by Lori Wilde
She wore a soft fuzzy sweater the same color as the beret. He had no doubt it was made from the finest cashmere. The hem of her swingy black skirt molded to her slim thighs when she moved, fluid as water. Just watching her caused his muscles to tighten.
She seemed to encapsulate all the things he longed for, but feared he could never have. Good breeding, perfect manners, high-born status. A genuine sense of fun.
Did she have any idea how impossibly beautiful she was, with that silky smooth skin, long, swanlike neck and the cutest little overbite. Did she have a clue as to how many men would give their right arm to be with her?
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said as he approached, but then felt like a total idiot for saying something so stupid and clichéd. Smooth move from the guy dubbed Boston’s most eligible bachelor of the year by Young Bostonian magazine.
She turned and the minute she saw him, her face lit up, warming him from the inside out. “Liam.”
Their gazes met and he saw such a melancholic expression come into her eyes that it made him pause.
What was she so sad about?
His gaze drifted to the pet-shop window. There was a cocker-spaniel puppy in the window, paws pressed against the glass, eyeing Katie with total puppy love. A feeling he understood well.
“Friend of yours?” He smiled.
“I drop by to see him every day on my lunch hour. Sometimes I even go in to pet him. Honestly, I can’t understand why he hasn’t been adopted. Isn’t he the most adorable thing?”
“Yes, he is,” Liam said, but he was looking at her, not the puppy. “Why don’t you buy him?”
“Me? Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I can’t even keep goldfish alive.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone in my family.” She chuckled. “Just ask them.”
“I’m not asking everyone in your family,” he said. “I’m asking you.”
Katie shrugged. “My apartment doesn’t allow pets.”
“Oh, is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
His gaze caught lazily on her lips. “Would you like to take him for a walk?”
“We’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”
“I’m the client. I can delay the meeting if I want to. Would you like to take the puppy for a walk?”
“We could do that?”
He shrugged. “When you’re Boston’s most eligible bachelor…”
“You can do anything,” she finished for him, and grinned.
“You’ve got it.”
“But what’s Max going to say?”
“Let me take care of Max.” Liam pulled out his cell phone and gave Max Kruger a call to tell him he was commandeering his employee and pushing the meeting back for half an hour. “We’re all set.”
Five minutes later, Liam and Katie left the pet shop with the exuberant puppy, headed for the nearby park. The sun was warm, the breeze cool and the smell of autumn crisp and fresh. The puppy tugged hard on the leash, happy to be out of the window and exploring the world.
“Did you ever have a dog when you were growing up?” Liam asked.
“Once, but I wasn’t allowed to keep him. Brooke turned out to be allergic. You?”
He shook his head. “We couldn’t afford the food and vet bills.”
“Poor us. We’ve been so deprived.” She laughed; a soft melodic sound that lit him up inside.
You can say that again.
“Look at the way his hair flows, so soft and silky.”
“I’m looking,” he said, but his eyes weren’t on the cocker spaniel.
“He’s so proud and proper, the way he holds his head up and prances.” Katie tilted her own head. “I wonder if he has a pedigree.”
“Why do you think I had to put down a three-hundred-dollar deposit just to take him for a walk?”
She graced him with a beatific smile. “Thank you for that.”
“You could change apartments, you know?”
“What?”
“If you wanted to buy him, that is. You could always move.”
“It’d be a big commitment,” she hedged.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m not ready to tackle such a long-term obligation.”
“If you were ready, what would you name him?”
“Something befitting his nobility. Duke, perhaps. That’s what I named the puppy that was mine for a weekend.”
“It suits him.” He nodded.
“Oh, look,” she said, “an ice-cream vendor. Want some?”
Without waiting for an answer, she and Duke took off toward the ice-cream vendor pushing his cart through the park. Liam tagged along, enjoying her enthusiasm.
She bought an orange push-up. Liam hadn’t seen one since he was a kid. It was orange-flavored ice cream on a stick wrapped up in a cardboard container festooned with cartoon characters. You were supposed to push up the ice cream as you ate it. The theory was the cardboard kept sticky confections off messy children.
“Mmm, wanna bite?” She pushed up the orange ice cream and offered it to him.
“No, that’s okay. You go ahead.”
“Come on. It’s great.” She waggled it under his nose. “I dare you.”
He smiled, shook his head.
“What? Are you afraid I’ll give you girl cooties?”
Cooties. Something else he hadn’t heard since childhood.
“I’m not afraid of girl cooties.”
“Prove it,” she goaded.
She had no idea of the craving ripping and clawing through him as he looked at her lips, dotted with a spot of ice cream, or she wouldn’t tempt him so glibly. If she had the slightest idea about the appetites he kept tightly leashed, the hunger that even now, in this park, in the bright light of the noonday sun, stressed every atom of his self-control, she would run for her life.
Liam didn’t want to eat ice cream. He wanted to eat her.
“Come on,” she cajoled.
Impulsively, he bit off a bite of her push-up. She was right. It tasted delicious.
