Rain and wind pelted everyone within ten feet of the doors. “It’s back out there, then,” she said with a shiver. “To find another place.” She’d have to get a cab first, which wouldn’t be easy in this weather. She’d be wet to the bone within two seconds. The thought wasn’t appealing, but she had no choice and wasn’t one to cry over spilled milk.
Intending to bid her stranger goodbye, she turned to him, but he spoke first.
“I have a room,” he said very softly. “And I’m happy to share it with you.”
2
CORRINE STARED at her perfect stranger, shocked. Although it was dark all around them, she could feel his searching gaze on her, like a caress. In the depths of his warm, blessedly dry jacket, she shivered.
Not from the cold now, but from something far more complicated.
Another woman joined the nervous young receptionist behind the desk. “I’m the manager,” she said to Corrine. “We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but as you can see, with no power and the generator not operating properly, we’re in no position to get you a room or help you find another place. You can wait the storm out here in the lobby or make your own arrangements.”
Wait the storm out? In this cold, dark, noisy room with all these other unhappy people?
Or she could hike back out there and try to catch a cab.
Some choice.
The man behind her stirred, just enough to have his thigh brush the back of hers, and everything inside her went still, then hot.
He’d offered his room.
And his bed.
Probably his body, too.
Please, her own body begged her brain. Oh, pretty, pretty please.
“Ma’am?” The manager looked at Corrine, impatience shimmering. She had other people to cater to at the moment, to smile at and try to appease.
What to do?
Corrine had been born to rule. Just ask her parents, who’d called her Queen Bee since day one. Her mom, a biochemist, and her father, a cardiologist, joked that it was in her genetic makeup to be the boss.
Corrine had to admit she’d lived up to their predictions.
Maybe if she’d been raised by people who hadn’t understood her, who hadn’t encouraged her to do whatever she wanted to do, be whatever she wanted to be, she might have turned out to be a holy terror, but truthfully, she wasn’t spoiled at all. Shortly after her family had moved to Houston when she was a child, she’d dreamed of becoming an astronaut. She worked damn hard for what she wanted, and never gave up until she got it. No matter if it was being high school valedictorian, or graduating from college a year early, or entering the Manned Space Flight Program at NASA because she was determined to fly space shuttles. She’d not only entered, but had succeeded beyond everyone’s expectations.
Except her own, that is.
Thanks to unwavering tenacity, sheer stubbornness and damned hard work, she’d risen through the ranks, flown on a record four missions to date as pilot, and was now going to be only the third woman in history to command a mission.
So maybe she was confident. And okay, a little tough. But to make it in space and aeronautics, traditionally run by men, she had to be. Corrine knew she used that toughness to purposely scare and intimidate the people around her, but she’d never have made it so far if she hadn’t.
In that spirit, she considered demanding a staff room, but something happened. The man’s fingers, still on her waist, spread wide now, his thumb skimming over her side, then her belly, making the muscles there quiver like crazy.
“I have a room,” he said again quietly, her perfect stranger. Her perfect, mouthwateringly gorgeous stranger, who had an unbelievably sexy voice, with sexy eyes, sexy hands and an even sexier body to go with it.
What his fingers were doing to her system should have been illegal. She could no longer even see straight, she was so consumed with lust for this man, who was more handsome than the devil, thrillingly rough around the edges and full of promised sin. He had a slow, sensual smile that lit up the night. He was intelligent, humorous, and he wanted to share his room with her.
“What do you think?” he asked.
That she was crazy. That she had an intensely structured, controlled schedule for the next months. She was too mature for this.
Too…busy.
Oh damn, but that sounded pretentious. Why couldn’t it be simple? Why couldn’t she be as entitled to one night of frivolity as anyone else? She’d been too long without this sort of connection, and she deserved it, deserved one night of pure selfishness and pleasure, where no one would bow to her, kowtow to her commands or try to brownnose. She was entitled to be a woman once in a while.
Wasn’t she?
As calmly as possible, she turned back to the manager, on the off chance this had all been some mistake.
But the woman was shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”
The relief Corrine felt surprised her, but she was always honest, maybe to a fault. In light of that, she had to admit, at least to herself, that she didn’t really want a way out of this. She’d flown into Huntsville to deal with an emergency. Whatever it was, it was big, and it would affect both her and the space-shuttle mission she’d lived and breathed for a year and a half now.
For these remaining months she wouldn’t have any time to herself. None. This was it. This one last night.
It scared her how much she wanted it.
Turning in the dark, she bumped into his chest, and could tell by his quick, indrawn breath that she affected him every bit as much as he affected her. Silly, she wanted to tell him. Juvenile. We’re acting like hormonal teenagers.
His fingers played again at the base of her spine. And all those hormones unleashed by her own hunger leaped and jerked within her. Breathing became optional. She wanted to melt to the floor in a boneless heap of jelly.
It should have been embarrassing. Awkward, at the very least. There should have been fear and doubt, for a million different reasons; that she didn’t even know his name should have led the pack.
Instead, the strangest feeling of…rightness flooded her.
In the dark she craned her neck, trying to see his face clearly. She couldn’t, and she felt more than actually saw his slow, easy smile.
Everything inside her reacted, helplessly.
Oh yeah. She was absolutely in the right place with the right man. “Yes,” she said.
“Yes?”
She inhaled deeply. “Yes, I’d like to share your room.”
The receptionist and manager had both leaned close to hear her answer, and then looked like maybe they wanted to cry in relief. “His key will work,” the manager said. “The electronic keying system is on emergency power and is one of the few things actually operating right now. You’ll have no problem getting into the room.”
Behind them, the crowd was growing impatient.
Her perfect stranger, who smelled like heaven and had a touch nearly as divine, didn’t say a word, just took her hand, lifted it to his lips and then, still holding on to her, took the lead.
And for the second time that night, and for only the second time in her entire life, she followed.
MORE THAN ONCE in his life Mike had been accused of being cocky and confident, yet laid-back and easygoing. Sometimes downright lazy.
But as anyone who’d ever worked with him could attest, he was actually a very controlled man. It wasn’t often he lost that control, but he nearly did now. He had an incredibly beautiful woman