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“Eva. Welcome,” he said simply, and she warned herself to not be disarmed by his easy, pleased charm. “I’m glad you could make it,” he added as she walked in, handing him her coat.
“At the threat of losing my job, I had no choice,” she said wryly, standing in the palatial hallway and trying not to stare at him in his immaculate white dress shirt and dark, well-fitting pants. She’d said no to this guy?
Common sense prevailed over hormones, and she walked primly next to him as he led her through his home.
“We will be dining alone,” he said, “Everything’s prepared and just requires serving, which I will do myself.” He smiled at the somewhat stony look on her face. “I just wanted us to have some together time, Eva. And this was the best way I could come up with at short notice. Forgive me?”
She huffed slightly. “Just so you know, I’m here for the interview. Nothing more. We dine, we talk, then I leave.”
“If that’s the way you really want it to go,” he said, still with the tilted smile on his face. She let out an angry little sigh, and then told herself that all she had to do was try to get through the next two hours, that was all.
They settled in to dine. He was the perfect host, setting out the courses. The food was delicious, and they were also able to conduct the interview while they ate. She had her tape recorder on, and focused on the questions she’d worked out with her boss, stuff their kind of readers would want to find out about the Australian whose holdings spanned from his home country down to theirs. He was the perfect success story, taking up the struggling family business and turning it into a gold mine before age thirty. He was a role model too for the substantial financial aid he provided both in the third world countries as well as closer to home.
“Aren’t you going to ask me something more personal?” he queried with a quirked brow as he refilled her glass with some marvelous wine. She was beginning to think she’d had enough already, and vowed to make this her last glass. Wouldn’t do to let him get her tipsy since they were in his home – alone.
“You mean, about your private life?” she murmured. “Sorry Max but I don’t think the readers we cater to really want to hear about the latest bimbo you kicked out of your bed.”
“Ouch,” he said, grinning. “So what about you, what do you want to know about me? I’m thinking the way you scurried off that night a week ago was because you felt you didn’t really know me, couldn’t trust me.”
His gaze smoldered, suddenly turning the atmosphere to something crackling, electrifying. Uh oh, Eva thought, gulping down the wine and then setting down the glass with somewhat shaky fingers. Time to run, she thought, switching off the recorder and jamming it in her bag.
“I think I’ve got all the material I need for the piece,” she said hurriedly, reaching for her bag. “And the dinner was lovely, but…”
His hand slipped over hers on the table, imprisoning her in its heat and strength. Her eyes flew up to meet his. “So skittish,” he rumbled, eyes hooded as they ran over her face, then rested on her lips. “What is it about me that frightens you so? Is it because you know how I can make you feel? The things I can make you do?”
“Yes – things like making a fool of myself,” she said with finality, then sighed. “You planned this elaborate scheme all for nothing, Max. No matter the question, the answer is still no.”
“Is it?” he asked softly, taking her by the wrist, flipping it over. She looked down to where his thumb stroked over her upraised pulse. His touch…was warm to the point of scalding. Her gaze flashed up to hold his as he lifted her hand to his lips, which he pressed to just below the pad of her thumb.
“Still saying no?” was his thickly voiced query, as those firm, scorching lips of his trailed wickedly smoky kisses up her arm, inch by inch.
“No. I mean yes, I’m still not..,” she said in confusion, wishing she could snatch her arm away. Max…he had the tenderest, most erotically charged lips, packed with enough sex-punch to make a girl’s head reel. And the rake knew it.
“I don’t even know what it is about you,” he murmured, his mouth still doing butterfly-wing kisses over her tingling skin. “But anytime you’re near me, I’m in a different mode. I’m hot, I’m cold, I don’t know if I’m coming or going…”
His lips parted, laved her flesh with the heat of his tongue, before he sucked on her skin with keen lustfulness. A moan soundless spilled from Eva’s lips as a tremendous heat coursed through to her nerve endings.
“Max…”
“Feel here,” he broke into her warning voice, taking her hand to place against the left side of his chest. She heard it, no felt it through her palm, through his shirt. The thundering beat beneath his muscled flesh. “That’s what you do to me. Every time. I just have to look at you and I want you. I’ve had many women – countless women, I won’t lie. But you, Eva, you have the power to keep me asking for more.”
“No I don’t,” she let out before she could stop herself. Her tone was desperate, breathless. “Max, I’m nothing like that. You may look at me and think that I’m…something I’m not. I can’t give you want you want. I wouldn’t know how.” She sighed deeply. “I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
Max’s eyes narrowed with realization. “What makes you so sure I will be?”
“Because I just know. I mean I’ve tried. And I wasn’t very good at it.” She bit fiercely on her bottom lip. Okay, there. Now he knew.
The flare of fury on his face made her breath catch. “Is that what he told you?”
“Let’s leave Leon out of this…”
“Yes, let’s,” Max growled, rising fluidly to his feet and tugging her up with him to thud against his chest. “Let’s wipe him off the slate and start this at the beginning. You. Woman. Me. Man. We will share our deepest, hottest passion. And it will be perfect.”
Eva wanted to protest – warn him that it was no use. But the next second, he was seizing her lips in a kiss.
Chapter Four
His lips merged with hers and Eva waited, waited to feel nothing. To go cold beneath the searing touch of mouth and tongue against hers.