He thought he might scare her with his abrupt about-face, the slippage of his control. But, no, she wasn’t the least bit fazed. Her tongue flicked out and she licked the part he’d just bitten into.
“Mmm.” She winked seductively. “Now I have boy cooties. Guess we’ll have cooties together.”
“I guess so,” he smiled, turned on by her antics.
Duke whimpered.
“Don’t worry,” Katie said, pushing up the remainder of the ice cream for the puppy to lick, “we haven’t forgotten you.”
A few minutes later, they rounded a corner and came upon a pond where a group of picnickers were feeding bread to a flock of hungry ducks.
The minute Duke caught scent of the waterfowl, he went berserk. The cocker spaniel jerked on the leash, almost yanking Katie off her feet.
Liam grabbed for her elbow but she was already gone, pulled toward the water by the feisty Duke, who no longer looked so regal with his teeth bared, issuing a bark so commanding it sounded as if it could have come from a Doberman.
The picnickers gawked.
The ducks scattered.
Katie tried pulling on the leash, but apparently Duke held an entrenched hatred of ducks. The mild tugging on his neck wasn’t enough to stop his forward motion.
Liam sprinted after them.
Duke hit the water with a loud smack.
Katie teetered on the bank, holding tightly to the leash.
“Let go,” Liam called.
But his warning came too late. The heel of her right boot was wedged between two pathway stones. She jerked backward in an attempt to extract herself, but the dog was swimming in the opposite direction.
The next thing Liam knew, a bootless Katie was tumbling headfirst into the water.
6
KATIE CAME UP sputtering. She shoved wet hair from her eyes and looked up to see Liam on the bank laughing his ass off.
“Very funny,” she growled.
“I’m soaking wet.”
She raised an arm. It was only then, as she watched Liam’s gaze hone in on her breasts, that she realized when wet, her sweater was practically transparent. Instantly, she crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her silhouetted breasts.
He held out a hand.
If she uncrossed her arms to take his hand, he would have an extremely good view of her nipples gone hard in the cold. Oh, why had she worn a camisole today instead of a bra?
“Take my hand,” he invited.
She didn’t want to, but it was going to be darn difficult getting out of the muck without a boost up. Reluctantly, she took his hand and tried not to notice when he watched her nipples pebble.
“Where’s Duke?” she asked, teeth chattering.
“You sit.” He led Katie to a park bench and draped his suit jacket around her. The now familiar scent of him surrounded her like a welcome hug.
He retrieved her boot from where she’d lost it, then got down on one knee and slipped it onto her foot. Talk about a Cinderella complex.
“Duke,” she repeated. “Three-hundred-dollar deposit.”
“I’ll go find him.”
He returned a few minutes later with a scraggly, squirming, soaking wet Duke tucked under his arm. Liam took one look at Katie and shook his head. “You can’t go back to work like that.”
“I’m blaming this on you.” She grinned at him, not the least bit mad.
“Me?”
“I would never have thought to rent Duke out for a walk. I guess I’m an all-or-nothing kind of woman.”
“Okay, I accept full responsibility. Let’s take Duke back to the pet shop and I’ll drive you to my apartment. It’s just a few blocks from here. I can send your clothes out to the one-hour dry cleaner in my building, while you take a shower. I’ll let Max know that we’ll need to postpone the meeting for another time.”
Katie could have told him that her own condo wasn’t far away, either, but she didn’t. Bad as it sounded, she wanted to see the inside of his apartment. In fact, her heart was thumping eagerly and quickly.
She soon found herself riding in the elevator with him up to the penthouse of James Towers. She might have come from old money, but overall, she’d lead a very sheltered life. Her parents had been quite strict when she and her sisters were growing up, and it was only since college that Katie had really stretched her wings. She’d never been to a penthouse apartment before, alone, with a man she barely knew.
Her stomach tightened, sending sexy messages shooting straight to the most feminine parts of her. She tried to ignore the sensations, but she knew she was in serious trouble.
Remember the new leaf? No more meaningless sex.
Yeah, but what about the Martini dare she’d drawn the night before?
You don’t have to do it.
But that was the thing. She wanted to do it.
When they stepped inside his living space and she got a bird’s-eye view of downtown Boston from his wide, curtainless window, Katie forgot to breathe.
Incredible.
“Bathroom’s down the hall, first door on your right,” Liam announced, tossing his car keys on a table in the foyer.
The penthouse was straight out of Architectural Digest. Sleek, modern and totally staged. The place was devoid of any personal touches. As far as she could tell, there wasn’t a bit of the real Liam here.
It made her feel a little sad to think he lived in such a sterile environment.
Katie slipped his jacket from her shoulders and draped it over a black leather couch. It was only then that she caught him watching her with heavily lidded eyes as he took in the way her damp clothes molded against her body.
Quickly, she turned and beat a hasty retreat, desperately searching for the bathroom and some small shred of self-control. She locked the bathroom door and sank against it with a shaky sigh.
He knocked on the door and she jumped, hand to her heart.
“Yes?”
“Put on my bathrobe,” he said, “It’s hanging on the back of the door. And then hand me out your clothes. I’ll pop them down to the dry cleaner’s while you shower.”
