"Zoe. Miss Moon," he amended in an automatic effort to put some distance between them. Dammit, they were in his office. There were rules about these things. Didn't she know that? "I don't think that's such a good idea."
"Probably not," she agreed. "But I want you to kiss me, anyway. You want to, don't you?"
Surprise had him blurting out the truth before he could think. "God, yes!"
"Well, then…" She reached out with both hands, removed his glasses and set them carefully on the table on top of his open file folder. "Kiss me," she repeated, and leaned toward him, eyelids lowered, face lifted, her luscious raspberry lips softly puckered.
Contrary to popular belief, Reed Sullivan IV was only human. Despite the opinions of most of his business associates and the nasty rumor spread by a vengeful Boston socialite who'd failed to stir his interest, he had a real live heart beating in his chest, with real blood flowing through his veins. Right now, his very human heart was laboring like a locomotive going uphill, sending warm red blood surging through his body.
Surging to one particular part of his body. And it wasn't his brain.
"Why?" he said, trying to cling to some final vestige of good sense.
She opened her eyes.
He thought he read exasperation in them but wasn't sure.
"Must there be a reason?" she asked impatiently, annoyed at having her motives questioned. Especially when she didn't know what they were herself.
"Yes." He nodded. "Yes, in this case, I think there most definitely must be a reason."
"Call it, ah … oh…" she pursed her lips in thought, mentally groping for just the right word "…an experiment," she decided.
"An experiment?" he murmured huskily, his gaze still on her mouth. Her luscious, utterly kissable mouth. He swallowed a groan. "What kind of experiment?"
Good question, she thought. Too bad she didn't have an answer. "Just an experiment." She drew back a little. "Are you going to kiss me or not?"
He reached out, quick as a striking snake, and curled his hand around the back of her neck to keep her where she was. "Oh, yes," he declared. "I'm definitely going to kiss you."
"Well, then…" she invited again.
"Just like I did at Bruno's?" he murmured, wanting to be absolutely sure he understood what she wanted—on one level, at least.
"Yes." She closed her eyes. "Just exactly like that, please," she said, all the while hoping for … more.
He tightened his hand on the back of her neck and eased her toward him over the edge of the table, leaning forward to meet her halfway. He had just enough presence of mind to stay seated, realizing in some tiny rational part of his brain that if he touched her in any other way, if he actually stood up and took her in his arms and pressed her luscious body to his, he'd end up breaking every rule in the book instead of just bending them a little. And that's all he was going to do, he assured himself, just bend them a little. What could one insignificant little kiss hurt?
But the kiss, despite his best intentions, wasn't exactly like the one he'd given her at Bruno's. And it wasn't little. Or insignificant.
His lips were already parted when they touched hers, hungry to taste her fully this time. His breath was warm and moist against her mouth. His tongue came seeking; delicately tracing the seam of her lips until she opened to him.
He changed the angle of the kiss then, tilting his head, using the hand curled around the back of her neck to alter her position as he slipped his tongue between her lips and took the kiss deeper. His fingertips caressed her tender nape, exerting gentle pressure to keep her exactly where she was. His palm cradled the side of her neck, supporting it and holding her steady. His thumb traced the delicate whorls of her ear, then moved lower, brushing along the edge of her jaw, slowly, hypnotically, soothingly, back and forth … back and forth … while he feasted on her open mouth.
The position was awkward, both of them leaning across the edge of the table, straining toward each other. Zoe murmured softly, the sound a low humming noise mingling appreciation and impatience. She hitched herself closer and lifted one hand, curling her slender, beringed fingers around his wrist to anchor herself more firmly to him. Reed rose half out of his chair, wanting to get closer, wanting to pull her into his arms and really kiss her. He was desperate to feel her breasts pressed against his chest. To thrust his hips against the cradle of hers. To—
It was the backs of his knees pressing against the edge of the chair that made him realize what he was about to do. He almost—almost—ignored the warning screaming in his brain in favor of answering the more insistent clamor in his loins. But some things were just too deeply ingrained, and he'd been born and bred a gentleman, with all that implied. To give in to his baser instincts would be to violate a trust—to himself if no one else. He sank back down onto his chair seat and lifted his mouth from hers, just far enough so he could speak.
