daring. She’d been overprotected most of her life. Only in the last few years had she risked her father’s disapproval by undertaking her own design projects and seeking out an intimate relationship. Although the former had been wonderfully successful, the latter had left her feeling a little wary. Still, she couldn’t squelch the hunger for adventure that had gnawed at her from the moment she’d slipped into her merry widow this morning.
A hunger which Duke’s presence currently fed and stirred at the same time.
“What if you pick the wrong person?” She knew she couldn’t bounce back from something like that.
Duke rubbed his thumb across the center of her palm and pressed the hollow in her hand, a gesture which provoked unnerving repercussions throughout the rest of her body.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” The stern expression that crossed his face told her he didn’t relish the thought of making a big mistake.
Yet he didn’t move away, didn’t pull back.
In fact, he loomed within tantalizing reach. Did she drift closer or did he? Caught up in his “live for the moment” attitude, Amanda allowed herself to be mesmerized by his eyes.
“I don’t know if I could ever take risks like that.” She whispered the words more to herself than to him.
Her blood pounded out the beat of her heart in the palm of her hand where he touched her. The rhythm joined them somehow, connected them in an elemental way.
“I think we should find out,” he whispered back, so close she couldn’t think of anything else.
Her attention shifted to his mouth, which seemed to be on a collision course with her own. A moment before contact, her eyes drifted shut in anticipation.
She did not bother to deny him. Her lips seemed to part on their own, welcoming the hot stroke of his tongue, the pressure of his mouth on hers.
The electronic hum of the snack machine faded along with the shuffle of people on the other side of the elevators. Their quiet corner closed in around them, the space igniting with the heat they generated.
Duke wrapped his hands around her waist, then slid them up her spine, urging her closer into the hard wall of his chest.
The silk lining of her trench coat might have teased her earlier today, when Duke had been within a few feet of her nearly naked body. But the sensation paled in comparison to the caress of cashmere now that his heated body pressed insistently against the other side.
Duke breathed in the clean scent of her, so hot for her soft curves and welcoming mouth that he couldn’t think straight. Blood roared in his ears, deafening him to everything but Amanda’s shallow breaths, her tiny sighs as he moved his hands over her hips.
He’d been looking for an excuse to kiss her, thinking if he could only have one taste, he’d satisfy his curiosity and get her out of his head. Now he knew that one taste would tease him forever until he had more.
Much more.
The leather satchel she’d been carrying slid to the floor with a thunk—snapping his attention away from Amanda for a split second just as he’d started to pull her hips to his. In broad daylight. In the lobby of an apartment building. What the hell was the matter with him?
“Amanda.” He held himself still, unable to remove his hands from her just yet. He knew better than this. She was a princess in New York’s fashion society. He was a damn frog in a small pond and he had no desire to enter her glitzy world. Especially not when she could be a suspect in his current case.
Still, it soothed his ego to see her slow return to reality. Her lips remained parted for a long moment, her cheeks flushed and her hair slipping from its twist. Duke mentally placed her in his bed, imagining just how she would look if he’d been making love to her with more than his mouth.
“Amanda.” The word sounded harsh, his voice rough with sexual frustration.
Her eyes flew open, her flush growing deeper.
“Sorry,” she murmured, as if that particular remark fell frequently from her lips. She focused on retrieving her satchel from the floor, her hands a sudden flurry of awkward movement.
Damn.
He stepped back, prying his fingers from her body, afraid he would kiss her all over again in some misguided attempt to apologize. “Don’t be.” He pulled her to her feet again, unwilling to let her walk away looking so bereft. “You kiss like an angel.”
Or like a temptress from a teenage fantasy.
But Amanda Matthews seemed like the kind of woman who would appreciate the first analogy more.
She adjusted the leather strap on her shoulder and rewarded him with a tentative smile. “Really?”
Duke stifled a groan. Just how innocent was she? Maybe Victor Gallagher had taken a lover because his girlfriend, the mobster’s daughter, was off-limits until her wedding night. The idea made sense, considering Amanda had been going into Victor’s apartment building this morning rather than leaving it.
No matter that she’d probably been wearing a killer skirt and real, honest-to-goodness stockings underneath her conservative trench coat. She had an inherent modesty about her, an old-fashioned sense of grace and propriety she broadcasted in everything from her fifties starlet hairdo to her perfect posture.
He squeezed her hand and nodded, knowing he was already in way over his head. “Really. I didn’t mean to get so…carried away.”
She flashed him a high-wattage smile—definitely the fantasy temptress variety—and made him rethink his ideas about her all over again. “You won’t hear me complaining.”
It would have been so easy to kiss her again. Amanda obviously wouldn’t mind. He wanted to touch her so badly his muscles twitched with the effort to restrain himself. But Duke forced himself to think about the consequences.
Despite what he’d spouted about chemistry and jumping in with both feet, Duke knew he’d have to give some thought to involving himself with Amanda Matthews. How wise would it be for a New York detective to lose his head with a sheltered daughter of a possible mobster? A sheltered daughter who’d been lying through her teeth when she’d said she returned to Victor’s building for her date book.
Maybe she was just having a hard rebound after her bout with her indiscreet boyfriend this morning. Surely that accounted for the impassioned kiss more than anything.
Duke nodded toward the lobby. “I’ve got to get back to the precinct and go over today’s evidence. You need a ride downtown?” He asked even though he knew better than to spend too much time in her tempting presence. His granddad would kick his butt if he left a woman stranded.
She shook her head, effectively freeing a few more strands of hair from the slipping knot at the back of her head. Duke’s fingers itched to pull the pins from the caramel-colored mass and see it fall down around her shoulders.
“I’ve got to get back to the showroom to work on a window for my father. You still want me to stop by the station tomorrow?”
“I’d appreciate it.” They reached the lobby doors and he pushed one side open for her, remembering how they’d met just that morning.
The sexy look she sent sizzling his way told him she was remembering, too. “See you at eleven.”
She clicked her way down the street, her trench coat waving a sassy goodbye as it moved in time with her confident step. She had a walk to turn heads, stop traffic and make Duke forget what the hell he was doing.
He’d held the door of Gallagher’s apartment building for at least five people by the time she turned the corner at Twenty-eighth Street, out of his sight.
He knew she’d be very much on his mind, however, when he went to the station to review the day’s evidence for his case against Gallagher.
Her kisses