Her eyes popped back open as he moved closer, crowding her against the wall of the elevator, burning her with his male-scented heat. They weren’t touching except for the weight of his hand at the side of her throat, but she could feel the masculine, sharp-edged force of him along the entire length of her body, like the invisible energy between two drawn magnets pulling them closer. She closed her eyes again before he could see the obvious answer there, not knowing where to go from here.
“Have you ever thought about me touching you?” he rasped in her ear, a feral edge to the quiet words that had her breath quickening. “Ever laid in bed at night and imagined what it would be like to have me licking you between your legs while you spread them wide for me? What it would feel like to have me eating out your sweet little pussy, unable to get enough of it?” She gasped at both the words and the images they were invoking, and she could have sworn she felt him smile as he ran his lips over the edge of her ear. “You can tell me, Soph. Do you think about what it’d be like to have me burying my cock in your beautiful little body and fucking you until neither one of us can move?”
Oh...my...freaking...God. She moaned deep in her chest, unable to believe he’d even thought those things about her, much less said them to her.
With a bit of bite to his voice, he said, “Answer me, Sophie.”
She sank her teeth into her lower lip and somehow managed to give him a jerky nod, and it was all the permission he apparently needed. Before Sophie knew what hit her, Chris had her trapped against the wall with his tall, hard body, fitting them together as if the clothes between them were no more substantial than tissue. His big hands grabbed hold of her ass, lifting her up until his hips were wedged between her trembling legs, her lab coat and skirt rising up high on her thighs as they parted for him. The instant she felt the massive, shocking length of his rock-hard erection rubbing against her cleft, her already damp panties became soaked with moisture.
“The security camera,” she panted, clutching at his broad shoulders, wondering if only an idiot would remind him. And it was with an uncomfortable shock of awareness that she realized she would actually let him — if he pushed it — do whatever he wanted to her beneath that watching, intrusive lens.
“Fuck,” Chris growled, burying his hot face against the side of her throat. His thoughts fractured as he breathed in needy lungfuls of her scent, his open mouth rubbing against the petal-soft warmth of her skin. Her sweet little ass fit in his hands like she’d been made for him, the feel of her slender body pressed against his somehow even better than he’d imagined it would be. He knew damn well that this wasn’t the place to be on the verge of completely losing his control, but he couldn’t pull away from her. Christ, he couldn’t even stop stroking his dick against the tender cushion of her pussy, the thought of how good it was going to feel when all these fucking clothes were no longer between them making him sweat.
Forcing himself to lift his head and look her in the eye, he half expected her to pull away in fear or slap his face for being all over her like this. Hell, she was a class act, a real lady, and he was nothing but a ruthless son of a bitch who’d never really understood what it felt like to lose himself over a woman — until Sophie. He had a pain-in-the-ass ex to prove the fact that he could be a completely heartless bastard. But as he let her slide down to the floor and shifted back a few inches to give her a little space, Sophie didn’t shove him away or slap him. She didn’t even open her eyes. She simply moaned — and the soft, delicious sound sent him right over the edge.
Hoping like crazy that he wasn’t about to embarrass the hell out of her, Chris backed up a few feet and slammed his hand against the intercom button on the control panel. A second later, he heard one of the guards over the speaker ask, “You okay, boss? We were just getting ready to check on you.”
Keeping his heavy-lidded gaze locked hard on Sophie, who was slumped against the wall, flushed and wide-eyed now, he said, “I’m fine. But I need you to cut the sound and video on elevator three.”
“Uh...you sure? I...”
“I want it done now, Jackson.”
“Yes, sir.”
He waited a few seconds, then took a step toward her again. “It’s okay, Soph. You don’t have to look scared. I would never hurt you or pressure you into anything. You tell me to stop, and I swear to God I will back off.”
“I know that,” she whispered. “And I’m not afraid. I just...I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on. Yesterday you treated me like nothing more than a friend. We spent our time together talking about the next season of Homeland and football. And now...” Her voice trailed off, her slender throat working as she swallowed.
Shoving a hand back through his hair, Chris struggled to find the right thing to say, hoping she would believe him. “I know this seems like it’s coming out of nowhere, but it’s not. I’ve wanted you for months. Months, Soph. I’ve wanted you so goddamn bad — but the more I got to know you, the more worried I got about scaring you off. And before that, before I started to hope that you might be interested in me too, I thought you’d probably just tell me to go to hell. But I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the first time I set eyes on you at that damn introduction luncheon, and I was rock-hard under the table the entire two hours, watching the way you ate and sipped your wine and smiled and tried to keep everyone from noticing how real and beautiful and incredible you are. But I saw it,” he said on a hard exhalation of air, “and I’ve seen more every damn day until I feel like I’m gonna go out of my fucking mind if I don’t have you.”
She blinked up at him, eyes wide and bright. “You want sex?” she asked carefully, as if needing to clarify what he was saying, and it brought an unexpected smile to his face.
