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Matthew groaned, parted her lips with his, tilted her head and angled his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss. He caught her bottom lip between his teeth, sucked on the soft flesh, bit lightly and then soothed the wound with the tip of his tongue.
“Susannah,” he breathed, “Susannah.” It was all he was capable of saying, of thinking, of feeling.
God, he was on fire!
And so was she.
He slid his tongue into her mouth. She moaned softly and wound her arms around his neck. His body was rock-hard beneath her. The feel of all that tightly leashed power, the realization that she had done this to him, made the kiss even more exciting.
“Yes?”
Susannah froze. “Matthew?”
“I know, sweetheart.” Her yes had been soft. Husky. A little deeper than he’d have expected, but who was he to concern himself with Susannah’s tone of voice? “I know. You said, yes. And it’s the same for—”
“I didn’t say anything,” she said, scrambling from his lap. “It was the driver.”
The driver.
The driver? Matthew met the cabby’s eyes in the mirror and breathed a sigh of relief. This was New York, meaning the guy had barely noticed the gymnastics.
“Yes, please, we are here?”
“We are here, yes,” Matthew said, looking out the window at La Guardia Airport. “We certainly are.”
“Please? Give airline name?”
Matthew cleared his throat. “Ah…”
Ah? What kind of response was that to a simple question? His brain, on holiday early this morning, now seemed to have packed up and left home for good. How else to explain his actions? His loss of control? Susannah looked as baffled as he felt. She was smoothing her jacket, her hair, her skirt, every now and then shooting him quick glances from under her lashes.
Matthew’s mouth thinned.
Anybody who didn’t know better would have thought games like this were new for her. But he wasn’t anybody. He was the man who’d been the butt of her jokes. Even if he hadn’t, just one look at her in that sexy suit, one moment spent with her going wild in his arms would have made it clear Susannah Madison was, to use Joe’s favorite description, one hot babe.
Matthew straightened his collar, fixed his tie and ran his hands through his hair.
“Sorry,” he said briskly.
Susannah jerked her head toward him. Sorry? The man sounded as if he were apologizing for—for jostling her elbow instead of for…
Oh, lord.
Maybe she’d lost her mind. It was as good an explanation as any. Why else would she have been crawling all over Matthew Romano in the back seat of a taxi? Matthew Romano, a man she didn’t like, a man she’d only met, what, four hours ago?
It was all his fault. She smoothed her skirt again, tried uselessly to drag it over her knees. She was embarrassed, and he was sitting there, the epitome of cool.
How she longed to pop him one right in his square jaw. If he hadn’t stormed into her life this morning, turned her existence upside down, if he hadn’t hauled her into his arms and kissed her as if the clock had spun backward and he were some tenth-century lord of the manor…
She swung toward him. He swung toward her. They stared at each other. Susannah could feel the angry, indignant words building inside her, but How dare you? wasn’t really appropriate to the occasion, considering—Be honest, Susannah—considering that she’d just been sucking on his tongue.
Color flooded her face.
“Susannah,” he said, “that was—it was inappropriate behavior.”
She nodded. “It certainly was.”
“But it’s probably just as well we got it out of the way.”
Her eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m sure neither of us wants to muddy the waters with, ah, with a personal involvement.”
Bloody hell! What was wrong with him? He sounded like a pimply-faced kid trying to convince his girlfriend that he’d still respect her despite what had happened in the back seat of his Chevy.
“Look,” he said, waving his hand, “why don’t we forget that, ah, that anything—that we ever…”
“It was a mistake,” Susannah said.
“Yes.
“Yes?”
Matthew looked up. The driver was smiling helpfully into the mirror.
“No. I mean, not you, driver. I mean… It was a mistake, yes,” he said, turning back to Susannah. “A huge one. And I apologize for my part in it.”
Susannah stared at him. It wasn’t much of an apology. In fact, it was pretty insulting. It suggested that she’d been as responsible for that kiss as he was. Well, he was right. She was equally responsible, heaven only knew why, but if he was willing to put the kiss behind them, so was she. She took a breath, puffed it out and nodded.
“I agree.”
“Good.” Matthew smiled politely, thought of shaking Susannah’s hand, thought of what might happen if he touched her and frowned. “Good,” he said again, and then he leaned forward. “Driver? We’ve had a change of plans. Take us back into the city, please, to the Manhattan Towers Hote—”
“Absolutely not!”
Susannah was looking at him as if he’d turned into something loathsome right before her eyes.
“You are really something!”
Matthew sighed. He had the feeling she hadn’t meant that as a compliment.
“Is there a problem, Miss Madison?”
“Is there a—” Susannah laughed. “Goodbye, Mr. Romano. I’d sooner sell sweaters in Macy’s than go back to your hotel with you.”
“Macy’s? Yes?”
It was the driver again. Matthew shot him a fierce look.
“Macy’s, no,” he snapped, his voice growing testy.
“Macy’s, Lord and Taylor’s, the moon,” Susannah said, reaching past him to the door.
Matthew clamped his hand on hers. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the perks of the job. You never mentioned that along with health insurance and a pension plan, I could also count on being tucked into your bed!”
“Are you nuts?”
“Let go of me, Romano.”
“Susannah—”
“Don’t you ‘Susannah’ me!”
“Sorry,” he said, and tried not to laugh at her tone of righteous indignation. “I figure, once a woman’s crawled all over a man, he can assume they’re on a first-name basis.”
“I’m sure this is very amusing to you, but I find nothing laughable in this situation.”
“You will when you calm down enough to listen.”
“Let go of my hand, please. I’ll take the subway to the office.”
“You do that. Just be sure and
let me know which runway the train stops at.”
“Go ahead, laugh. See if I care.”
“It’s a long walk back to Manhattan.”
“I’ll take a taxi,” she said, with dignity.
“Dammit, woman, you’re in a taxi. Stop being an idiot.”
“You stop hanging on to my wrist, or you’ll be reading your dentist’s estimate for a new set of teeth!”
Matthew laughed. “I’m shaking in my shoes. Now, sit back and take it easy.”
“After you just—after what you just—”
“You’ve got your pronouns wrong, haven’t you? I didn’t just. We just. Remember the old saying, Susie? It takes two.”
Susannah jerked her hand free. “A gentleman would not even suggest such a thing.”
“I never said I was a gentleman.”
“And a good thing. Otherwise, I’d have to call you a liar as well as a—a cad.”
He knew it wasn’t fair, teasing her like this. It was just that watching her react—the color that shot into her cheeks, the angry tilt of her head—made it difficult to resist.
But resist he would. He’d resist kissing her again, too, though he had to admit it was going to be tough. Who’d have dreamed Susannah Madison would be so complex? She’d gone from hoyden to businesswoman to sexy siren in less time than it took some women to dress for dinner. And right now, she was doing a credible job of playing the wronged innocent.
Matthew’s body tightened.
No question, it would be fun to explore all those layers. But he wasn’t interested. This was business, and he never mixed business with pleasure. Besides, he didn’t like the woman. And if there was one thing he never did, it was sleep with a woman he didn’t like.
Not that she’d ever believe such a thing.
Matthew’s brows knotted. Who cared if she did or didn’t? The only thing she had to believe was that what had just happened would never happen again.
“You’ve made a mistake,” he said.
Susannah rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I wasn’t asking you back to my hotel,” he said briskly.
