Strong and Sexy (Sky High Air #2)(80)

“Are we?”

She didn’t back down. She might not be the most experienced person in the world when it came to relationships, but she knew the way he was looking at her wasn’t of the innocent teacher-student variety. “It feels like more than a simple riding lesson to me.” There. She’d said it.

He took another step closer, and her breath suddenly felt trapped inside her chest. So much for being brazen.

“It is a simple riding lesson,” he said. “Not a corporate merger. So what if there is more? I don’t really see a conflict of interest here.”

“You’re a close friend of my boss.”

He stepped closer still. It was a small room to begin with. He was definitely invading her personal space. Again.

“And you’re not planning on staying here long term anyway, right?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Meaning that as potential conflicts go, that one is temporary at best. As is anything that may happen between us. No commitments, right?” His voice was all just-rolled-out-of-bed rough.

“What are you saying, then?” she asked, tipping her chin up slightly as he shifted closer. She felt the bridle rack at her back. “What is it you want?”

“I just want to learn to ride.” His lips curved then, and her thigh—or more accurately, the muscles between them—suddenly felt a whole lot wobbly.

His eyes were so dark, so deep, she swore she could fall right into them and never climb back out. And that smile made it dizzyingly clear that horses weren’t the only thing he was interested in riding.

It was too early in the day for this. She couldn’t handle this kind of full out assault on her senses. Or on her mind. Or…hell, what part of her didn’t he affect? He muddled her up far too easily. Muddled was definitely not what she needed to be right now.

But when he lifted his hand, barely brushing the underside of her chin with his fingertips, and tipped her head back a bit farther…she let him.

“I think about you,” he said, his voice nothing more than a rough whisper.

Her skin tingled as if the words themselves had brushed against her.

“Too often. You distract me.”

“And that’s a bad thing.”

“It’s…an unexpected thing.”

She wasn’t sure what to think about that. And his neutral tone made it impossible to decipher how he felt about it. “So, this is…what? An attempt to exorcise me from your thoughts?”

His smile broadened as his mouth lowered slowly toward hers. “Either that, or make all this distraction a lot more worthwhile.”

She had a split second to decide whether to let him kiss her, and spent a moment lying to herself that she was actually strong enough to do the right thing and turn her head away. Who was she kidding? Her body was fairly humming in anticipation and it was all she could do to refrain from grabbing his head and hurrying him the hell up.

Like he said. It was just a kiss. Not a contract.

His lips brushed across hers. Warm, a little soft, but the right amount of firm. He slid his fingers along the back of her neck, beneath the heavy braid that swung there, sending a delicious little shiver all the way down her spine at the contact.

He dropped another whisper of a kiss across her lips, then another, inviting her to participate, clearly not going any further unless she did. She respected that, a lot, even though part of her wished he’d taken the decision out of her hands. It would make all the self-castigation later much easier to avoid. Given his aversion to commitment, somehow she figured he knew that. They were either in it together, or not at all.

He lifted his head just enough to look into her eyes, a silent question in his own. Will you, or won’t you?

She held his gaze for what felt like all eternity, then slowly lowered her eyelids as she closed the distance between them and kissed him back.





Tensions are running high in

Charlotte Mede’s

EXPLOSIVE,

available now from Brava…





“W hat exactly is the nature of your agreement with de Maupassant? Is it money? The promise of notoriety?”

Devon turned her head sharply to look up at him, absorbing the stark lines of his face, the wide mouth above the strong jawline. She pivoted gracefully in his arms, holding herself stiffly as though more conscious than ever of a confused upsurge of unwelcome sensations, of fear and desire. Blackburn felt her invoke her steeliest reserve.

“My relationship with Le Comte has nothing to do with us.”

“He has everything to do with us,” Blackburn muttered. “He’s thrown us together quite deliberately. And he’s prepared to give you access to the Eroica, despite your denials,” he said just as the orchestra struck up a lively minuet.

“It’s not that easy.” Her mouth was set in a firm line. “I don’t want or need your offer of money, or anybody else’s for that matter.”

“Don’t take me for a fool, Mademoiselle. And I won’t take you for the innocent that you pretend to be,” he said in a softly uttered threat. “You know how to play Le Comte for a puppet, and you know exactly how to convince him to relinquish the score to you.”

The confusion and embarrassment clouding her eyes was a fine bit of acting, he thought, looking at her drift away from him a few steps, in perfect time with the music’s rhythm.