“Hell, yes, I want sex,” he said in a near growl, suddenly reaching out to release the stop button, allowing the elevator to quietly makes its descent to the first floor. He didn’t trust himself to keep her within the confined space a moment longer, without taking her right there, and he couldn’t risk it. Not when there was a chance someone in the security office might get curious and switch the video back on.
And, yeah, he knew he wasn’t being completely honest with her. Given how strongly she affected him, there was a strong chance that he wanted a hell of a lot more than sex from her. He just didn’t know if it was something he could have. If it was something Sophie even wanted.
As if needing what was about to happen completely spelled out for her, she straightened away from the side of the elevator, and said, “You want to have sex with me?”
God, she was so adorable it was killing him. He gripped her upper arms and yanked her closer, then leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. “Yeah, Sophie. I want to fuck you and taste you and feel you inside and out so badly it’s been like a pain in my gut that won’t go away. I’m completely obsessed,” he gritted against her soft mouth, kissing her deep and hard between the words. “I want you so damn bad it’s been driving me fucking crazy, wondering if I was ever gonna have you or if you’d just cut me cold and tell me to fuck off.”
She gave a nervous laugh that tasted impossibly sweet. “I, um, don’t think I’ve ever actually told someone to fuck off before.”
“Then I’d have been the first,” he muttered, licking his tongue across her cushiony lips, letting it tease just inside once more. “But you’re not telling me to fuck off, are you, beautiful?” It was hard to identify the burning emotion in his chest, threatening to pound its way out to the surface, but Chris knew it was something he needed to get control of, for both their sakes.
“I’m not an idiot,” she whispered, letting her tongue stroke against his. “If you want me, you can have me.”
And just like that, Chris almost came in his fucking slacks. Forcing himself to put a little distance between them before it was too late, he moved back from her and grabbed his bag, hooking the strap over his shoulder. The moment the elevator finally slowed and the doors opened, he offered up a silent thanks to wh
atever higher power was up there listening and grabbed her hand, more than ready to get the hell out of there.
“Where are we going?” Sophie asked, as Chris ushered her out of the building and to the parking lot so quickly she could barely keep up, much less make sense out of everything that was happening.
“Where’s your car?” he asked in a low voice, holding on to her hand as if he never intended to let go.
“What?”
He turned his head sharply to the side, locking his dark eyes on hers. “Car, Sophie. Where did you park this morning?”
“We’re taking my car?” She blinked again, her mind feeling numb, her gaze snagging again and again on the rugged beauty of his face in the warm afternoon sunshine. She couldn’t have been any more dazzled if a truck-sized diamond had been shining in her eyes.
He gave her a quick nod in response to her question.
“But…but what about your car?” He had a sporty little black thing that must’ve cost a fortune. Surely he wasn’t going to leave it at the institute for...well, for however long this was going to take, no matter how tight the security was.
“Fuck my car,” he grunted, cutting that narrowed gaze over the lot, his height allowing him an easy view. It took him only a moment to spot her silver Toyota, and then he was pulling her along beside him as he headed toward it. “It’s being detailed today and I’m not waiting for them to bring it over.”
Sophie wondered if she was looking as dazed as she felt, because the moment they reached the Toyota, he cupped her cheek and gave her a look that was both tender and impatient at the same time, and asked her if she wanted him to drive. She nodded, handing over the keys she’d been carrying in the pocket of her lab coat. He opened the passenger door for her, then quickly made his way around to the other side, and after moving the seat back, he slid his tall body in behind the wheel. Then he set about getting them on their way with the sexy-as-hell commanding precision that made him so successful at everything he did, and before she knew how it had happened, they had cleared the downtown. He didn’t ask where she lived, so she assumed they were headed to his place when he pulled into the fast moving traffic on the freeway.
“How old are you?” he asked into the thick silence.
She slid him a curious look that he caught when he glanced her way, before quickly turning his attention back to the road.
“We’ve never talked about your age before,” he murmured, smoothly overtaking the car in front of them. “I’ve tried to ask in a roundabout way, but you always hedged. And I didn’t want to snoop in your employment file.”
“I’m almost twenty-five,” she told him, watching with a greedy, foreign ache in her belly at the way his strong hands controlled her car, her sex going warm and wet within her panties at the thought of those powerful hands working her body, controlling her pleasure.
He turned his head and shot her another quick look. “Almost? You’re not even twenty-five yet?”
“I, um, graduated early,” she murmured, feeling a thread of panic. “Is that...too young for you?” As much as guys spouted off about wanting women younger than they were, she knew there were a lot that drew the line at getting involved with someone they saw as “too young” for them.
He didn’t say anything at first, and she wondered if she was going to do something awful, like burst into tears. Wow, wouldn’t that do wonders for convincing him she was mature enough for a hot, sexy affair? Then she caught the crooked smile twitching at the corner of his beautiful mouth, a bit of wryness to his tone as he said, “As long as you aren’t jailbait, Soph, I’m not sure there’s anything that could keep me away from you at this point.”
