The Price Of Scandal(29)

I felt my eyebrows wing up. Uh-oh. “I beg your pardon?” I said stiffly.

“I’m going to cross a professional line here,” he warned me. “It’s your fault because that in there was like witnessing a miracle.”

“Cross a professional line? You?” I scoffed, more nervous than I cared to admit. I’d handled unwanted advances with a frosty efficiency before. But this felt… different. “Are you breaking into my house and taking a bath again?”

“No. I’m going to kiss you right here in this science closet.”

“It’s a storage room, not a science closet. And no. You’re not,” I said, hands flying to his chest. There went my frosty efficiency.

“Afraid I am. And I’d apologize, but we both know I’m not going to really be sorry.”

He was leaning in. My body, already revved from scientific achievement, happily threw itself into overdrive. His chest, firm and toned, pressed into my palms, testing my resistance.

“I don’t know you,” I said quietly as his mouth moved closer. I didn’t kiss strangers. Certainly not strangers who trespassed and stole. God, what would he take from me?

My heart beat out a tempo loud enough that I was sure he could hear it.

“I’m starting to know you, and I quite like it,” he countered.

I was wearing a lab coat with my “librarian bun” as Jane liked to call it, and the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on was putting the moves on me. My brain scrambled to rationalize.

He’s using you.

He wants something from you.

He’ll hurt you.

He’s not right for you.

“You can slap me after, I promise,” he said just before his lips brushed mine.

Oh, those lips. Firm, demanding, insistent.

Biology took over. And not the knee-jerk self-defense kind. It was an instant chemical reaction.

“Dazzled,” he whispered the word again, his mouth moving over mine. And then it was me who was dazzled.

I heard the thrum of my blood as it pumped through my veins. I tried to stay still. To be impassive. I couldn’t allow him to think that it was acceptable to kiss me like this.

But, oh, it was.

Even my stomach stopped the acrobatic act it had been performing for the last hour and went warm and liquid.

I gripped him by the lapels of his coat and kissed him back as if there was nothing else in the world I’d rather be doing. As if there were no demands waiting for me outside that door. No family responsibilities. No concerns over perception or next steps.

I kissed him as if this moment was the only one that mattered.

Derek’s body pressed against mine was the only sensation I had to concern myself with.

Sorry, Mom. I’m too busy being seduced to worry about image and reputation.

He was lean and rangy. Made to wear fine suits and slim ties. His height was lovely. Most men I dated were eye-to-eye with me when I was in heels. But Derek had inches to spare.

Our tongues twined in an instinctive dance, and my senses were full of him.

Wrestling control back, he kissed me thoroughly, hungrily. Tongues mating, lips bruising. My breath was his. His hands slipped inside my jacket and coasted over waist and hips.

“We need to stop,” I said, kissing him with a desperation that was quite frankly terrifying.

“Absolutely. It’s vital that we stop kissing immediately.” His tongue danced back into my mouth.

Oh, God. He was hard. His erection pressed against my belly. I’d seen him naked already. And now I was feeling him. Was this a planned seduction? Some master plot designed to coax me into letting my guard down?

If it was, it was working quickly. Less than twenty-four hours, and I was allowing him to kiss me. Hell, I was forcing him to kiss me.

What would the board say if they could see us wrapped around each other? Derek one day into his babysitting job. Me two days off a company-derailing scandal. If I was this hard up for physical contact, I could have Daisy or Luna hook me up with an acceptable one-night stand. I could not pursue a physical relationship with my fixer.

As if sensing my mental gymnastics, Derek pulled back and cupped my face in his hand. He brushed his thumb over my swollen, half-devoured lips. “You’re incredible,” he whispered.

My head moved in a half nod, half shake.

“We can’t do this again,” I told him. “Your advances are officially unwelcome.”

“Yes, that’s the message I got loud and clear,” he said lightly. His thumb skimmed under my lip, and he looked at me almost fondly.

“Get that look off your face immediately,” I commanded.

He grinned and my knees nearly went out from under me. A smiling Derek Price was dangerous, a weapon of mass destruction.

“I’m serious, Price. This isn’t happening. We aren’t happening.”

“Not until you’re ready,” he promised.





“You look like you just got ravaged in a closet, boss,” Jane said, eyeing us in the rear-view mirror when Derek and I climbed in the back seat of the Range Rover.

I shot him a frosty glare. He grinned devilishly.

“Emily was on the receiving end of several hugs from her study’s subjects,” Derek said smoothly. He tugged the tie out of my hair, and as I shoved his hand away, I wondered if I was imagining the possessiveness in that move.