Boardrooms of Power. Heidi Betts
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he growled, “but you’re not.” He looked her over. “Which leads me to wonder why you didn’t stick with what all the other debutantes and society ladies do for public service? You know, organizing a charity auction or something. Why bother working with the tough guys at the DA’s Office?”
She gritted her teeth and prayed for patience even though outrage bubbled up inside her. “This isn’t a hobby. It’s a career.”
She knew he’d had a rough childhood on the sometimes unforgiving streets of South Boston, but, really, that didn’t give him the right to constantly tweak her nose about having grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth. After all, he didn’t play the wealth card with Quentin.
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve made a career out of looking for a thrill, haven’t you, petunia? I’ve wondered why that is and why you can’t seem to get what you want with the pampered trust-fund boys over at the country club.”
She glanced around for something to throw, then decided it would be a pity to waste some heirloom against his hard head. And, besides, she’d be playing into every preconception he had of her. “So sure you know it all, don’t you? Except, guess what? I’m no longer some teenaged kid that you can rat out to her parents.”
He looked at her assessingly, his hazel eyes darkened to a nearly amber color. She could tell from the flare of his nostrils that he had his temper on a very short leash. “Still can’t forgive me for that one, can you?”
She arched a brow and ignored the way his nearness was coaxing every surface cell in her body into oversensitized awareness. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
He had the height advantage by a good six inches over her five-foot-eight frame, but she was used to holding her own against three brothers who similarly bested her. “Saying that I can’t forgive you implies I still care about what happened, which I don’t.”
His lips thinned. “Yeah, and you haven’t seemed to have learned a lesson from it either.”
“Oh, I learned,” she countered. “I learned I couldn’t trust you.”
“You were a naive seventeen-year-old kid who’d started hanging out with the wrong crowd. What did you think? That biker boy in that bar was coming on to you because he wanted to take you home to share a root beer?”
“And you weren’t my keeper!” She didn’t add that one of the reasons she’d been in the bar that night was because she’d been hoping he would turn up. She’d briefly—very briefly—in her teenaged years had what some might have called an infatuation for Connor. But that was before he’d proven, by betraying her faith in him, that he’d seen her only as a pesky kid.
She could still recall the waves of embarrassment and humiliation she’d felt when he’d dumped her over his shoulder in the bar and marched out to his car, heedless of her kicking and yelling.
As if that weren’t enough, despite promising her that, if she kept still, he wouldn’t give a full report to her parents, he’d gone ahead and ratted her out anyway. She’d gotten a long lecture about underage drinking and sex, been grounded for a month, and had her comings and goings forever questioned after that.
Aloud, she said, “I’d say you’re just as guilty as I am, Connor, of not learning lessons from the past. You’re still acting like my keeper when you’re not.”
He finally seemed to be pushed over the edge. “Dammit! Are you so stubborn that you won’t accept help even when you need it? When your life may be in danger?”
“Stubborn?” She tilted her head to the side. “Seems to me you could write a magnum opus on that subject.”
She started to brush past him but he grabbed her arms and forced her gaze to his. His expression was stormy, his brows drawn together and his lips compressed. “Stubborn, thickheaded…”
She braced her hands against his chest. “Likewise,” she retorted. They were practically nose to nose, and beneath the adrenaline pumping through her veins, a little thrill of excitement intruded at having finally shaken his control—his years-old control.
His head swooped down then, cutting off her gasp of surprise as he seized her lips in an angry kiss. His lips moved over hers with hard pressure, and, when she would have jerked away, his hand came up to the back of her head to anchor her in place.
“Mmm…!”
Back when she’d been seventeen, she’d often daydreamed about what it would be like to be kissed by Connor Rafferty. But none of the scenarios had been like this. He kissed the way he did everything: with a cocky confidence that took no prisoners.
When he finally pulled away, their breathing was rapid as their eyes met. His hazel ones held a challenge, as if he was daring her to make some flippant comment about what he’d done and what invisible line had been crossed.
Her mouth opened, but when his gaze shot downward and narrowed, she clamped her lips together again. The tense moment stretched between them. She was acutely aware of how close he was, of the leashed energy emanating from him.
And then, without knowing exactly how and why it happened, she was in his arms again and his lips were on hers in an instant and she was responding the way she used to dream about, except now she could do a little real-life comparison.
His lips, for one thing, were softer and smoother than they looked. They slid over hers, molding and caressing, coaxing a response. His hands didn’t roam, instead they exerted a subtle pressure between her shoulder blades and at the middle of her back.
He didn’t make a sound, but focused all his concentration on giving and receiving pleasure from the stroke of his lips against hers. Whereas his first kiss had been angry, this one seduced.
Her lips parted beneath his and his tongue slid inside her mouth to stroke against hers, inviting her to respond. The evening shadow that darkened his jaw was a rough caress against her soft skin.
He pulled her closer, flush up against him, as she was caught up in the rush of feeling that had burst between them.
She might have been able to chalk up the first kiss as a fluke, but this second kiss…well, Connor Rafferty was the best kisser behind the best lips she’d ever encountered—and that included Ben Thayer in high school, who’d read and mastered 100 Creative Kisses: Smooching with Confidence.
When his hand slid down and cupped her bottom to pull them closer together so their bodies were in intimate contact, alarm bells went off in her head. She grasped his shoulders, intent on pushing him back, when she realized the ringing wasn’t only in her head.
The phone rang again, insistently, and Connor set his hands on her shoulders to steady her as they broke apart.
Flustered, she glanced around the living room to determine where the ringing cordless was located.
She spotted it peeking from under a throw pillow on the couch and hesitantly picked it up. “Hello?” Her voice was still husky with arousal.
“I’m coming for you.” The voice at the other end of the line was raspy and hoarse.
“Who is this?”
“Lay off your cases at the DA’s Office or you’ll end up dead.”
Her hand tightened on the receiver. She knew she had to keep him talking to get more clues. “I don’t scare easily.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Connor tense and his brows draw together. She turned away as he strode toward her.
There was a grim chuckle on the phone line. “I’m willing to bet Daddy would pay a nice little sum to get you back—dead or alive.”
Suddenly, the receiver was torn from her hand. “Touch her and I’ll obliterate you like the scum you are.” Connor’s voice was clipped and deadly. “You won’t be able to walk down the street without watching your back.”
Allison guessed