do, the risk she was taking. But she didn’t care. She lifted her hands to his chest, settling her palms against the sculpted muscles. Heat and the rapid beat of his heart emanated through the thin cashmere.
“You’re not going to listen to any warning,” he said with a sigh of resignation, even as his dark eyes burned with desire. “No matter what I say…”
“You talk?” she teased, but her skepticism was real.
His mouth, wide and sensual, lifted in a slight grin. “What’s the point when you won’t listen?”
She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug, which drew his attention to the skin bared by her low bodice. His eyes darkened even more as his pupils dilated. Desire thickened her throat as she murmured, “There is no point to talking….”
She didn’t want to talk or listen or think. She wanted the rush of passion pounding through her veins to drown out the voice and her doubts—not just about buying the club but about him.
His hands loosened their grip on her waist, but before he could step back, she reached up and clutched his shoulders. Then she lifted her face to his. For his kiss.
Instead of lowering his head to hers, he shook it. Then he manacled her wrists and pulled her hands away from him. He glanced over her head, at that steel door, and a shudder rippled through his hard, muscled body. “Not here.”
“You…you feel it, too?” she asked.
“I feel this between us—” he released a ragged sigh “—even though I don’t want to….”
“I don’t want to, either,” she insisted, even as her skin heated with desire for him. She tugged her wrists free of his hands and fumbled inside her bag once again for her keys. After jabbing the key in the lock, she turned the knob and opened the door to her office.
Just as at the bar, strong hands slid over her hips. Then he pushed her through the doorway and closed and locked the door behind 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
