Business or Pleasure? (10 page)

“You're beautiful, Alec,” she said and let her fingers trace the line her gaze had followed only moments before. She tucked her fingertips beneath the fabric of his khakis and felt a sudden surge of power when he sucked in a sharp breath and tightened his hold on her.

“So are you,” he said, his molten gaze meeting hers as he slid his hands higher and let his thumbs brush up against the swell of her aching breasts, making her nipples harden into tight, tender, yearning peaks.

The sensation he triggered with his simple touch was so exquisite she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from crying out. Even so, a little moan slipped out as he pushed her sweater up and off. The soft fabric hit the floor silently, and then Daisy stood there in her bra, trembling with anticipation and wishing for divine guidance to tell her what to do next.

Fortunately, she didn't have to do a thing. Alec reached for her and let his fingers sketch the lacy vee of her brand-new, light-blue silk demicup bra.
Oh, thank you, Virginia,
she thought, and her breath went shallow as he released the front clasp with one deft move.

As her bra fell away, a powerful tremor passed through her from head to toe, though whether from the cool air on her breasts or from the heat of his gaze, she wasn't sure. All she knew was that she thought she'd die if he didn't touch her soon, felt herself arch forward, willing him to do just that. And
then he did, filling his hands with her breasts, caressing them gently and pulling and teasing her nipples with his clever fingertips.

Bliss.
Daisy let her head fall back as arrows of fire shot through her body and landed achingly between her legs, warm and wet. As his attention to his task intensified, she gasped softly and dug her short fingernails into his skin, instinctively pulling him closer.

“Wait,” he said as he dipped his head, let his lips slide up her neck, kissing and nipping, let his hands bury themselves in her hair.

“But I've waited for you so long already,” she whispered, her voice intense.

She could hardly believe she'd said that out loud, but there it was. It was out there, and all there was to do was wait and see how he'd react.

He pulled away to look at her, his brows drawn together with confusion. The moment seemed to stretch out between them, thick as taffy. Then she saw his impossible, midnight-blue eyes darken, saw the corners of his mouth slip into an inscrutable smile. “It'll be worth the wait,” he said softly as he reached for the drawstring of her shorts. “Trust me.”

And she did. Trust and love and need welled up within her, and suddenly she didn't feel as if she could stand it another minute. She toed off her shoes as she went for his still-wet khakis. He peeled off her shorts as he shucked his socks. And then, after a momentary flurry of snaps and buttons and zippers, they stood naked before each other, breathing hard.

“My imagination didn't do you justice,” he said, his voice reverent.

She tumbled into the depths of his eyes and forgot to be
self-conscious of her nakedness. “You imagined this? Imagined me?” she asked, breathless at the very idea.

Smiling, he pulled her close, and she thrilled at the feel of his bare skin against hers, at the feel of his warm breath fanning across her cheek. “Of course. Why do you think I have these dark circles under my eyes?”

“Good answer,” she said, smiling.

He laughed then and kissed her fiercely as he backed up to the bed and pulled her down on top of him. Together they spilled onto the soft down comforter and rolled over until she lay beneath him. Alec murmured her name against her bruised and willing lips as he began to touch her everywhere, setting her skin ablaze and her heart to drumming furiously.

Her body hummed with need as she slid hungry fingers over his shoulders, down his thickly muscled back and then headed further south until she reached his perfect butt. All of it was shockingly wonderful, it was all far, far beyond her fantasies and yet it wasn't nearly enough.

“Alec,” she moaned, letting instinct be her guide. “I want—” She tightened her hold on him, draped one leg around his thigh, pressed her hips closer, felt his arousal pulse against her. “Please—” She didn't know what she was asking for but whatever it was, she knew she needed it more than she needed her next breath.

Alec knew exactly what she wanted. He knew because he wanted it, too. But for reasons he couldn't possibly fathom, he desperately needed to hear her say it.

“Tell me,” he murmured as his hands roamed freely over her incredible, silky skin and his tongue played with her swollen, tempting lips. “Tell me what you want,” he said, cupping her sweet, round bottom and pulling her against him. His
arousal pressed into the taut expanse of her stomach and he nearly came undone from wanting her. He'd been a fool. How could he have failed to see what had been sitting right there in front of him?

