Her Impossible Boss (8 page)

But before she could climax right there, Matt heaved himself up.

‘I need,’ he muttered shakily, ‘to get some contraception.’

‘Please,’ Tess whimpered, digging her fingers into his shoulder, because he just couldn’t leave her
now
to start fumbling for a condom. Her periods had always been as regular as clockwork. She was as safe as houses and she needed him inside her
right now.
Her body was screaming out for it.

‘I’m safe,’ she gasped.

Matt needed no further encouragement. He really wasn’t sure whether he had any contraception on him anyway. He was ultra-careful, always made sure to carry his own protection, but his sex-life with Vicky had been sporadic, and she had, anyway, been on the pill. He was uneasily aware that even if he hadn’t had any, if she
hadn’t given him the green light, he might just have chanced it—because his body was on fire and the only way he could douse it was by taking her. He had never been so out of control in his entire life. For someone who had imposed stringent discipline in all areas of his life, because there was no such thing as a happy surprise, it was weirdly exhilarating to be suddenly and temporarily freed from the shackles.

He thrust into her with an intensity that made her wince and cry out in pain. Confused, Matt eased himself back. He was big. He knew that. And she felt tight—so tight that he might almost think.

‘Are you a
virgin?’
he asked with dumbstruck incredulity, and Tess turned her head away.

After the initial discomfort the pain was receding fast, being replaced by a driving, burning need to feel him push into her again.

‘Just carry on, Matt…please…I need you.’

‘Look at me,’ he growled. ‘I’ll be gentle…’ His eyes held hers as he moved slowly and surely, building into a rhythm that took her breath away. However much he had teased her and touched her, in unimaginable places, to have him inside her was the greatest intimacy of all. Tess wrapped her arms around his waist and her body bucked as he moved faster and deeper. She felt his physical release just as her own body spiralled out of control, causing her to cry out and dig her fingernails into his back. His spasms as he ejaculated into her were the most wonderful things she had ever experienced.

She loved this man, and she had to resist the urge to tell him. She held that warm knowledge to herself, and there was a smile of pleasure and fulfilment on her lips
when she finally shuddered one last time and then lay, spent.

Matt rolled off her and propped himself on his side to look at her.

‘So…tell me about that…’

‘Tell you about what?’ Tess murmured sleepily. ‘That was amazing. Was it…’ She looked at him, suddenly anxious. ‘Was it okay for you?’

‘It was…pretty amazing. I was your first.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise.’ He smiled and stroked the side of her face. A
virgin.
A twenty-three-year-old virgin. He hadn’t known they existed. ‘I liked it. Why me?’

Tess drew her breath in sharply. ‘I guess,’ she said, reaching to hook her hand around his neck and nuzzle the dewy moisture there with her lips, ‘you just really turn me on. I don’t understand it, because you’re not the type of guy I ever imagined myself going for, but when I’m near you I just seem to fall apart.’

‘You might have guessed that it’s the same with me,’ Matt confessed a little unsteadily. He could feel his body confirming that admission, hardening again in record time. ‘I should have been able to restrain myself,

but…’

Tess felt him stir against her naked thigh and a heady sense of power filled her. But nudging its way through to her fuddled brain were snatches of uneasy recollection of how, exactly, they had ended up in bed together. He had come to talk about Samantha. Had he been drinking? He certainly hadn’t been as composed as he usually was. It had been the first time she had seen him with all his barriers down, and his unexpected vulnerability
combined with her fledging acknowledgement of how she felt about him had been an intoxicating mix. From being the girl who had stayed on the sidelines as her friends had all fallen into bed with guys they’d later avoided, or succumbed to languishing by telephones waiting for calls, she had gone to being a girl who had flung herself at a man because she just hadn’t been able
not
to.

‘Why should you have been able to restrain yourself?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Did I take advantage of you?’

