace her navel, and she reflexively sucked in her stomach to provide him easier access. He dipped his thumb into the small hollow and kindled a wildfire that streaked directly to the pulsing heart of her femininity.
Kylie squirmed, trying to clench her legs together to ease the consuming ache there. Cade moved his thigh higher between hers, pressing against her. It helped but not enough. She wanted, she needed...
“Yes?” Cade murmured.
Through the dizzying fog of sensuality, Kylie realized that he was seeking her permission to continue. She wondered why he’d bothered; he didn’t have to ask. Stopping him was the farthest thing from her mind. She wanted him with an urgency that bordered on desperation.
“Yes,” she whispered.
She had no sooner spoken the word when Donna’s voice boomed into the office once again, irrevocably shattering their private sensual cocoon. “Cade, Noah is here for your lunch meeting with the mayor.”
Cade muttered an oath. Kylie’s eyes flew open.
He was kneeling on one knee above her, in the process of sliding her panties and panty hose over her hips. Kylie gasped as the reality of the situation struck her with the force of an anvil. She was on the verge of having sex with a man she hardly knew!
“Kylie, I know this interruption isn’t what either of us wanted to happen, but—”
“Get away from me!” she ordered, her voice little more than a raspy whisper.
She was horrified, Sex on the sofa in Cade Austin’s office? What had she been thinking?
The answer, of course, was that she hadn’t been thinking at all.
“I completely forgot that Noah and I are to have lunch with the mayor today. That’s Noah Wyckoff, our senior vice president of operations.” Cade caressed her midriff, seemingly mesmerized by the contrast of his tanned fingers against the snowy whiteness of her skin.
“I don’t care who he is or who you’re having lunch with.” Kylie slapped his hands away and tried to sit up, a difficult feat with him hovering over her. “Let me go right now!”
Instead, he stunned her by picking her up again and carrying her toward a door at the far end of his office. His movements were so sudden, so unexpected that Kylie had no time to rally a protest. He’d opened the door and put her on her feet before she could utter a sound.
Kylie glanced around her. She was standing in a well-appointed bathroom—the executive washroom?—and Cade had reclosed the door, leaving her alone to repair her hair, makeup and clothing.
“Kylie, you’ll need this.” Cade rapped lightly on the door, then handed her purse to her.
Kylie snatched it with shaking fingers and swiftly slammed the door shut. He was so cool, so self-possessed! How had he recovered his wits and his composure so quickly, while she was still a shivering, quivering, unable-to-think-straight mess?
She forced herself to face the painful truth. Obviously, Cade hadn’t been as sensually enthralled as she’d been. It was a devastating conclusion, both insulting and humiliating, but Kylie had never been one to hide behind the walls of denial.
One quick glance in the mirror made her groan aloud. Her mouth was moist and swollen and looked well-kissed, her lipstick was missing in action. And her hair...Kylie winced. It was in tousled disarray. She looked like she’d been doing exactly what she had been doing—indulging in a hot sexual tryst on the office sofa!
Moments later, she heard voices in the office, Cade’s and another man’s, presumably Noah Wyckoff, whose untimely appearance had interrupted the most impassioned episode in her life. The stupidest episode in her life, Kylie silently amended, reassessing the encounter through a critical, analytical eye.
Though she had been swept away, Cade had not been over-powered by that same wild abandon. And now, viewed in retrospect, his passionate advances seemed calculated, his recovery too quick and complete.
Kylie trembled. It hurt that his seemingly spontaneous burst of passion had actually been premeditated, a means of controlling her. He had seen her attraction to him and decided to use it to his advantage. Seducing BrenCo’s major stockholder would be a real coup for the company president, bent on using her to further his own arms.
Her cheeks flamed. It was difficult enough to admit that she had lost her self-control and