When she spoke, her voice was low, pleading. “I want,” she began. “I want…” She kissed him deeply, thoroughly, as if she were starving and he was sustenance, and then she tried again. “Dammit,” she said, and he almost smiled at the frustration in her tone. “I need
you
.
All of you.
”

Need
. And even as his mind said, “Oh, damn,” his heart started to…well, his heart started.

How long had it been since a woman had wanted him like this? When a woman's desire for him had been so tangible he could feel it surrounding him, thick and warm and wonderful? The answer descended on him like a clap of thunder. After a tiresome, endless stream of pointless encounters with beautiful but soulless women, the answer was never.

He knew this was dangerous and crazy—hell, she
drove
him crazy—but he knew he'd never wanted any woman as badly as he wanted this woman right now.

The wicked, reckless look in her eyes had his heart slamming against his ribs. It was official. The respectable, bespectacled Daisy Kincaid was history. The beautiful woman lying beneath him with the light of both innocence and sin shining in her eyes was the new and improved Daisy: bold and sexy, a gorgeous temptress.

She pulled his head down to her and renewed their kiss with a passion that sent an intense streak of pure desire sweeping through him in hard, hot waves. She moaned quietly as he abandoned her lips to burn a trail of kisses from her temple to her earlobe and down the sweet, enticing length
of her neck. Oh, how he'd wanted to taste her again, he thought as her scent, heavenly and sweet, surrounded him. She sighed and her fingers played in his hair as she held him to her and, with an urgency that bordered on desperation, he moved lower, using his lips to taste her shoulders and his hands to savor her firm, round breasts.

Breathing hard, she tipped her head back against the pillows, and her fingernails grazed the hot skin of his back, leaving a shadow of her desire in their wake. His lips skimmed the smooth skin of one perfect breast before he pulled the rosy, hardened nipple into his hot, searching mouth and rolled his tongue over the sensitive bud again and again. She shook sweetly beneath his mouth and hands, moaning his name and pulling him closer, and his heart tripped and skipped and struggled to regain its natural rhythm.

He turned his attention to her other breast and deliberately took his time as he let one hand move lower, over her hard, flat stomach and down to where he slipped his fingers into the hot, wet, velvet core of her. At his touch, Daisy's hips bucked up and she began to gasp out heated little sounds of impatience.

“Alec,” she whispered. “Now…”

“Soon,” he answered, even though his restraint was stretched tighter than he could ever remember, tighter than he'd ever thought possible.

She whimpered in frustration when he rolled off her and reached into the nightstand to find their protection, but a moment later her bottomless dark eyes softened with understanding and appreciation for what he'd just done. And then he moved over her again and her softness yielded to him, their bodies fitting together easily, so damn easily.

She whispered his name and kneaded his back with demanding hands as he entered her slowly and teasingly and felt her stretch around him. It took every shred of self-control he had left to go slow. But then she put her lips to his neck and nipped at a sensitive spot above his collarbone and murmured her need in hushed tones, and he was lost.

He'd wanted to make it last, to let this terrible, wonderful tension spark and smolder, but he knew now he'd wanted her for too long. His control snapped and their desire collided in one amazing, blinding moment that drove him to push his way into her in one hard, heated rush.

He stilled as he met resistance and she stiffened, clutched at him, cried out softly in…was that
pain?
He tried to think, to clear his mind, but she made it all but impossible by writhing beneath him, trying to pull him more deeply inside her.

Daisy was a
virgin,
he thought, his mind a wild tangle. How could that be? “Daisy?” he choked out, reining himself in with a discipline he wouldn't have thought he could muster.

“Please, Alec,” she pleaded, pushing her hips upward again. An arrow of pure pleasure pierced him as her muscles gripped him hard, pulling him deeper inside her. “Don't stop.”

“Daisy…” His brain was fogged from wanting her, from the sheer paradise of being inside her, but he knew he had to make her see…something. But what was it?

“Please,” she said again, pulling his head back down to hers and confusing him further with a kiss that torched his very soul. “I don't want to be an old maid.”

