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xture of nerves and determination mingling in her gaze. Stopping a foot away, she placed her hand on his chest, right over his rapidly beating heart, then slid her palm upward until her trembling fingers toyed with the collar of his shirt. “I’m trying to prove I can be exactly what you need.”
Oh, he needed all right. With a vengeance. In a way that was quickly zapping his common sense and rigid control. “Care to explain that comment?” he asked, shoving his hands deeper into his pants’ pockets.
“I’m applying for the position of your date for the charity auction.” Her fingers grazed the opening of his shirt, scorching his flesh with her daring caress. “I know you could probably find someone sexier and more alluring,” she said, a bit of insecurity showing through her bravado. “But you already gave me an “A” for reading my erotic love letter. Considering that’s what you need a woman for on the Russell case, that skill has to count for something, doesn’t it?”
“So, that’s the reason for your metamorphosis and that letter you just read?” he asked more gruffly than he’d intended. “The Russell case?”
“Partly, yes.” Her chin lifted, adding a willful air to her demeanor and a new, intriguing dimension to her personality—a strength and tenacity he couldn’t help but admire. “I’ve been sensible and accommodating all my life, Cole. A quintessential good girl, a perfect daughter and a quiet, dependable secretary. I’m twenty-eight years old. I want to have some fun and be a little wild and adventurous. And I want to find out what it’s like working on a case outside of the office. I’m more than qualified, and you know I can help you on the Russell case if you’d just give me the chance.”
“No.” His response was automatic; it was also his last link to his own personal salvation when it came to her.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to prove I’m capable of handling this assignment. Anything at all.” Undaunted by his refusal, she stepped closer, tipped her lips up toward his, and whispered daringly, “Tease me, please me, and make my fantasies come true,” she recited from the erotic letter.
I’m waiting for you. Make me yours. The provocative words echoed through his head, and he nearly groaned as every muscle in his body responded to her audacious words and actions. Her flattened palms traveled along his shoulders and around his neck, and she swayed toward him, causing her soft, lush breasts to rasp across his chest and her thighs to press against his.
Unable to take another moment of her bewitching behavior, he grabbed both of her hands to regain control of the situation and backed her up against the wall behind her. He pinned her wrists beside her head with his splayed hands and glared down at her, doing his best to discourage her advances with his dark, fierce look.
“Dammit, Mel,” he growled, his low, rough tone threaded with frustration and desire. “You’re playing with fire.”
He’d expected his intimidation tactics to coerce her into backing off, but this new side to Melodie was proving to be more than he’d bargained for. Instead of retreating, she inhaled a deep breath and gazed up at him challengingly. “Maybe I want to get burned.”
Oh, fucking hell. When and how had the focus of the conversation shifted to them? The flush of excitement on her cheeks backed her claim, yet he instinctively knew she hadn’t considered the repercussions of what she was asking for, or the fact that he wasn’t a forever kind of guy. One step closer and she’d have ample proof that he was ready, willing, and able to indulge in hot sex and carnal pleasures with her. But work and personal ethics kept him from following through on the primal urges raging within him.
He bent his knees, lowering his face so he was looking directly into her eyes—putting him a breath away from kissing her. “You’re not ready for this kind of game,” he warned in a deep, gravely voice. “And if you’re not careful, you’re gonna end up getting hurt.”
“I’m a consenting adult, Cole,” she said, blatantly ignoring his advice and jumping right into the fire. “Why not let me be the judge of that?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Heat licked through Cole’s veins and spread throughout his entire body. Between listening to the erotic letter Melodie had just read to him and being on the receiving end of her daring remark to play with his brand of fire, Cole felt pushed beyond the edge of his restraint. Unable to resist the temptation he’d been fighting all day—hell, for the past two years—and determined to show her just how ruthless he could be when issued such a direct and wanton challenge, he lowered his head and took her mouth with his own—finally releasing all the pent-up desire clawing its way to the surface.