"So," he murmured, his lips brushing hers as he spoke, "was the experiment a success?"
Zoe sighed audibly, a soft, stuttering sound like a baby startled awake. Her lashes fluttered once, then lifted slowly. She stared at him, the expression in her eyes clouded and confused. "Experiment?" she whispered, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.
Reed grinned. He couldn't help it. It had been a while since he'd reduced a woman to dazed confusion. And never with just a kiss. It was better than his fantasies. Almost.
"You said this was an experiment." Still smiting, he brushed her lips with his tightly, to remind her what this was. "Was it a success?"
"Oh. Oh, the experiment. Yes, I guess it was. I…" She uncurled her fingers from his wrist and drew back, straightening away from him, putting some distance between them so she could figure out how to breathe again. "Yes, it was." She picked up her cup and took a fortifying sip of the heavily creamed coffee. It didn't even begin to erase the taste of him. "I think."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You think? You don't know?"
"All right, it was a failure, okay?" she flared, glaring at him as if the fault had been entirely his. She set the china cup back in its saucer with a sharp little click. "A dismal failure."
His eyebrow rose a bit higher. "A failure?" he said, his tone disbelieving, his expression steady and unblinking as he regarded her from across the table.
Her creamy skin was delicately flushed. A long tendril of hair, pulled loose when he withdrew his hand from her nape, drifted down the side of her face to lay curled over her shoulder. Her eyes weren't simply clouded now, but stormy, roiling with emotions that bubbled very close to the surface. She looked like a woman who'd been thoroughly kissed—and had enjoyed it. Thoroughly.
"Are you saying you didn't enjoy it?" he asked, finally. "Because if you are, I don't believe you."
"Oh, I enjoyed it." Too much. Way too much. So much so that if there had been room in the pointed toes of her black suede pumps, all ten, tiny painted digits at the ends of her feet would have been permanently curled. "It isn't that. It's just…"
She jumped up from her chair and began pacing, too agitated and aroused and just plain mad at herself to sit still for another moment.
Reed watched her with the deep, instinctive appreciation of a sorely smitten man. He had no idea what the problem was, what combination of emotions compelled her to agitated motion. He simply enjoyed the view: the quick, impatient way she moved her head; the straight, almost militant line of her shoulders; the restless, ground-eating stride that tightened her skirt against the long, lovely line of her thighs as she ranged from the table, to his desk, to the windows and back again.
She'd been fooling herself with all that nonsense about an experiment, Zoe fumed, furious at the self-deception. There was no experiment. There were just hormones run amok. The simple, unadorned truth was he was gorgeous and sexy and adorable and she'd wanted to kiss him, even though she knew it wasn't a good idea, even though she knew mixing business and pleasure was a mistake, especially in this case.
God, it was her mother
all over again! Falling in lust with a man and calling it love, when it was just her hormones in an uproar.
But Zoe was made of sterner stuff. She'd seen what self-delusion did to a person's life, not to mention the life of that person's child. She believed in facing the truth straight on, no matter how unflattering a light it cast on her. And the truth was she was in the throes of a serious case of lust for a man with whom she had absolutely nothing in common. A man who'd called her a con artist … which he'd apologized for, true, and she'd accepted his apology. But still, he was having her investigated—all in the name of business, true, and she'd probably have him investigated under the same circumstances, but still…
It was galling to realize that none of that seemed to make one iota of difference in her desire to swap spit with him. Apparently, she could find a mitigating excuse for every objection if the man was a good kisser. And, oh Lord, Reed Sullivan was one great kisser! Which made her not as unlike her mother as she wanted to think she was, and just as shallow as she'd accused Reed of being.
