“It’s currently a partner. In the singular.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize you’re looking for only one.”
“I am.” The flare in his eyes said he was no longer talking about a business partner.
A thrill darted through her, and she sighed as he gathered her closer, soaking up his warmth and desire. “You do know the moment you touch me you nullify my thought processes, don’t you?”
“Not touching you is like holding my breath. I can only do it for so many minutes at a time. So will you stop pulling away? We can discuss whatever you like, for as long as you like, just with you in my arms.”
Sighing again, she relaxed in his hold, resigned to the fact that she wasn’t strong enough to resist both her need and his.
His lips curved. “So you think I’d judge those I’m considering for such a vital partnership by spying on them in a party? Would I disqualify them for stepping on their partner’s feet or talking with their mouth full?”
“I bet you’d see everything you need to make an accurate judgment in observations like those. Just like you always do.”
His eyebrows rose. “How do you know what I always do?”
“Are you kidding? The past couple of hours are worth a year of intensive...exposure. And I’m connecting what I’ve just learned about you with what I’ve long known of you.”
“And what, pray tell, do you think you know about me?”
“Well, as a virtuoso in your field, you have such nonlinear, multidimensional analytic powers, you have the world begging for your Midas touch. You got where you are by judging every situation and person you’ve dealt with throughout your career perfectly. As perfectly as you judged me from a literal hundred paces.”
He wove his fingers into her hair, wrapped a handful around his wrist and inhaled it. “Get yourself out of any comparison. Nothing with you had anything to do with anything I’ve ever experienced before. There was no judgment involved on my part, not when you zapped me from a literal hundred paces, too. And you did that to me when I had my back to you.”
She blinked. “Really?”
“Really. I was at the mezzanine when your aura lashed me with a thousand volts of delight.” He bent and kissed the tops of her breasts that bulged above the now too-tight bodice. “We’ve already agreed there was magic at work.”
“Yes.” There was no contradicting him on that point. “So you’re not orchestrating events only to watch the attendees, at least to weed out those who prove to be blatantly unsuitable?”
“Don’t you think someone as exceptional as you advertise me to be would let résumés choose for me?”
Suddenly she realized what was going on. They’d moved from blinding passion, bypassing any expected awkwardness in the wake of its temporary sating, and plunged right into delightful banter. The seamlessness of it all had her heart soaring.
She cupped his jaw, luxuriating in the ruggedness that filled her palm. “I would have thought so, if you haven’t just promised to give my boss preferential treatment if he passes the lamentable level of ‘any good.’ Or maybe I just mess with your thought processes, too.”
Blistering intensity suddenly filled his eyes, making her heart falter. Then he covered her hand with his. “Do you realize this is the first time you’ve touched me?”
Her mouth dropped open. “I’ve been touching you nonstop since about a minute and a half after setting eyes on you.”
“No. You didn’t touch me once. You let me touch you. This is your first voluntary touch.”
She gaped at him, everything rewinding and replaying.
And he was right. She hadn’t touched him once!
She’d just stood or lain there and let him do whatever he wanted, inciting him only by total surrender.
“I was too overwhelmed to do anything but let you possess me. But let me compensate both of us.”
Her other hand reached for his face, gliding up his cheek, moaning at the wonder of his feel, before doing what she’d been aching to do. She slipped her fingers into the hair at his nape, and the thick mass slid like living silk between them, urging her to take more. His breath caught as she bunched a handful of his locks, then tugged.
Next second she was flat on her back, with him on top of her, hips driving between her spread thighs, his febrile, wrenching kisses no longer resembling his previous ones.
Her reaction was an even fuller submission. And a deeper madness. Now that she was aware of the risks, she wanted to release him from his promise, tell him to just take her now, come what may.
But to her dismay, Rafael only tore his lips from hers. Flinging himself off her, he sat up and pitched forward, both forearms resting on his knees, hair raining over his forehead to hide his eyes as he struggled to regulate his harsh breathing.
“I thought touching you was mind-altering...but you touching me is insanity inducing.” He slanted her a voracious glance as he took her hands and pulled her up. “Leave the touching to me tonight. Until I train myself to withstand your touch without pouncing on you and ravishing you.”
Trembling all over, she sat up, every cell in her body rioting against his decree. She now wanted nothing but to touch him, craved nothing but his ravishing. Even thinking of the consequences wasn’t deterring her. Which did prove that exposure to him was insanity inducing.
But it meant so much, that he’d applied brakes—for her—against the demands of his very...obvious desires. It meant even more that he confessed to a weakness. Something Rafael Moreno Salazar had never exhibited in the eight years of his meteoric rise to the top of a field he’d singlehandedly revolutionized.
The fact that that man and her man were one and the same was still too much to get her head around. She hadn’t even started to scratch the surface of the implications. No matter what he said, she knew being who he was would cause problems.
But for now she had him, in those moments of perfection when she was the world to him. As he was to her. And really, what was the point of looking ahead? She had no illusions there would be a continuation once they exited this magical interlude.
But they were still there now.
Feeling she’d be poking a dragon, yet unable to stop, she slid her hand across his shoulders, caressing her way down his back to his waist, delving beneath his open shirt and repeating the journey up, then down, then lower still. The exquisite pleasure of having this freedom, this privilege, was intoxicating.
He caught her against him, crushing her in his arms, his face set in stark lines of savage hunger. And she did another first. She brought his lips down to hers.
Initiating this kiss made it so different, enabling her to set its taste and temperature, sweet and scalding at once. He let her savor him—for about thirty seconds. Then he pushed out of her arms, exploded to his feet.
He scowled down at her. “If you