“Old maid?” he repeated, his voice hoarse. What was she talking about? “You're only twenty-something years old—”

“But I've been wanting this.” He sucked in a sharp breath when she kissed his neck, then let her lush, sweet lips flit over
his stubbly chin and cheek. “
This.
With you.” Her fingers curled into the hair at the nape of his neck. “Make it come true.”

And then she crushed her mouth to his, thrust up once again to take him more deeply inside her, and he buckled. Nothing mattered but the miracle of this feeling, the wonder of what she was doing to him right this moment. And so he welcomed the hot tide of hunger and desire that washed over him as he followed the rhythm of her slow, seductive movements, followed her until he forgot everything he'd ever known or ever would know and just lived in that moment, inside Daisy.

When she reached the limits of her own passion, she cried out again, only this time her cry was filled with joy and awe and pleasure. Her legs shook as she convulsed around him, hard and insistent, and with his whispered name on her lips, she pulled him with her tenderly until he, too, fell over the edge and into her warm, waiting arms.

I
t seemed to Daisy that if she lay there very quietly, she could make this moment last long enough to memorize every detail of how it felt to have her dream come true.

Alec's marvelous, unfamiliar weight touching her everywhere; his heartbeat, loud and quick beneath her sweat-slicked cheek; the tension that continued to trickle, little by little, out of her body with each breath; her bendy, pliable limbs that seemed incapable of serious movement; the sharp, heady scent of their entwined bodies.

Each sensation, sweet and new and treasured, lingered, imprinted itself on her very soul.

She'd wanted this for so long she almost couldn't believe it had happened. But with Alec's arms encircling her, his spicy scent surrounding her and his still-labored breath playing in her hair, it was impossible to deny it. She turned her
head and pressed her lips against his shoulder and felt his arms tighten around her. Then he dropped a kiss onto her unkempt curls and the gesture was so tender she had to squeeze her eyes shut to fend off the emotions that threatened to overpower her.

Her heart was still hammering like crazy when Alec rolled just far enough away to prop himself up on one elbow and demolish her with those devastating blue eyes. “Hey, you,” he said.

She put on a wobbly smile and gently swept the back of her hand over his raspy cheek. “Hey, yourself,” she whispered, her voice sounding oddly seductive to her own ears.

“You know, you could have told me that you…” His voice trailed off before he finished the thought, but it would've been hard to misunderstand him.

“If it'd ever come up in conversation, I'm sure I would have.”

“Hmm,” he said as he looked up at her. Then, with a sinful smile that might have made her fall for him if it wasn't already a done deal, he said, “We need to rethink the kinds of conversations we have, don't you agree?” as he began to draw slow, sensuous circles on her bare stomach with his fingertips.

Her heart lodged firmly in her throat. Why him? she thought as she looked over at his handsome, achingly familiar face. Why did she have to fall in love with this unavailable, unattainable, impossible man?

Lord, she thought as she bathed in his smile, if only she knew something, anything, about how to make a man fall in love with her.

“You're not mad,” she said, and while she'd meant to make
it a question, the laughter in his eyes had already told her what she wanted to know.

He shook his head once, then his brows drew together over eyes suddenly filled with concern. “I didn't hurt you, did I?”

“God, no,” she said on a soul deep sigh. “It was everything I imagined.”
And then some.

“You imagined this?” he asked, repeating her earlier question with a sly smile.

“Actually, wise guy,” she said as she pushed him onto his back and rolled on top of him, “it was more like this.” She sat up, pushed her unruly hair back from her face and struck a pose that should have made her blush but instead made her feel like the wickedest woman in the world. His intense, approving gaze swept down to her breasts, and she reveled in the passion in his eyes when he reached for her, enveloped her with his searing touch.

“What happens next?” he asked, shifting beneath her to show her the evidence of his rekindled desire.

Renewed excitement flooded every fiber of her being, along with a surge of power and confidence she'd never dreamed she'd experience. She lifted herself off him, just high enough to take the tip of his erection inside her. “This happens next,” she said softly, and his expression went from lazy to intense in an instant as she slowly, slowly took him all in.

He grasped her hips and his fingers were strong and sure as he helped guide her down over every splendid inch of him. “I love the way your mind works,” he said on a groan torn from deep inside.

And I love you, she thought, biting her lip to keep from saying it out loud.
I love you enough to take whatever piece of you that you'll share with me.

