and ask her to transcribe his notes, which ranged from budget issues to ideas for future speeches.
The recorder was common enough, and by the second week of her employment, she owned an identical one. She reasoned that if Patrick ever caught sight of hers, he’d naturally think it was his own. Not that she intended for him to notice she had a tape recorder, but she believed in covering all her bases.
In two months, nothing had happened.
Nothing that you could put on tape, anyway. Things like sizzling eye contact. A sudden rise in air temperature that had nothing to do with a faulty air conditioner. And a longing deep inside her that was as rare as it was potent.
Briana had never found herself in a worse predicament. She wanted Patrick O’Shea. She wanted to run her fingers over the rugged planes of his face, trace the shape of his ears, the scar that bisected one eyebrow.
Even though his next birthday would be his fortieth, he still had the lean hard body of an active firefighter. She knew he trained frequently at the gym with the guys from his former station.
She wanted to touch that powerfully built body. She had fantasies of coming together with him naked. Fantasies that shamed her because he was her boss and it was inappropriate for her to think about having sex with him.
The curse of her situation was that if he did make a pass, she’d know he was as hot for her as she was for him.
And if he made a pass, she’d also know that he was a hypocrite. A man who would make sexual overtures to a female employee after promising to act with squeaky clean ethics was beneath contempt.
But now here they were, in this dark elevator, and it was Briana’s body, not her brain, that was in charge. Still thrumming with adrenaline after their brush with death, she suddenly didn’t care much about ethics or campaign promises.
As his lips crushed hers, Briana responded helplessly, even as she wished deep down that Patrick had turned out to be a better man.
Five minutes. She’d give him five minutes. Enough time to get some moaning and groaning recorded. If he was like every other man she’d ever kissed, he’d try to get her out of her clothes.
She’d say no.
He’d beg her for sex.
And she’d have him. On tape.
The man is a hypocrite and a liar, she reminded herself as Patrick’s lips found her throat and she tipped her chin to give him better access.
Five minutes. She traced the shape of his eyebrow, noting the indent of his scar, then let her hands roam his face, his shoulders. His arousal strained against her, hard, seeking her softest parts, and she couldn’t stop the rush of longing.
Stuck there in the dark, suspended between floors was like being caught between reality and fantasy.
Patrick O’Shea was a bad man.
She knew it. He’d destroyed her uncle’s chances of ever becoming mayor of the town he’d served for a quarter of a century. Now, the minute they were stuck in an elevator together, he was jumping her bones. Intellectually, she knew he was a hypocrite and a liar. But the trouble was, her body didn’t care. Her flesh and blood responded to him in a purely physical sense that had nothing to do with morals or ethics, elections or earthquakes.
Well, earthquakes maybe, in their crudest “the earth moved” definition.
“I want you so much,” he murmured against her neck.
Damn. Too soft for the tape recorder.
Her breathing shallow, she raised her head and spoke as clearly as she could. “What did you say?”
“I want you so much, Briana,” he repeated. “I want to make love with you.”
“Yes,” she said, not certain whether she meant yes as in Yes! I got it on tape, or Yes! He wants me, he wants me.
Patrick seemed to take it as Yes, she wants me. He went back to kissing her neck, which was fine, because she did want him. More than she ever remembered wanting anything.
He made it to the base of her throat, and she found herself arching up to give him easier access to her breasts.
His hands, so capable and strong, cupped her breasts with hot abandon, surprising a moan out of her.
As though impatient to reach bare skin—and he couldn’t be more impatient for it than she was—he plunged a hand into the vee of her blouse, then cursed in frustration.
“Buttons,” she cried, desperate to feel his hands on her. She’d have undone them herself, but her arms were supporting her and they trembled beneath her.
He made such clumsy work of her buttons that Briana realized he was shaking as badly as she was.
The tape, she recalled dimly. It would be impossible to register what he was doing on tape.
“Are you taking off my blouse?”
A low chuckle answered her. “I’m trying, but damn it, I’m out of practice.”
That blunt admission gave her pause. Of course, she knew he’d been a widower for three years, but surely…He was a man. He must have…
Anyway, none of that mattered. What mattered was getting him to incriminate himself on tape so she could do her buttons back up and be done with this unpleasant task of entrapping a man she’d grown to like.
Even if her judgment was suspect, she did like him. She wanted to get this over with. Record the incident. Get out of here alive. Give the tape to her uncle and leave town.
Playing this devious undercover game was no fun. She’d discovered within hours of meeting Patrick that she wasn’t cut out for entrapment. She liked plain dealing and honesty. He might be a lying, devious career-destroyer, but at this moment, so was she, no matter how she tried to justify her actions.
Mentally, she reviewed the tape. There’d be kissing sounds, heavy breathing, Patrick admitting he wanted her…
That would have to be enough. She couldn’t do this anymore.
She opened her mouth to stop him but at the same moment he managed to unsnap her bra. In the dark, her nipples tightened, then she gasped as his hot tongue slid across her aching flesh.
“Oh,” she cried, her entire body shuddering. “That feels so good.”
His tongue curled around one nipple and he sucked the tip of her breast right into his mouth. He was so greedy, so eager, and his obvious delight in her thrilled her more than any refined technique.
From one breast to the other he moved eagerly, as though he’d been in prison for years and had only now rediscovered women.
He was panting, she was panting. The tape must be moving into R-rated territory.
His hand was working its way under her skirt. She was supposed to stop him, she had to say…
“No.”
The