The first was something she was always on guard against.
The second was something she'd never in a million years admit to. Not to him, anyway.
She sat back down, determined to set a few things straight. "Look," she said, starting off in tones of extreme reasonableness. "Experiment was the wrong word to use here. Totally wrong. There was no experiment. No success and no failure involved."
"Then what was it?"
"It was, uh…" She reached for her coffee cup again and sipped, stalling for time while she came up with the right words. Usually, she was much better at this kind of let's-lay-all-our-cards-on-the-table-and-tell-it-like-it-is conversation, but telling it like it was, without telling the entire truth—which was none of his business and not pertinent to the conversation, anyway—was proving to be a bit more complicated than she would have thought. She took a quick breath and plunged ahead.
"I think it's fair to say that we … that we're … attracted—" it was as good a word as any; pitifully inadequate, but basically accurate "—to each other. Would you agree with that?"
Reed nodded. "Yes, I'd say that's a fair assessment." Wholly inadequate for the surprisingly violent feelings she aroused in him, but fair, so far as it went. "So?" he asked, wondering where she was going with this.
"Well, I just thought mat if we, um…" She shrugged and sipped again, then squared her shoulders, set the coffee cup in the saucer and pushed them away from her again. "I thought we should just go ahead and deal with it, up front."
"Deal with it?"
"Yes. We were both wondering what it would be like if we really kissed each other. For real, I mean, not like that little peck at Bruno's."
She paused, as if waiting for a reply. Reed nodded, not quite trusting his voice at this point. So she'd been wondering, too, he thought, elated by the information.
"I thought it would be best if we got it out of the way. If we just went ahead and satisfied our curiosity so we could forget it and get on with the business at hand. That's what I meant when I called it an experiment."
"And did it?"
"Did it what?"
"Satisfy your curiosity?"
"Oh, yes. Uh-huh. It did. Absolutely," she vowed, as sincere and earnest as a child who'd been asked if writing "I will not call my brother names" one hundred times had cured her of the desire to do so.
Reed wondered if he should call her on it. It was obvious she was lying through her pearly white teeth. He decided to tell her a few truths of his own, instead. To keep her from jumping up again, he reached out, covering her hand where it lay on the table. "You didn't ask if it satisfied my curiosity, Zoe."
She started, but didn't jerk away. "Didn't it?" she asked, looking at him with a wary expression in her big brown eyes.
He shook his head. "No, it didn't. Not by a long shot."
She did try to pull away then, but he tightened his fingers on her hand, pressing down, and she decided it was beneath her dignity to straggle.
"Do you want to know what it did do for me, Zoe?"
She shook her head, wary of the gleam in his eyes. "I don't think so."
"Well, I'm going to tell you, anyway, because I think you're absolutely right. I think we should get everything out in the open."
He was looking at her with that heat in his eyes again. That primal, predatory male heat that made her want to ran for her life, and throw herself at his feet in abject surrender at the same time. The last time he had looked at her that way he'd been sweaty and bleeding, wearing grass-stained rugby shorts and a torn jersey. They'd been surrounded by scores of people, with half the width of a rugby field between the two of them.
It was inexplicably more thrilling, more exciting, more … menacing, somehow, to be the object of that ravening gaze when it was leveled at you by a man wearing an elegant three-piece suit, sitting at his ease less than two feet away. Maybe because such a man would have to break through several more layers of civilization to tear your clothes off and carry you to his lair than one who had already released some of his aggression on a rugby field. Maybe it was because she was already in his lair and he wouldn't have far to drag her once he'd given in to his desires and stripped her naked. And maybe it was just because they were alone and there was no one around to keep him—or her—from acting out each primitive impulse should those layers of civilization be breached.
Zoe swallowed convulsively and tried to tamp down the excitement that look engendered in her. It was just hormones. Or pheromones. Or something. Whatever it was, she knew that if she showed the least bit of weakness, he'd pounce. If she ran, he'd chase her down. With the finely honed instincts of any female animal being ran to ground by a male of the species, she turned and launched a counterattack.