Katie stripped off her clothes. She thought of his long, strong masculine fingers touching her garments and she shivered at the image.
Stop thinking like this.
She put on his bathrobe that smelled of sandalwood shampoo, opened the door a crack and thrust her things at him.
“Thank you,” he said.
Why in God’s name did that sound like a come-on? It was just a simple thank-you.
Cold shower, cold shower. Get in, get washed off, get out.
She did exactly that. Five minutes later, she was showered and wrapped in his bathrobe again. She took the time to rinse her undergarments out in his sink, then drape them over his shower-curtain rod. Then she searched the bathroom for a blow-dryer, but couldn’t find one.
“Liam,” she called, leaving the bathroom, her wet hair twisted up in a towel, and padded into the living room. “Where do you keep your blow—”
He was standing in the middle of room, stripped bare to the waist.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He turned and a wicked grin tilted up the corners of his mouth. “Duke got me a bit wet and muddy, too.”
“Well, could you cover up or something?”
“What’s the matter?” He strolled toward her. “You don’t like what you see?”
“No, no—” she cleared her throat “—I like. Too much.” She waved a hand. “Now, cover up, please.”
The muscle in his throat jumped as his eyes traveled the length of her body.
He came closer.
Katie backed up until her butt hit the wall. “Um,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“What I’ve wanted to do all afternoon.”
“It’s not a good idea,” she whispered as his mouth dipped closer.
“No?”
There didn’t seem to be enough air in the room. You’d think in a condo this expensive there would be enough air in the flipping room. And his brownish green bedroom eyes were smothering her with closeness.
Her heart thundered at the feral look in his gaze.
He wanted her.
And she wanted him. Wanted his sweet, moist lips on hers and his masculine tongue thrusting deep inside her heated mouth.
Not only was there not enough air, but it was way too hot in here. Sizzling, in fact. It was a downright devil den.
He took her in his arms and pulled her up tight against his bare chest. Her pulse galloped madly. She wasn’t so sure about this. Things were suddenly slipping rapidly out of her control.
“I…” She started to say that she didn’t think this was such a great idea, but she got no further.
His mouth came down on hers for real and it tasted good.
That night at the masquerade ball had been exciting and wild and quick, but this was different. This was up close and personal and lingering, with no disguises to hide behind. She had time to really savor his kiss. To taste cinnamon on his tongue and smell his deeply masculine scent.
Liam’s tongue seared hers. She had no idea a kiss could be so intense. The towel came unwrapped from around her hair, falling slowly to the floor. Liam pushed his fingers through the damp strands, cradling her head in his hands.
Katie felt as if her entire body had short-circuited. Her stomach jolted. Her lips parted. Her toes curled. Her eyes widened.
Delight detonated in her mouth. A wildfire rolled through her nerve endings. He was suddenly more essential to her than the air she’d craved earlier.
How unforgettable he tasted. How safe she felt in his arms. It was strange to feel this way considering the circumstances, but that was how it was. As if he could and would protect her from anything.
She wanted to make love to him so badly her insides throbbed.
&nbs
p; He tightened his arms around her. She relaxed her jaw, and his tongue speared deep inside. Moaning softly, she slid her arms around his neck.
More, she had to have more.
His chest was hard muscle against her soft breasts. She ran her fingers through his hair and made a fist. He growled low in his throat and used his hand to trace her spine to the small of her back. Then, through the cloth of his bathrobe, he gently kneaded her backside.
Her body, which seconds before had been tense and resistant, turned fluid and supple at his touch. She was clay—pliant and malleable. Anything he asked of her she would willingly do.
Wait a minute, whispered the voice in the back of her head, what about turning over a new leaf? What about no longer rushing in headlong where angels feared to tread?
Right. As if she could slam the brakes on when Liam was kissing her like this.
Don’t you want to be something more than everybody’s good-time girl? Aren’t you afraid this will jeopardize your working relationship? Or that you could lose your job over this?
Nah, she didn’t care about any of that. All she cared about was the magic of this moment.
And you wonder why no one takes you seriously.
But Liam took her seriously. He’d made her art director of his ad campaign.
Maybe that’s just because he was hoping to get into your panties.
Hush.
Determinedly shoving the ugly little nay-saying voice aside, she closed her eyes, made her mind blank and inhaled him.
She explored his mouth, taste by taste, texture by texture, layer by layer. He tasted honest and clean. His flavor was all masculine substance—solid and efficient.
Katie had to hand it to him. He was one helluva great kisser.
His lips soared her higher, flying her to a glorious realm where fantasy and reality merged into frenetic excitement.
He tasted like summer vacation, like long, hot nights in the backseat of a big old American car. Like Fourth of July fireworks—dazzling and explosive. He tasted like hard work and commitment and trustworthiness. His taste made her feel safe and supported and honored.
He kissed with the power and authority of a man completely in control of himself. And she realized his self-control frightened her because she had no control of her own. He scared her because she found herself wanting something she could not even identify. Something she’d never wanted before.