Relief poured through her veins, pure and sweet. “How old are you?” she asked, guessing somewhere in his early thirties. His face held the rough attraction of maturity, but his lean, muscular physique looked as though he could’ve just walked off a college football field.
“Almost thirty-five.” Arching one of his tawny brows, he shot her a curious look. “Too old for you?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Hardly.”
“Christ, I love the way you laugh,” he muttered under his breath, and she could have sworn they were going even faster as he overtook another car. But despite the speed, she could tell he was a skilled driver, and trusted him not to put them in danger. Feeling unusually safe, when she was usually a nervous passenger in a car, she studied his rugged profile and simply soaked in the pleasure of being with him, the cool air blowing in from the vents all but crackling with electricity.
“What?” she asked, when he suddenly sucked in a deep breath.
He shifted a bit in his seat, but kept his dark eyes focused hard on the road. “Are you on the Pill?”
“Why?” The single word emerged as a breathless gasp, though that had more to do with the thought of feeling him inside her, skin on skin, than it did with the intimate nature of the question.
Forging ahead, he said, “I just had a physical last month and I’m clean. I haven’t been with anyone since months before that.”
Surprise had her blinking, since she would have thought Chris’s bed enjoyed a steady stream of beautiful women.
“What about you, Soph?”
She blushed when she realized what he was asking her. “Oh, um, me too. I mean...I’m fine,” she stammered, a little dazed at the idea that Chris thought she had other men in her life.
He exited the freeway and stopped at a red light, before sliding her another hot, heavy-lidded look that made her breath hitch. “I don’t fuck without protection, Sophie. Ever. But this...this is different. I’d be goddamn lying if I said I didn’t want to know what it feels like to be buried inside you without anything between us. So I’ll wear a condom for as long as you want me to, but if you decide you trust me enough to go in bare, just say the word and it’ll happen.”
She made some kind of small, murmured sound of pleasure, even while the scientist in her was shouting that she couldn’t just take his word for anything. That she needed to be practical...logical. That she needed to be smart, and protect herself, in more ways than one.
His jaw worked as he turned his attention back to the light, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “You still with me, Soph?”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach at the husky words that held an unmistakable edge of emotion, and she shoved that niggling voice of doubt to the back of her mind, deciding to play it by ear and see how things went. “I’m on the Pill,” she told him, happy as hell that she’d put herself on birth control in college. “I’m not saying yes...yet. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to know what that feels like, too.”
His eyes turned even darker. Then the light changed...and he floored the accelerator.
Chapter Four
Twenty minutes later, Sophie’s head was still spinning when Chris opened the front door to his condo and showed her inside. Dark hardwood floors stretched across the enormous living room, while the walls were painted a light cream color that looked great against the clean lines of the espresso-colored leather sofa and dark tables. But the best feature was the far wall of windows, revealing a stunning view of the Pacific.
“Wow,” she said, taking a few steps into the condo as he shut the door behind them. “This place is beautiful, Chris.”
“Thanks. My grandparents left me some money when they passed, and I used it to buy the condo. My cousin did the same and lives right next door with her little boy, Jase.”
She turned toward him as he came to stand beside her, her hands nervously tucked in the pockets of her lab coat. “Do you have a lot of family in San Diego?”
“Yeah, but most of it’s on my mom’s side. She’s an artist. The one who made me these,” he said, lifting the hand that sported the silver bracelet and thumb ring. “They don’t really fit with the position at Blackwood, but I’ve worn them for so long it doesn’t feel right to take them off.”
“I think they work ju
st fine with your position. They...fit you.”
Those sexy lips of his curved with a grin. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said softly, her face warm as she tried to look away from his mouth, but couldn’t. Everything still had the surreal feeling of a dream, the cool air heavy and hazy, and she hoped like hell she didn’t wake up before it was over. She’d probably die if she missed even a second of this.
He pulled his jacket off and tossed it on to the nearby sofa, then loosened his tie and undid the top few buttons on his white shirt. She stared at his strong, corded throat for a moment, then gave a hard swallow when she lifted her gaze and found him watching her with a dark, heavy-lidded stare. He didn’t say anything as he moved in front of her, put his hands on her waist, and started backing her up until she came up against the door. But then, words didn’t really seem all that necessary when he was revealing so much with the hot, visceral look in his eyes. One that said he wanted her and was done waiting. Her head shot back of its own volition as he lowered his face over hers.
“I can’t believe you’re finally here,” he said against her open mouth a heartbeat later, nipping her lower lip with his teeth as he gripped the lapels of her lab coat and started tugging it off her. She couldn’t believe she was still wearing the stupid thing, but her brain cells had been pretty much in meltdown mode ever since he’d pulled her on to the elevator back at Blackwood. “You still with me, Soph?”
Was she? Her scientist’s mind took a split second to think about the question and break it down. Physically, yes, she was more “with” him than she’d ever been with any man. And that was fine. It was freaking fantastic, because she wanted to have her mind blown and she knew, without any doubt, that Chris Riley was more than capable of the job.
Making His Move Page 3