Matt shot her a gleaming look of surprise. ‘When you say things like that I feel about a hundred years old.’ He laughed softly. ‘Don’t worry. I’m wonderfully adept when it comes to women cruelly trying to take advantage of me. I find it pays to just relax and go along for the ride.’

‘You’re teasing me.’

‘I’m enjoying your lack of cynicism. When I came here, I was at the end of my tether. You relax me, and I like that.’

Tess wasn’t sure if that was strictly accurate. It could be said that simply lovemaking had relaxed him. But she wasn’t going to analyse the finer points of his remark. She was going to take it at face value because she had never felt so wonderfully, gloriously
complete
in her whole life.

She guided his hand to her breast, and he grinned wickedly and pushed her back against the bed, slung his thigh over hers. She felt the weight of it with a feeling of bliss.

‘You’re a fast learner.’ His voice was thick with satisfaction.

This time their lovemaking was fast and hard. Matt liked giving pleasure. He knew just where to touch her and how to make her body respond. Shorn of inhibitions, Tess was his willing student. She wanted to be guided. She wanted to give him as much pleasure as he gave her. She was guiltily, horribly aware that she wanted a great deal more than he probably suspected, but for the moment she was greedy enough to take what was on offer.

Their bodies were slick when they were sated. In a minute Matt would have to leave. He would talk to Samantha in the morning. He told her this as she lay against him, her body naturally curving against his as though it had been fashioned just for that purpose. His admission that it would be an uphill task made her smile.

‘Talking’s not that difficult,’ she breathed with drowsy contentment. ‘Communication is the key thing when it comes to all relationships. I know that sounds like a cliché, but I think it happens to be true. Maybe…’ she tested the water ‘…that’s why your relationship with Vicky didn’t work out…’

Matt shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter why my relationship with Vicky didn’t work out.’

Tess thought that it mattered to
her.
He had married the perfect person and it hadn’t worked out. He had gone out with the perfect replacement and that hadn’t worked out. Amongst her tangled thoughts she figured that if only she could pinpoint
why
the perfect exes hadn’t worked out, then maybe—just maybe—she could avoid the mistakes her predecessors had unwittingly made.

She refused to accept that the most wonderful physical and emotional connection she had ever made with another human being was destined to be short-lived.

‘She seemed very nice…’ Tess persisted. ‘And you must have had a lot in common.’

‘Look.’ Matt propped himself up and turned on his side to face her. ‘Drop it, Tess. It’s of no importance. Like I told you, I took my eye off the ball with Vicky. She started getting ideas.’

His face was shuttered. He was locking her out of this conversation.

‘I guess it’s understandable.’ Tess tried to laugh. She was no good when it came to playing underhand games. She would have been hopeless at persuading a confession out of anyone, and it showed in the shaky tremor of her voice when she spoke.

Matt looked at her narrowly. Her upturned face was sweetly, delectably soft and vulnerable, and a prickle of unease curled in him. But the touch of her was so heady, and the feel of her was like a shot of adrenaline to his jaded palate.

In short, she was irresistible. But just in case.

‘Vicky wanted a happy ending,’ he said bluntly. ‘It wasn’t going to happen. I’ve been married once and I lived to rue the day. The only good thing to emerge from that disaster was my daughter. I’m not a candidate for a repeat performance. I’m telling you this because I don’t want
you
to get any ideas.’

‘You mean crazy ideas like Vicky got?’ It was like being sliced in two. The path was forked and she was being given a choice. Follow the road he indicated or
else walk the other way. If she had thought that a fleeting glimpse of his vulnerability indicated hint of softness, then she had been mistaken. The dark, fathomless eyes locked onto hers were deadly serious, and Tess very quickly made her decision.

Take what he was offering. She had fallen in love with him and she couldn’t walk away. When had she ever been able to do anything by halves? She had given herself to him completely, and if it made no sense then that was something she would have to learn to deal with.

