across the table.
“Just checking. I’m not the best at reading people.”
All at once, he realized what she was fishing for.
He cupped her face. Her green eyes blazed with something warm, hopeful and slightly hungry. Even the brown dot seemed extravibrant under his scrutiny. For some reason, that sent a shaft of unadulterated desire through his gut.
“Tonight is about being spontaneous,” he told her. “Neither of us is good at that. That means no expectations. Make it about what you want.”
And he meant that seriously. If she wanted to talk all night, that was okay. Of course, he wouldn’t turn down a willing woman in his bed. But he just wanted to spend time with her, realizing it was selfish. Realizing he couldn’t offer her much. Realizing he should definitely aim his search for a wife of convenience in another direction.
But no expectations meant he didn’t have to think about any of that, either. Not tonight.
“No expectations,” she repeated and her smile grew. “I like that. I like that you get I have a hard time with being spontaneous. But I want to make it about what we both want. You know, assuming we both want the same thing.”
His own smile widened. “I hope so.”
A great, no-strings evening together. In whatever form that took.
“It won’t be weird? Tomorrow? We are still working together,” she reminded him. “Some people find it difficult to face each other over a boardroom table after getting naked together.”
Okay, then. Now there was no question about whether they were on the same page. The burn in his loins flared hotter as he slid his hand to the back of her neck, drawing her close so he could feel for the pins.
He extracted one and let it fall. He’d been thinking about doing that since their first moment on the dance floor. Now he could.
“Not weird,” he murmured. “What happens at Phillip’s house stays at Phillip’s house.”
With a shiver, she shook her head, loosening the pins under his questing fingers. He found them one by one, flicking them free. She tipped up her chin to pierce him with her gaze, and he fell into it as her hair rained down around her shoulders.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Her voice had gone husky.
He loved that he could affect her. “Anything.”
“I sometimes lose track of the discussion in those meetings because I’m thinking about kicking everyone out and letting you kiss me. Maybe up against the table.”
He groaned as that image slammed into his mind unencumbered because there was no blood left in his head to stop it. He understood her problem perfectly. “I generally lose my place because I’m thinking about what you taste like. Here.”
Tracing the line of her throat starting from her ear, he slid a finger to her collarbone and replaced his finger with his mouth. Her flavor filled his senses as he fulfilled the fantasy of savoring it. Straining closer, she moaned and it was better than music.
He needed more. More contact. More music. More Alex. He drew her closer, nearly into his lap, and her dress came up over her hip as his palm gathered it. She pressed into his touch, arching into him.
And then somehow, she rolled and landed in his lap, straddling him. Wordlessly—because he couldn’t have spoken if his life had depended on it—he cupped her rear, nestling her so their bodies aligned, and then her mouth crashed into his. The kiss ignited inside him, pounding adrenaline through his body, pumping euphoria along all his nerve endings.
More. Somehow she heard him or he communicated it telepathically because her mouth opened over his as she rolled her hips in a sensuous rhythm against the fiercest erection he’d experienced in recent memory. Maybe ever.
Heat broke over him like a blast from a detonated bomb, coalescing at the point of contact between their bodies, nearly finishing him off before they’d scarcely started. He tore his mouth from hers, panting.
“Wait,” he murmured and stood with her in his arms. She clamped her legs around his waist and he stumbled to his bedroom blindly as she fastened her lips on his throat, sucking with erotic pulls that drove him insane.
“That’s not the definition of waiting,” he told her hoarsely and let her slide to the ground as he slammed the door shut with one foot.
“I’m not very patient.” To prove it, she half turned and presented the zipper to her dress.
He reached out and pulled it. That glittery fabric snaked from her body and landed in a heap around her ankles as she spun back to face him. She was naked, and her high, peaked breasts called to him.
A curse worked itself loose from his mouth. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“No, I’m trying to get you into bed. Apparently I’m doing it wrong since you’re still dressed.”
Laughing around the raging desire clogging his throat, he stripped and scooped her up, then complied with her directive, depositing her gently on the bed. He rolled into her, and that fragrant, fruity scent encompassed him just as completely as the woman did.
“I’ve been fantasizing about this moment for a long time,” she confessed. Her honesty tripped something inside him.
Honeyed warmth spread through his chest as they stared at each other. This wasn’t supposed to be anything other than two people connecting with no expectations. Guess that wasn’t even possible with someone as unique as Alexandra Meer. She pulled things from deep inside that he’d have sworn were frozen. Things he didn’t want to feel for another woman. But it was hard to shut down.
He liked her. She was smart and successful with a touch of vulnerability that set her apart from other women in his path. That had been true from the first moment he’d met her.
He might as well admit the same. “Me too.”
Phillip kissed her and she slid a long, smooth leg between his, teasing, tempting and torturing all at once, and that was it. This wasn’t going to happen slowly. He wanted her as badly as she seemed to want him.
He fumbled in the nightstand for some condoms he was pretty sure were still in there from the last time he’d brought a woman home maybe eight months ago. A year? He had a bad moment when he couldn’t find them and then his fingers closed around one.
He tore it open and somehow got it on in one shot and then she was back in place against him, her gorgeous, sweet body aligned with his. After an eternity, he pushed inside and they joined in a clash of bodies that felt so right, Phillip could hardly stand it. She was unbelievably lush and sensuous.
They moved in a timeless rhythm that somehow became new and electrifying. She gave as much as she took and his mind drained of everything except returning the pleasure. Higher and higher they spiraled as her moans spurred him on. Their simultaneous climax was like icing on an already lip-smacking cake.
He held her quaking body tight against his as the release blasted through him. And then he couldn’t let go. She smelled like pears and well-loved woman, and he craved her heat, even in the aftermath. Usually he preferred to recover on his own, but he still couldn’t get enough of this amazing woman.
Sure, he’d wanted her, but sex wasn’t the be-all, end-all. He’d wanted to explore the connection they’d both felt from the very first. It had been just as amazing as he’d hoped. But he’d anticipated burning off that attraction and moving on. Epic fail in that regard. He wasn’t close to done and that felt like a problem.
He had to get her out of his bed before he started rehearsing a pretty speech designed to convince her to spend the night. Which was enough of a warning to scramble from the sheets. He had never slept with a woman other than Gina. Tonight was not the night to start.
Later, he drove Alex home in his Tesla instead of sending her with his driver, Randy, like he’d planned. He