Page 45 of Driven By Desire
She barely made it a few steps before she found herself yanked into a hot, hard embrace. Back against the wall, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life as he took her mouth in a kiss that left her embarrassingly weak kneed. Wet, deep and luscious, it took her a minute to realize the tiny mewling sounds were coming from her. Finally coming up for air, Krish lowered his forehead to hers and fought for control. Fisting her own hands in his hair, Max sagged against his bracing hands. Someone had cut off her legs and replaced them with noodles.
“I have to go.” His breath wheezed out of him like an asthmatic in the midst of a full blown attack. With one last taste of those sinfully decadent lips, he stepped back.
Continuing to use the wall for support, Max nodded dazedly. A vague sense of something being not quite right assailed her. Unable to put her finger on it, Max straightened and ordered her legs to behave.
Grabbing his bag, Krish pulled out a key and handed it to her. “You don’t have to ring the doorbell anymore.”
Staring at the key he’d dropped in her hand, Max suddenly realized exactly what was bothering her. “Are you going to tell your family?”
“About what?”
The joy and anticipation that had lit her from inside all morning shriveled up at the matter of fact question. Stiffening her spine, she kept her voice determinedly casual. “About why I have a key to your house?”
Busy looking into the mirror in the hallway and settling his mussed hair, Krish missed the edge in her voice. “You’re here every day on work. You should have a key so you’re not dependent on one of us being here to let you in.”
Work. Yes, of course. Closing her hand around the key, she let the metal dig into her palm. The sharp pain had the fog of arousal dissipating and leaving her clear eyed in more ways than one. Pride had her biting her tongue and picking up the tool box she’d dropped when he’d grabbed her earlier.
“I’m going to get started now.”
Having decided he was presentable for work, Krish turned from the mirror. “Let’s go out to dinner tonight? Can I pick you up by about 9?”
“I have plans with friends tonight.” Leveling a cool look at him that didn’t even hint at the roiling emotions inside her, she murmured, “Maybe some other time.”
“Tomorrow?” The faintly puzzled question had her temper flaring. The stupid oaf didn’t have a clue that he’d hurt her.
“I’ll let you know if I’m free.” Shutting the back door firmly in his face she left to focus on the one thing that had never let her down. Work.
CHAPTER 17
For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out women. Last night had been perfect hadn’t it?
Crack
The sound of the pencil in his hand snapping in two had his Marketing Manager stopping uncertainly in the middle of his presentation.
“Sir?” Hand still hovering in the air as he pointed to the projection screen, the man shifted uncomfortably.
Clearing his throat, Krish nodded to him to continue. Tossing the pieces of the pencil into the bin, he banished all thoughts of Max from his mind and focused on work. He’d barely made it out of the meeting before the next crisis of the day hit.
“Sir.” His Public Relations Manager, Rita Varma, was hurrying towards him with a look that told him the rest of his day was going to be a nightmare.
“The blood pressure machines.” Her voice low and calm, she added succinctly, “Defective.”
“How many?”
“Reports are still coming in but the current count stands at about five thousand.”
Swearing, he turned away from her and into the nearest conference room. “Get every single person involved in this mess on a conference call right now!”
Tossing his phone to Mrs. Sharma, he told her to hold all his calls unless it was an emergency at home and disappeared into what would soon be called Command Central.
Hours of chipping away at the system in place traced the problem to a change in vendor two months back.
“Who authorized this?” A shaky hand went up towards the lower end of the table. “Why?”
“Sir?” Sweating profusely, the Operations Manager looked like he was going to faint.
“Why did we change vendors?”
