them. Locking them inside the small, windowless room. Alone.
Her pulse quickened with excitement, but her stinging pride tamped down that excitement. “I thought you didn’t want to…that you didn’t want…me…”
He leaned back against the door, his arms crossed over his muscular chest. “Yup, you never listen…” He sighed again. “I didn’t say that I don’t want you.”
“But that you don’t want to want me.” She listened; too bad he hadn’t ever really talked to her before.
“This is so complicated, Pai—”
“Shh,” she said, interrupting him, reminding herself that she didn’t want to talk or listen anymore. “You don’t know my name, and I don’t know yours. We’re just strangers who met at a bar.”
“Is that the game we’re playing this time?”
It wasn’t a game, not really. “We are strangers,” she repeated.
“You don’t want this, either,” he pointed out, “or you wouldn’t have run away from me at the bar. You nearly ran me over trying to get away from me.” He shook his head and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Hell of a way to treat your customers.”
“Are you a customer?” she asked, fighting the smile that teased her lips.
He lifted a brow, dark with just a touch of gray. “Maybe not,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “I haven’t had my free drink.”
“Why not?” she asked, leaning against the edge of her desk because her knees trembled. She blamed the high heels; she wasn’t used to wearing them anymore. “Can’t you decide what you want?”
“That’s never been my problem,” he insisted as he straightened away from the door and advanced on her.
She didn’t care what he was implying because he was wrong. She knew exactly what she wanted. Him, closer. Close enough to touch.
“I know what I want,” he said, his hands closing over her bare shoulders, his fingers toying with the thin spaghetti straps of her dress. He wanted to talk. Just talk. That was what he’d told himself as he’d descended the stairs to Club Underground.
But now, touching her, her skin silky soft beneath his fingertips, he wanted only her. He pushed down the straps of her dress, exposing more of the luscious slopes of her breasts. “You are so beautiful…”
Her lips curved into a self-deprecating smile. “Back here—where it’s just you and me. But not out there—among all those beautiful young girls.”
“You’re beautiful,” he insisted.
“But I’m no young girl.”
And neither were most of her patrons. But he couldn’t point that out to her without having to explain things that defied explanation.
“You’re a woman.” His woman.
“For a guy who doesn’t like to talk, you’re talking too much now,” she complained, but with another smile. Then she reached for his waist and slid her hands beneath his sweater, scraping her nails up his abdomen.
Ben shuddered again—this time for a good reason. Because only her touch could incite his desire to the point that he forgot everything else going on in his life and everything that had happened between them.
He lowered his head to hers. “Paige…”
“Shh…” she murmured as she kissed him.
The silkiness of her lips, the sweetness of her mouth, seduced him further, so that his control slipped. His hands shook as he gripped her waist and lifted her onto the desk. She lifted her legs, sliding her calves up the back of his thighs and over his butt to lock around his waist.
His cock hardened, throbbing behind the straining fly of his jeans. He pushed his hips forward, pressing against hers. She arched into him—as if there were no clothes between them…or secrets…or pain…
Only passion. It pumped through Ben’s body, fast and heavy, and elicited a groan from deep in his throat. Paige answered him with a moan, and her hands clutched at his sweater, dragging it up his body.
He pulled his mouth from hers as she yanked the cashmere over his head and tossed it onto the floor. He fumbled with the clasp at the back of her dress, unhooking it before dragging down the zipper. As the red silk fell away from her body, his breath caught in his lungs, then escaped in a ragged gasp. “Damn it, woman…”
She wore no bra beneath the dress, so her breasts, so round and full, were bare to his hungry gaze. “You only get more gorgeous.”
“And you get more charming,” she said with a smile, as if she didn’t believe his compliment.
But he’d never lied to her…except by omission. There was so damn much he’d omitted over the years.
If she wouldn’t believe what he told her, he’d have to prove it to her with his desire. He cupped her head in his hands, holding her face still for his kiss, for the possession of his mouth as he pressed her lips apart and slid his tongue across hers. She arched again, and her nipples rubbed against his bare chest.
Desire pounded in his head and his heart and he couldn’t think rationally. He couldn’t think at all…beyond the fact that he had to have her. He swept his arm across the desk behind her, knocking her papers and a cup to the floor. Ceramic cracked and broke, but he didn’t care. He cared about nothing but her. Always her.
His hands shook as he fumbled with his zipper, pulling his pants down. And he took her. She was ready for him, wet and hot as he thrust inside her.
Her nails sank into his shoulders then scraped down his back, as she shifted and arched against him. He lowered his head and caught first one rose-hued nipple then the other in his mouth, laving it with his tongue.
Her fingers tangled in his hair as she pressed his head to her breast. He reached between their bodies, sliding his fingers through her golden curls until he found the nub of her femininity. He pressed and stroked the pad of his thumb back and forth across it until she came, screaming against his lips as he kissed her deeply. His tongue slid in and out of her mouth, matching his rhythm as he moved in and out of her body. Her muscles clutched at him, holding him inside her.
And he came. He broke the rules of her little game—as he screamed her name. He couldn’t pretend that they were strangers. He could only pretend that they could actually be together…even though he knew they had no future.
Chapter Two
Paige pulled her spaghetti straps back up her shoulders, making certain her dress wasn’t on backward. The back dipped as low as the bodice. Warm lips brushed the bare skin between her shoulder blades. Shivering despite the heat racing through her, she leaned away and protested, “Only the first drink was on the house.”
“Miss Kitty never kicked Marshal Dillon out of bed,” Ben protested, then groaned as he flopped back down on the couch in her office.
The supple burgundy leather shifted beneath him, nearly knocking