Then they began to move, body to body, soul to soul, in an ancient rhythm that bound them, made them one. Together, with frantic hands and inquisitive lips and tender words, they climbed higher, impossibly higher, to a place so exquisite, she shivered at the sweet miracle of it.

And then, as they found their release in an explosive melding of minds and bodies and souls, Daisy Kincaid's reality finally, blissfully, eclipsed her fantasies.

 

Alec had been pretty busy the last few months and hadn't quite gotten in all the workouts he should have and right about now—boy, oh, boy—could he feel it.

His shoulders ached, he had a tic in his neck, and his back was pinging somewhere in the middle of his shoulder blades—probably from that acrobatic thing he and Daisy had done around three in the morning when she'd woken him up with a single, seductive touch of her hand to a place on his body that just couldn't say no.

But his twinges and pains weren't really important. All that really mattered was that they'd had one hell of a night.

He smiled as he tightened his arm around Daisy's slim waist and tugged her closer. It was nice the way her back pressed up to the front of his body, her contours molding to his hardened planes with ease. She was warm and soft and smelled, as always, like fresh-baked cookies. He sucked in a deep breath and thought, “I could really get used to this,” and then he snapped his eyes open in surprise.

Blinding sunlight filled the room, birds sang outside on the patio, the clock ticked loudly on the nightstand—and Alec Mackenzie had just woken up with a woman in his arms for the first time in his life.

Oh, he'd gone to bed with women, lots of them. But waking up with them? That was much too intimate. Alec had always been careful not to form any close bonds with the women he dated. And yet here he was, spooning with Daisy as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Spooning.
He'd never even said that
word
before, not even to himself.

This was not good, he thought, forcing himself not to jump away from her. Next thing he knew, he'd be telling her all about his pitiful, lonely childhood and crying in her arms like men did in those silly romantic chick flicks.

Daisy was dangerous. He didn't know what it was about her, but she's was definitely messing with his mind. Never before had a woman occupied his thoughts this way, never had a woman made his body react just from thinking about her, never had a woman captivated him so completely that he loathed every minute he couldn't be with her.

Yes, she was dangerous. Dangerous to his peace of mind, dangerous to his freedom and dangerous to the carefully constructed rules of the game by which he played. Because she was the kind of woman who dreamed of—and, apparently, could even make someone like him think of—the dreaded triad of love and marriage and children.

And that made him want to jump in a helicopter, go home and plunge himself back into his familiar life, because one thing he was sure of was that he was never going to get married. The disastrous sham of a union that his parents had dragged him through was enough for him to swear it off, but he also had some pretty impressive national statistics on his side. The failure of one in two marriages spelled
don't bother
to Alec.

But he and Daisy were never going to get that far. She
would realize that he was a terminal bachelor and that he was never going to change and she'd leave him. He knew she was capable of it—hell, she'd bailed on him once already when she'd quit without warning. And while the short-lived nature of his relationships didn't normally bother him, something told him that this time he wouldn't be taking it in stride.

Warm and silky, Daisy murmured something and laughed softly in her sleep, then wiggled her butt up against the danger zone and his temperature spiked to critical levels. What he wanted to do was wake her and continue what they'd started last night. She was sweet and lush and just so damned tempting, but he resisted, dropped a kiss onto her velvety shoulder and eased away from her.

As he pulled on a pair of jeans, he noticed a beam of sunlight streaking across the floor from window to bed, reminding him that last night's storm was over. Now all he had to do, he thought as he crept out of the room, was deal with the storm that raged inside him.

Daisy's cat joined him in the hallway and raced him to the kitchenette, then meowed insistently as it wound its furry body around Alec's ankles.

“What?” he asked the cat in a voice that clearly said, “Get the hell away from me, furball.”

But the cat merely looked up at him with its big, round, sincere cat eyes and blinked.

Sighing, Alec opened a can of food for the little pest and the cat thanked him by turning its back on him and attacking its breakfast with gusto. Alec snorted in disgust. Why did women love their cats so much? he wondered. Now, dogs on the other hand…dogs were more like people. Cats were always acting like they knew a secret or something. It was annoying.

