Page 18 of Edge of Secrets

“Nope.” His voice was a low, suggestive rumble. “And I guess I’m not going to.”

I shook my head, licking my lips before I could stop myself. “Nope. Not tonight.”

The words slipped out, and panic flashed through me, since the obvious corollary of my incautious statement was that he might well get lucky some other night.

The look in his eyes set off fireworks in my head, my chest, my thighs. He smiled as he pulled his smartphone out. “Let’s exchange numbers,” he said. “If you have any problems, anything at all, call me. Whenever. Any time of day or night. I mean it.”

“Ah, wow. Thank you. That’s very kind, but I’m sure it won’t be necessary.” I groped in my bag for the flip phone that Vivi and Nancy had insisted that I get, tapping around awkwardly until I opened up the address book function.

He smoothly took it from my hand. “Let me,” he said. “I’ll just put mine into your phone, and call my phone with yours.”

He entered the number swiftly, and listened for the buzz of his own phone in his pocket. “I don’t like to leave you like this,” he said, frowning. “I feel like you’re not safe here alone. I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

I tilted up my chin. “Well, that sounds like a ‘you’ problem, Duncan.”

He grinned. “I guess so. Poor me. I’m just … it’s hard to leave. Goes against instinct. Leaving you unprotected.”

“I’m sorry for your instincts and your insomnia and all your various discomforts, but it’s late, and it’s been a long day for me. Good night.” I put all the commanding punch I could behind the word.

He still didn’t move. God, the guy was tall. And broad. And he smelled really good, even at this hour of the night, many long hours from his morning shower. It filled my senses.

“You’re not going,” I remarked.

“No,” he agreed.

I tried to look stern and forbidding. It was hard, with my lips trembling the way they did. “Why not?”

“Because you don’t really want me to.”

I laughed right in his face. The nerve of him. “Oh, no. Are you one of those guys who’s going to tell me that you know better than I do what I want and need? Please, Burke. Don’t be that guy.”

“I’m sorry, but I can see it,” he said, his tone utterly unapologetic.

“So you’re a mind reader now?”

“Not minds. I read faces and bodies. Yours is saying something different.”

I was blushing again. “You can read my face and body all you want, but keep in mind, buddy—my face and body do not make the executive decisions around here.”

“Of course not.” His voice was a velvety, rumbling caress against my skin, making me shiver as he leaned closer. “They have better things to do.”

I was still groping for a comeback when he leaned forward and kissed me.

The wild rush of feelings that released took me by surprise. The startled heat, unfurling instantly through my body, the sense of sudden, voluptuous opening inside me, like a flower blooming wide. It spread out—sweet, fragrant—a feeling too delicious to resist.

I rose up on my tiptoes and leaned hungrily into his kiss, and that added fuel to the fire. I felt the very instant that it spun out of control. I was spinning in a vortex of pure sensation, pinned to the wall and writhing, kissing him back madly, greedily, my fingers clutching his coat, his shoulders, my nails trying to dig in. Forgetting everything except for how sweet it was, how good it felt. How much more I wanted.

Right … freaking … now.

He hooked my knee with his hand and pulled it up, inviting me to clasp his muscular thighs with my legs, leaning against me so that the big, hard bulge at his groin pressed right at that melting, aching spot between my legs, rocking with a slow, skillful, deliberate pulse that made me ache and squirm and gasp for breath.

His tongue slid inside my mouth, commanding and directing the kiss with relaxed, implacable skill. His hands cupped my bottom, stroking, lifting me up to just the angle I needed for … I wasn’t even quite sure what yet, but I started to shake, disoriented, as the energy changed, sharpening to something almost agonizing. Something was happening inside me and I couldn’t … I didn’t … oh God.

The heat, the light, the sweet ache—it was all coalescing, swelling into something huge and bright and terrifying.

It burst through me, and my startled cry was smothered against his mouth. He held me tightly while shudder after shudder of unbelievable pleasure wrenched through me.

My eyes fluttered open as reason returned, but it found no place to land. I did not recognize myself. Not in this undone, confused state, his gaze burning into my face.

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