His lips slanted over hers, hot and hungry, demanding even. When she gasped in startled surprise at the immediate intensity of his kiss, he took advantage of her soft, parted lips and slid his tongue deep inside, tasting her incredible warmth and a honeyed sweetness that was uniquely hers.
With her wrists pinned beneath his hands and her head braced against the back of the wall from the pressure of his mouth on hers, he was in complete control and able to maneuver her to his will. Not that she was resisting any part of his sensual assault, though her response was far more reserved than he’d expected considering how forward she’d been with him moments ago. He was used to aggressive women who took charge in appeasing their own needs when it came to sexual encounters, yet he was feverishly turned on by Melodie’s gradual awakening—just as she’d indicated in the letter she’d written—and he was the one who felt mindlessly seduced.
Tentatively, she touched her tongue to his and moaned deep in her throat at the silky contact. The sexy, guileless sound vibrated through him like a physical caress, while the heat and aroused scent of her beckoned to his baser, more primitive side. Instinctively, he closed the scant distance between them, gradually pressing his hard body against hers and fitting his erection snugly right at the crux of her thighs. He gyrated his hips slowly, rhythmically against hers and felt her shiver with the same need swelling within him.
Forgetting that he’d meant to shock her into retreating, he released her wrists to frame her face between his palms and angled her head for better access. His lips gentled, and he slid his tongue inside her mouth again, this time slow and deep—the same way his body ached to take hers. Threading his fingers through her thick, luxurious hair, he feasted on her lips and teased her with damp, open-mouthed kisses that coaxed her to do the same, and if the soft, mewling noises she was making in the back of her throat were any indication, he was pleasing her just fine, too.
Cole’s mind spun with an overwhelming pleasure unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. Everything about her was addictive—the feminine smell of her skin, the feel of her lush curves scorching the length of his body, and her uninhibited response as he smoothed a hand down her neck, over the wild pulse beating at the base of her throat, and lower still until he cupped her generous breast in his hand and squeezed the soft swell of flesh. She arched shamelessly into his touch and moaned when he dragged his thumb over the tight nipple straining through the flimsy material of her bra and blouse.
Her cool fingers delved through his hair, tugging him intimately closer as her mouth opened wider beneath his in a giving, trusting gesture. It was that startling thought that finally jolted him out of the fog of lust clouding his brain and ruling his hormones. This was Melodie, and her father trusted him to look after her, yet here he was, nearly betraying the man who’d done so much for him by fucking his daughter.
He jerked back, breaking their embrace. Breathing hard, he stared down at her flushed face, unable to believe he’d been so caught up in the erotic fantasy she’d woven with that damnable letter that he’d forget his duties and responsibilities. Unable to believe, too, just how badly he wanted to be the man she’d created on paper for her.
Her lashes fluttered open. Meeting his gaze, she touched the tips of her fingers to her kiss-swollen lips. “Cole.” His name escaped on a breathless whisper of sound that belonged in a moonlit bedroom. His bedroom.
She looked so incredibly sexy, so beautifully a
roused, and it took every ounce of effort he possessed to contain the driving impulse to shove her skirt up around her waist, crush her body with his own, and take her right here, right now, up against the wall.
He took two huge steps back before he did just that, putting her far out of his reach. In a voice still holding gravelly nuances of desire, he said, “I strongly suggest that you leave for the night before we do something we’ll both regret later.”
She shook her head, opposing his statement, causing her mussed hair to tumble around her shoulders. “I don’t think regret is possible, for me anyway,” she replied softly.
A long moment of silence passed between them, making it abundantly clear that he had nothing left to add to the conversation. With a soulful sigh, she headed toward the door, but halted before stepping through the threshold. He didn’t turn around to look at her, but that didn’t stop her from addressing him one last time.
“Just in case there’s any doubt in your mind, Cole, I wanted that kiss,” she said in that new and brazen way of hers. Then she was gone.