"Openness is a vastly overrated commodity," she said airily, lifting one shoulder in a nonchalant little shrug. "Some things are better kept to yourself."
"Oh, no. I want to be completely open about this, just the way you were. Deal with it right up front so we can get on with the business at hand."
She cocked an eyebrow at him, head tilted, chin up. "Fine, then. Let's get it all out in the open," she said, managing to sound just the slightest bit bored with the subject. "What did that kiss do for you, Mr. Sullivan?"
Damn, she's a gorgeous piece of work, he thought admiringly, wondering how he could ever, even for a second, have made the mistake of thinking she was ordinary. In velvet pants, faded jeans or sexy schoolmarm suits, she was the most exciting woman he'd ever encountered. She might look like a frivolous sex kitten, but she stood her ground with the arrogance of a duchess—or a swaggering, streetwise kid.
He could feel the tension in the hand that lay deceptively passive beneath his; he could see the blush tinting her cheeks; he could almost smell the heat rising off of her violet-scented skin. But she lifted her chin and looked down her nose, challenging him with an expression of haughty indifference, as if she couldn't care less what his answer was.
He could no more have resisted the challenge in her eyes than he had the invitation to kiss her.
"That kiss piqued my curiosity, Miss Moon," he said, his voice low and silky and lethal. "It made me wonder how it's going to be the next time I kiss you."
"I sincerely doubt there's ever going to be a next time. My curiosity has been satisfied, remember?"
"Oh, there'll be a next time, all right. And the next time, I don't intend to stop until my curiosity has been satisfied. Completely satisfied." He smiled wolfishly and brushed his thumb across the back of her hand, trying to make her jump or pull away. "And that won't be until I've got you flat on your back and stark naked, lying spread-eagle under me in blissful exhaustion."
"Oh, really?" It took every bit of willpower she possessed to keep her gaze steady on his, to keep her voice even, to keep her hand perfectly still. "I think I might have something to say about that, don't you?"
He smiled a marauder's smile, the kind of smile that made her wond
er how she could have ever thought he was a stuffed shirt. "You'll be saying yes," he promised. "You'll be screaming the word before I'm through."
She laughed lightly, as if the very thought was just too absurd to take seriously. "In your dreams," she said coolly, but her voice was less insouciant than it had been only a moment before.
"It's already happened in my dreams, Zoe. Dozens of times." The look in his eyes as he stared into hers was that of a shameless voluptuary, hell-bent on conquest and seduction. "Do you want to hear about them?"
Zoe abandoned all pretense of coolness and leveled a killing look at him. "No, I do not," she said through her teeth, trying—unsuccessfully—to ignore the wanton thrill of excitement that shuddered down her spine. "I have no interest in your prurient imaginings."
"Even when you have a starring role in them?"
"Especially not then."
"Liar." The word was a caress. An endearment. A goad. "You're dying to know. I can see it in your eyes," he said, doing his level best to rattle her into doing more than just spearing him with her hot gypsy gaze. "The heat. The attraction. The fascination."
"Then you're seeing things that aren't there."
"You, Zoe. I'm seeing you."
"If that's what you think, I suggest you put your glasses back on and take another look."
He gave a short bark of laughter and gave it up. It was going to take more than words to make Zoe Moon cut and run. And words were all he had at the moment. All he would allow himself.
"All right. You win this round, sweetheart. I surrender." He released her hand and reached for his glasses, turning his attention back to the open folder as if the kiss and all that came after it hadn't happened. "We've got a lot of work to do here to if we're going to turn this data into anything useful."
It was then that Zoe almost lost it. Work? He thought she was going to sit there in his office with him and work on a bunch of computer-generated reports, as if nothing had happened? As if he hadn't kissed her nearly breathless? As if he hadn't said those … those scandalous, thrilling, arousing things to her?
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