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‘Underfloor heating in the kitchen. If you’d take those black pumps off, you’d find that the floor is very warm.’ She hadn’t so much as undone the top button of her very neat white shirt, he thought. She was out of the office, and there had been no need to wear office garb, but predictably she had not deviated from her strict dress code. She hadn’t even kicked off her sensible patent shoes for the entire time she had been sitting on the sofa in his bedroom taking notes and amending reports on her computer.
She was the stiffest, least relaxed woman he had ever met. Yet, when she had exploded, he had glimpsed a side to her that was as volatile and as fiery as a volcano. It made sense. She was smart, she had a good brain. That in itself would indicate that there was more to her than the dutiful secretary who spoke her mind, but politely, and always managed to leave the impression that there was a lot more to her than met the eye.
He wondered what.
Having grown accustomed to a diet of very willing and very beautiful women, he let his mind wander over the very prickly, very proper and very average Miss Alice Morgan. And, once there, his mind showed every inclination of staying put.
Her dress code was so damned bland that it positively encouraged the eye to look away with boredom, but there was a pale delicacy to her face and a fullness to her mouth that hinted at a sensuality he suspected she was not aware of.
And just like that he felt himself harden.
‘I would rather finish what we’re doing and then head home.’ Alice was uncomfortable with this domestic game they seemed to be playing. She hadn’t signed up for this and she didn’t know how to deal with being yanked out of her comfort zone.
Gabriel scowled. Without warning, he imagined her taking it between those cool hands of hers, lowering her mouth to it and licking it with her very delicate pink tongue. The graphic clarity of the image shocked him.
‘Too bad,’ he snapped. ‘You’re not being paid to skive off early just because I’m not fighting fit.’
What had brought that on? Alice wondered. Maybe he was getting to the end of his tether being cooped up in his house with a woman who wasn’t his temporary bed partner. He was probably used to sharing his kitchen with a Georgia lookalike, except one in even less clothing. A Georgia lookalike wearing nothing but an apron and waving a spatula about with a come-hither grin.
‘That’s not fair,’ she told him quietly. ‘I’m just not very hungry; please don’t think that you have to break off because of me.’
‘I’m not,’ Gabriel said shortly. He was still aching, his erection still hard and throbbing, and his imagination was still galloping merrily on a free rein. Without a trace of vanity, he knew that most women would kill to be in her position—in his kitchen with him, cooking. He had yet to allow any woman to cook for him. Why give them the wrong ideas? No, he entertained them in the relative safety of expensive restaurants. That way they couldn’t start harbouring unrealistic ideas of domesticating him.
Yet here she was, standing with her back pressed against his kitchen counter, trying to find excuses to leave.
It was ludicrous to let that get under his skin but, coming hard on the heels of the erotic thoughts that had taken root in his head, it did.
He fished his mobile phone out of his pocket, called his friend and head chef at one of the top restaurants in the city and ordered a meal for two, menu unspecified. As he spoke, he kept his eyes pinned to Alice’s face and she angrily wondered whether this was an attempt to generate some sort of guilt complex in her because she hadn’t jumped at the chance of cooking a meal for him.
The more she thought about Gabriel, the more she realised just how lazy he was in his personal life. But, if he thought that he could make inroads into her, somehow turn her into one of his followers who did every single thing he wanted with a smile on their face, then he was in for a shock.
‘You do realise that there’s still a hell of a lot of work to do on Trans-Telecom,’ he grated, sitting on one of the chrome and leather chairs by the kitchen table. He could feel the temperature he had managed to keep at bay with the tablets begin to rise as the pain killers wore off. ‘You don’t have to stand over there!’ he snapped. ‘If you’re going to catch anything from me, then chances are you will have caught it already!’
‘I thought you had covered most of the technical details on that.’ Alice walked towards him and perched facing him. The thought that he might be infectious hadn’t even crossed her mind. She had been far too busy just fretting about being in his house with him! He obviously hadn’t shaved this morning and the darkening of stubble on his face was sinfully, extravagantly attractive.