‘I guess…well…she’s in her thirties. Maybe she could hear her biological clock ticking away. But not me! At twenty-three, life is still a grand adventure, and I don’t want you to think that I’m going to start demanding anything of you—because I’m not.’

It would be a disaster if he found out what she felt about him. One night of passion and a woman confessing undying love would be his nightmare. He would run a mile and he wouldn’t look back. She would cease being the girl who could make him relax and would turn into a needy, clinging harridan who wanted more out of him than he was willing to give. Having never had much of a head for numbers, Tess could do the maths pretty quickly when it came to
this
particular scenario.

‘In fact, like I said, you’re not the type of man I would ever fall for,’ she confided.

‘I’m not…?’

‘No! I may not be experienced, but I’m not foolish enough to think that lust has anything to do with love.’ ‘You just gave your virginity to me because…?’

‘Because I wanted to. No one’s really ever turned me on like.’

‘Like me?’ Matt interjected smoothly. ‘I believe you. Lust can be powerful. Overwhelming. And maybe you came to New York looking for an adventure. Why else would you be using contraception? You’re young, you’re beautiful. Did you get bored where you lived?’

Tess was still lagging behind, wondering whether she should own up to the fact that she wasn’t actually using any contraception at all but was perfectly safe anyway. Matt’s low, seductive murmur seemed to be coming from a long way away. His clever mind was leapfrogging through what she had said and making its own deductions. She had come to Manhattan seeking adventure. She had been bored and restless. She had taken the necessary precautions not because she was desperate to lose her virginity but because she wanted to be prepared in case the situation arose. Perhaps she had been dazzled at the thought of Manhattan and everything and every
one
it could offer. That would make perfect sense to him. He was a man with a healthy sexual appetite. He would fully understand how, at the age of twenty-three, her virginity might have become an albatross around her neck rather than a treasure to be hugged until the perfect man came along. Hell, there was no such thing as a perfect soul mate anyway!

Tess half listened and made vague appropriate noises. For a man with a brilliant mind he seemed very good at arriving at all the wrong conclusions, but she knew that he had to. He had to make sense of her and slot her into a category that didn’t threaten the pattern of his orderly life because he wanted her. He wasn’t at all surprised
that she had chosen to lose her virginity with
him.
He was supremely confident of his own sexual magnetism. His misguided conclusions and freewheeling assumptions even made sense in a weird, convoluted way.

She wasn’t sure she recognised herself as this woman who knew what she wanted, was in search of sexual adventure, and had the good sense to go on the pill, throwing caution to the winds so that she could have a no-strings-attached relationship with him.

It would have been so much easier if she
had
been that person, she thought ruefully. Instead, here she was—not too sure what she was doing or what she had got herself mixed up in.

‘So on Monday…’ He kissed her with such leisurely, thorough expertise that she forgot how precarious her life had suddenly become. ‘I’ll make sure that I’m back by six. We’ll take Samantha out for a meal somewhere. I’m hoping conversation might be back on the agenda with her. And afterwards…’

Tess felt the thrill of excitement. It flooded her veins like a toxin. It closed her mind to any question that she might be doing the wrong thing.

T
ESS
stared in the mirror at the woman she had become in the space of four glorious weeks. The changes were slight, but
she
had no difficulty in noticing them. Matt Strickland had turned her into a woman. In a series of barely recognisable stages she had grown up. She dressed differently now. The trainers had been replaced with flats. The vests were a little less clinging.

‘I don’t want other men looking at you,’ he had told her, with a possessiveness that had thrilled her to the bone. ‘Is that a crime? When you wear those tight vests men look, and when they look I want to kill them. And don’t even
think
of going anywhere without a bra. That is a sight to be afforded only to me.’

The vests had been replaced with looser silk tops that made her look sophisticated and glamorous, and she liked her new image. He claimed not to have an ounce of jealousy in his body, but when she had idly watched a man walk past a week ago, her mind a thousand miles away, he had tilted her face to his and told her, with a forced laugh, that he wanted her to only have eyes for him.

