Page 19 of One Night on the Naughty List

Samantha

Asingle thought drummed through my head as I hurried from the great room and fled up the stairs.

I was wrong.Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Bain didn’t want me. There was no connection between us. I’d mistaken his kindness for interest.

And I ruined everything.

God, I screwed up. My job. My career. My relationship with Bain. In one stupid, stupid move, I trashed three years of friendship and work. His shock and disgust had been unmistakable. The moment I sat on his lap, his mouth had compressed in a flat line, and his whole body went tense.

“Get up.” Two words delivered in a clipped, harsh tone. It might as well have been “go away” or “get out.”

Well, I was.

Tears burned my eyes and throat as I ran down the hallway to his room. The door was ajar, a wedge of light beckoning. I raced for it, the first tears spilling down my cheeks.

A hand grabbed my arm, making me yelp.

Bain spun me around. He’d shed his hat and beard, his dark stubble showing on his square jaw. His eyes were stark and concerned.

He was beautiful.

He didn’t want me.

Tears clogged my throat. I tried to pull free of him.

“Not a chance,” he muttered, his expression shifting from concerned to something I didn’t recognize. I didn’t have time to puzzle it out, because he cupped my face in two big hands and crushed his mouth to mine.

For a split second, all my wild, frantic thoughts coalesced into shock, and a muffled whimper of surprise emerged from my throat. Then my mind blanked as he kissed me, his tongue hot and wet and demanding. It wasn’t a gentle kiss—not a polite meeting of lips. He tipped my head back, holding me steady while he devoured me, pushing past all my defenses in one confident, aggressive sweep.

It was so easy to kiss him back. Our tongues moved together in a give and take that left me breathless and dizzy, my pulse like a jackhammer in my neck. He kissed and felt exactly how I’d imagined he might—his lips warm and firm, his stubble scratching my face as his hands cradled my head and his chin brushed mine. His cologne teased my nose, and I wanted to just keep inhaling it, taking in as much of him as possible.

Then he was walking me back, still kissing me as he guided us through the doorway and into the bedroom. Shivers coursed over my skin, and somewhere in my brain a thought surfaced like driftwood bobbing on water. This is really happening.

He broke off the kiss, pulling away just enough to meet my gaze, and I nearly gasped at the look on his face. My smiling, good-natured boss was gone. In his place was a dark stranger with flushed cheeks and narrowed blue eyes that seemed to stare into my soul.

“I was a fool downstairs,” he said, his voice like sandpaper, his mouth wet and blurry from our kiss. “I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time.”

I heard him, but I could scarcely believe what he was saying. The best I could do was stand there, heart racing, my lips still buzzing.

He rubbed a thumb over my cheekbone, smudging my tears away. “I planned to do this the right way. To take things slow. Then I saw you in this dress, and I don’t think I can go slow anymore.”

“I don’t want you to,” I said, my normally bottled-up thoughts spilling everywhere.

He looked like he just won the lottery—like he couldn’t believe his luck. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” God, I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.

His breath hitched. I waited for him to kiss me again, but he stayed still, his gaze searching mine. Then he spoke in a low voice, a warning in his tone. “I don’t intend for this to be a one-time thing, Samantha. If we do this, I’m going to want to do it again and again. Nothing will be the same between us. So you have to decide right now if you’re okay with me and all my baggage.”

I lay my palm against his jaw, savoring the scratch of his five o’clock shadow on my skin. Marveling that I actually got a chance to touch him so intimately. “What baggage?”

“I’m old,” he said bluntly. “I’ll be thirty-nine in a month. I’m your boss. I’m divorced. I—”

I put a finger over his lips. “I don’t care about any of that.”

Relief shaded his eyes. Then his baby blues turned hot and sexy. He took my fingertip in his mouth, giving me a gentle nip.

---