Temptation In The Boardroom. Paula Roe
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your mind was in the gutter. Exactly where mine was.”
The warmth in her cheeks intensified. “Sometimes you need validation,” she told him. “My parents didn’t think a career was the right place for me. I never had a good GPA. It was average, if that. They thought I should be managing Masserias because I’m so good with people.” Her mouth curved. “My dad says I have the magic touch.”
“You certainly do.”
The meaningful tone in his voice made her swat him. “Harrison.”
He unsnapped her bra. She arched away from the mattress to allow him to strip it off, although that proved to be a bad idea because the slide of his fingers over the bare curve of her breast, over its taut center, were infinitely distracting.
“What about your brothers and sisters? Did they go into the family business?”
“I have five.” Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “One’s a neurosurgeon, one’s a psychologist, then there’s the chemical engineer, banker and if you like the non-traditional route, my brother Salvatore is an entrepreneur with a state-wide series of fitness clubs at twenty-six.”
“The one who forgot the cake?”
She nodded. “So you can see why I was the obvious choice to take over Masserias... The unspectacular one of the bunch.”
His chin lowered. “I think that’s an inaccurate description. You handle people with a deftness I’ve rarely experienced, Francesca. You have great natural instincts for business and you speak three languages.”
So did her sister Federica: English, Italian and Spanish. And she was a psychologist.
She gave him a pained look. “You don’t need to try and make me feel better. I’m at peace with who I am.”
“Are you?” She didn’t like how his far too perceptive gaze seemed to look right through her. “You should shift some of your absolute truths into the department governing your opinion of yourself. Ten minutes with Juliana and she’s explaining the psychology of Leonid to you. That’s a gift.”
“Speaking of Leonid,” she offered casually, “care to talk about what’s making your head too full?”
His eyes flashed. “No, in fact.”
The intimacy of their position, the way the hard muscles of his stomach quivered as she traced her way down toward the sexy dip between his abs and leg spurred her to dig a bit more. “Could you put up enough of a stink with the board that they would maintain Siberius as a separate entity? Keeping in mind, of course, we’re only talking in hypotheticals.”
His gaze narrowed. “Perhaps. But when you only have so much political capital with a board, you choose your battles wisely.”
“Right.” She left that hanging in the air between them because she wanted him to think about it.
“Francesca,” he growled. “Stop meddling.”
She followed the sexy dip down over his muscled thigh, luxuriating in the hard, densely packed muscle beneath her fingertips. “Juliana says Anton Markovic is an evil man. That he has underworld connections that make her wish Leonid didn’t do business with him.” She looked up at him. “Does he know you’re after him?”
“No.” He captured her exploring hand in his. “And you can put his name out of your head. Juliana’s right. Anton Markovic is not a man to be played with.”
“Yet you are...”
“Francesca.” He bent his head and put his mouth to the curve of her breast. “I think I’m going to have to silence you.”
That might be fine, too. His mouth closed over her hardened nipple, scoring it with his teeth. The way he used those sharp incisors was truly...remarkable. A moan broke from her throat. “That is not fair.”
He drew her nipple into his mouth with a hard suction that made her whole body go rigid. The slide of his hair-roughened leg as it parted hers rendered her distraction complete. He really wasn’t finished with her.
She moved against him, her smooth legs luxuriating in the feel of his harder male limbs. His teeth and lips teased her other nipple into a hard, aching button. It took him about five seconds to drag her back into the maelstrom.
“Now we go freestyle.”
Freestyle? Oh, the fantasy. That was apparently over and they were onto a very vivid, very real exploration of her stomach. The tender, vulnerable skin of her lower abdomen... She clutched his coarse hair in her fingers. He couldn’t do that. Not after what they’d just done.
She tugged on his hair. “Harrison.” He made a low sound in his throat and nudged her tensed legs apart. She jammed her eyes shut as his fingers parted her and he slid his tongue against her slick flesh. The way he savored the essence of them was too intimate. Too much. But then again everything about tonight had been too much.
He rasped his approval as her legs fell open and she surrendered completely. His licks turned long and languorous, intent on waking her body up. Then they became purposeful, unrelenting. He waited until her limbs stiffened, she dug her hands in his hair and came, shuddering against his mouth before he moved his way back up her body, slid another condom on and took her with a deep, breath-stealing thrust. She threw back her head and reveled in his possession. In the hot, sweet perfection they made together.
When he sought his release with a ragged groan and buried his mouth in her throat, she held him to her while the storm they had created together unleashed its final fury. His breathing slowed, evened out. It was long minutes before she levered herself up onto her elbows and saw that he’d passed out in her arms.
A primal instinct, a need to nurture, stirred deep inside her. It was stronger than the magnitude of what she’d done with her career tonight. Stronger than all of it. Because in that moment, she knew no matter what the morning brought, this had been right. She had pulled him back from the edge.
If it had also tipped her feelings for him, a man she could never have, into dangerous territory? If her own emotions were wildly out of control? That was the stuff of tomorrow.
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