Alec opened the cabinets and stared blindly at the contents, lost in thoughts of Daisy. He thought about how their bodies fit together perfectly, how she sounded when she came apart in his hands, how she'd wanted him to be the first one for her. And then he thought about how knowing all that was going to make it so much harder to end this thing.

Because no matter how tempting, sexy, smart, sweet, fun…anyway, it didn't matter. This would end. It always did. Alec didn't do forever and it was better to lay his cards on the table right now. Because this time he had a horrible feeling that he had something to lose.

He sighed and leaned on the cabinet door while the cat licked its paws rapturously. At least he could make Daisy breakfast. And maybe, just maybe, if he didn't char the toast to a cinder and made her a decent cup of joe, she might not kill him for what he was about to tell her.

 

Something was burning.

Daisy sat up in bed—not her own bed, she remembered as she saw Alec's clothes hanging in the closet—and was just about to throw her legs over the side to go investigate when she heard him coming down the hallway.

She clutched the sheet to her naked body.
Damn.
She'd never done a morning after. Did he regret what they'd done? And speaking of that, did she? She checked in with herself quickly and realized that no, she absolutely didn't. So, acting on instinct, she fell back against the pillows and buried herself in the covers and willed her heart to slow down so she could feign sleep.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear,
she thought as she heard him come into the room and bang into the dresser.

“Damn,” he whispered fiercely, and she popped one eye open to see him with a tray in one hand, the toe he'd just mangled in the other. Naked from the waist up, he looked like a hunky slice of heaven. Yummy, she thought, and then the whole night flooded back, from the first kiss to the hot, spiraling climax she'd had in the wee hours as the moonlight had sifted through the shutters.

As if he could hear her thoughts, Alec looked over at her and she slammed her eye shut and resumed playing possum.

“Daze,” he called quietly, and the mattress tipped to one side under his weight when he sat down. “Daisy, wake up.”

Her heart flip-flopped hard in her chest. She cracked her eye open again and saw him sitting there, carrying the tray that held two coffee cups and a plate with some blackened toast.

“Morning,” he said, smiling.

She faked a stretch and smiled back. “Morning.” He looked so good it almost hurt.

He held the tray aloft. “Here it is. Everything I know how to cook.”

She sat up, carefully tucking the sheet under her arms to cover herself. “Looks—” she eyeballed the black toast “—interesting.”

He set the tray down on the comforter and with a brief, appreciative glance at her sheet-clad breasts, he handed her a cup of coffee. “I think I did the coffee right.”

She sipped…and by sheer will alone managed not to choke. And not just because it was the worst coffee she'd ever tasted—although it was—but because somehow the man who was so clueless he didn't even know she'd been in love with him for the past year knew that she took her coffee black with two sugars.

In that moment, her crush-turned-love deepened impossibly further. She wanted to cry.

“Delicious,” she said with a watery smile.

He narrowed his eyes in suspicion, took a drink from his own cup and grimaced. “Liar.”

And just like that, the spell was broken. She laughed. “It was the thought,” she said.

He smiled as he took the cup from her and set the tray and its contents aside. But then his demeanor grew more serious.

“What?” she asked after a long moment had passed.

He looked deeply into her eyes, as if he was memorizing her for a test. “I have a question for you,” he said.

Her imagination kick-started and took off at a hundred miles an hour. Last night was a mistake. Not disclosing her virgin status had been a bad idea. She was fired. Worse, he still wanted her to stay after this job was done. “Uh, okay,” she said, twisting her hands in her lap.

“What happened to your glasses?”

“What?” she asked, incredulous. “Why?”

“You used to wear them all the time.”

“We-ell,” she stalled. “I really only need them for reading.”

He reached out and dragged a thumb across her cheek. “I like you better without them.”

“Thank you,” she said, suddenly shy. Then she laughed out loud.

He raised an eyebrow in question. “What?”

“I thought you were going to tell me that last night was a mistake.”

The serious look on his face grew more serious.

“Oh,” she said and her smile died. “I guess you were getting around to that.”

He shook his head but she knew he was lying. “It wasn't a mistake,” he said. An inscrutable smile lit his features for a moment before he went on. “It was amazing. Wheels-off, howl-at-the-moon, amazing.” Then he shook his head again. “But you know me, the kind of guy I am. That's not going to change, Daisy.”