Citroën was low, and Miranda was acutely conscious of the frisky slide of her skirt as she half flung herself into the passenger seat. Patrick’s smile broadened and seemed to twinkle as if it’d been animated by Pixar, while their eyes acknowledged the wedge of dark lace stocking top she’d just flashed at him. “Nice,” he murmured, leaving her so flabbergasted at his cheek that she couldn’t answer.
Clipping the buckle of her seat belt, she expected him to ask, Where to? But instead, he just set the car in motion, drove out of the car park and headed off confidently without reference to her or her preferences.
“Where are we going?”
Miranda swallowed, nerves and maniac butterflies fluttering in her chest. She’d been in cars with Patrick before, en route to away meetings and functions, but even though they’d been just as physically close in these instances as they were now, it’d never seemed so intimate, so intense. Senses she couldn’t quantify were seeing him in perfect detail even while she affected a nonchalant interest in where they were heading.
“Oh, nowhere you know…just a little place. Off the beaten track. You’ll like it.”
“But where is it?”
Waiting at a set of lights, he was able to turn to her. His expression was arch, amused, completely in charge. Miranda felt as if the Citroën had become a parallel world where Patrick was the boss, and she the subordinate. And yet even as she thought that, she realized that she’d only ever been his superior in a nominal sense. Even when she’d been giving him instructions and doling out tasks, on some level he’d been oh-so subtly controlling her instead.
Oh, God…what am I into here? What are we into?
“It’s a secret. Why spoil the fun?” he said mildly, putting his foot down as the lights changed. They were taking a road out of town, and already greenery and sunlight were all around them. “You asked me to take you away from it all, and that’s what I’m doing…. I’m taking you away from being in charge.”
Oh, God…oh, God…
Miranda trembled. The phrase “a whole new ball game” had never really meant a lot to her, but now, she understood it completely. The door into the new world slammed shut behind her, the thud of it rushing through her body like a hot tsunami that crested deliciously in the pit of her belly and her sex.
As if he’d observed the phenomenon with X-ray vision, Patrick flashed her a quick glance. He barely took his eyes off the road for a second, and yet Miranda knew he’d seen everything, both hidden and unhidden.
“Let’s play a game.” He waggled his expressive blond eyebrows.
“What kind of a game?”
“Oh, just a little something to loosen you up. To relax you.”
Strangely, despite the pounding of sexual excitement, Miranda realized she did feel relaxed. And safe, in an odd way. Which didn’t make sense because she also knew, finally and with certainty, that Patrick was dangerous. Very dangerous.
She shook her head and tried to order the mismatched thoughts.
“Okay?” he said immediately.
“Yes…fine. I think.”
“Well, in that case, take off your knickers and give them to me.”
Miranda’s jaw dropped, the breath knocked out of her. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t partly expecting something like this, but to hear it, in Patrick’s soft, mellifluous tones, was like being tackled from the side by a twenty-stone wrestler.
“I beg your pardon?”
Again, that sly, mischievous look from the corner of his eye. “Oh, go on…it’s just a bit of fun. Something different to take you out of yourself.” His wicked pink tongue peeped out again. “Just for the hell of it.”
She was about to protest, but the crazy friskiness of the idea was so seductive. What would they think at the firm, eh? If they knew… No-nonsense, corporate high-flyer Miranda Austin playing silly sex games with her discreetly urbane personal assistant. Her very personal assistant, right at this moment.
“All right then! Just for the hell of it!” She snorted with laughter, and beside her, Patrick’s smile broadened, and became creamy and smug in a sweet, boyish way. He didn’t take his eyes off the road, but she could feel his elation and triumph.
And strangely, it didn’t annoy her one bit.
Hitching herself about in the seat, she managed to get a hand up her skirt and snag her knickers without flashing him. He’d asked her to take her panties off, but she was still in charge, in a little way. She wasn’t giving him extras, at least not yet. With a lot of wriggling and tugging and wrangling with her skirt, her underwear and even the seat belt, she eventually achieved her goal and hauled her cream lace trimmed knickers down to her ankles.
Blood rushed into her face. She was blushing a little already, but when she caught sight of her panties, she felt a huge rush of heat. The crotch of them was drenched and sticky. She’d known she was aroused, turned on by this new, risqué Patrick, but as swimmingly as this? Good God! And she was odorous, too. A rich waft of woman-smell rose from the pale fabric, the perfume of her desire, haunting yet pungent.
“Now what?” she demanded, wadding them into a ball, trying to hide the incriminating evidence, but knowing that even as she did, he was probably fully aware of her state. After all, it was exactly what he’d been hoping to induce, she supposed.
“Throw them out of the window.”
“What? Are you mad?” Her heart thudded. She almost wanted to do it, but they were still on a fairly busy road. “There are other cars…and also, they’re part of a fairly expensive set that I happen to be rather fond of.”
Patrick chuckled and, feeling goaded, Miranda reached for the window button.
“No! Don’t do that. On second thought, it’d be a shame to lose them. They’re very pretty—” he paused, as if for effect “—and they smell amazing!”
Miranda gasped. She couldn’t help herself. The heat in her face blossomed, and much the same thing happened between her legs, in her pussy. Which felt all the more breathtaking for her precarious lack of underwear.
“So, why don’t you slip them into my pocket, for safe keeping?” he asked, his voice light, deceptively casual.
Why not indeed? Men and their quirks. Somehow she’d not thought of Patrick in those terms…well, not consciously. But he was a man, all the same. Very, very much so. As she reached across, and rather clumsily stuffed the panties into the pocket of his suit jacket, the cloth slipped to one side, giving her a clearer view of his hips and thighs and crotch.
It didn’t surprise her that he had a very pronounced and respectably sized erection. He winked again when she glanced back up again. The devil. He’d observed her checking him out, the smug bastard!
“Look, what’s all this about?” she demanded, feeling off balance.
“Like I said, it’s therapy…symbolic. I wanted you to throw your knickers away as a representation of you discarding your worries and the stress of work.”
“And there’s nothing in it for you, then, knowing I’ve got no panties on.” She glanced very pointedly at his groin, and her heart thudded. Was he even bigger?
“Of course there’s something in it for me,” he said softly, his voice more intense and not quite as serene and controlled as before. “The thought of your naked sex is giving me an enormous horn. Do you think I don’t think about you that way?” He snuck her another fleeting glance, then concentrated on a right turn, down a smaller road. “Hell, I think about your pussy all the time, Miranda. And your breasts and your bottom and your thighs and every other bit of you. I’m a man, and you’re a beautiful woman. I can’t help myself. Why wouldn’t I think about your body?”
“So,