Tess stored and treasured all those passing moments. They had to mean
something!
He made no effort to
conceal the fact that he wanted her. Sometimes, with Samantha between them as they ate dinner, she would glance up and find his eyes on her, and she would see naked hunger there. Her breasts might ache just at the sight of him, and she might feel that telltale dampness between her thighs, but she knew that her effect on him was just as powerful. He had told her that business meetings had become a minefield because just the thought of her could give him an instant erection.

Tess loved hearing things like that, because they seemed to indicate that something would come of their relationship—although she was smart enough never to let any mention of that leave her lips.

She had also made sure not to breathe a word to Claire. Nor had she mentioned it to her parents or any of her friends, whose lives seemed so distant now anyway.

At first she had worried that keeping it secret might be difficult. Claire had always been able to read her like a book, and she would have been able to chivvy it out of her without any trouble at all if she had smelled a rat, but in all events it had been much easier than expected. Tom had proposed, and Claire was residing in a parallel universe. She spent most of her time at his place, and disappeared on weekends to his parents’ house in Boston, where a wedding planner was feverishly working to produce a magical wedding in six months’ time. Even her parents skirted over what was happening in her life because they, too, were wrapped up in their contribution to the Big Day.

Menus were discussed and seating plans were debated and bridal magazines were pored over until Tess
wanted to scream—because where was
she
going with her clandestine relationship with Matt?

Time was moving on. Her ticket to return to Ireland was booked for the beginning of September. But she could easily alter that. Her parents had lived for years in America before they’d moved back to Ireland. All three children had been born in America. Tess had dual nationality and she could have produced that, like a rabbit from a hat, at any given moment in time—but that moment had not arrived. Matt didn’t talk about the future and nor did she.

But she would
have
to talk about it. She had spent weeks ducking below the radar and enjoying each day as it came. She could hardly believe that once she had been a girl who
had
lived her life like that, content never to dip her toes in the water.

Hence she was dressing with particular care tonight. Samantha was with her grandparents in the Hamptons for the weekend, and she and Matt would have the apartment all to themselves. It would be the perfect opportunity to discuss this
thing
they had, which had no name. She would use all the feminine wiles at her disposal. Wasn’t all fair in love and war?

Her dress was a wonderful long affair in shimmering pale yellow. It fell softly to the ground and left her brown shoulders bare. Her shoes were delicate sandals with yellow straps.

The drive over gave her twenty-five minutes to plan what she was going to say and when. Just thinking about it made her nervous. She wondered whether he was still as allergic to commitment as he had once said he was, then told herself that that wasn’t the most important
thing, because she could stay on in Manhattan with him, looking after Samantha. She wouldn’t actually be demanding anything. The words
a stay of execution
uncomfortably sprang to mind, but as quickly as they had taken shape they were dismissed, because she couldn’t afford to let herself start being pessimistic.

Scrape the surface, though, and she was a bag of nerves by the time they reached his block of apartments and the elevator was silently transporting her to the top floor.

Matt had had a key to his penthouse cut for her, and occasionally she used it, but it had never felt right. She had been given a key to facilitate her job as Samantha’s nanny. She wanted a key because Matt saw her as the other half of a couple and trusted her enough to come and go as she pleased. So now, as always, she rang the doorbell and waited in restless tension, clutching her little handbag in front of her.

When he pulled open the door her heart flipped over, as it always did, and for a few seconds she was completely lost for words.

He never failed to render her speechless. She saw him almost every day, had made love to him countless times, had watched, fascinated, the lithe suppleness and latent power of his naked body, and yet every time she laid eyes on him it was as if she were seeing him for the first time. He took her breath away, and however much he assured her that she had the same devastating effect on him she didn’t believe him. Compared to the women he could have at the click of his fingers, she was just an averagely pretty face.

But she wasn’t going to think like that. Not tonight, when she wanted to think positive.

The long look he gave her thrilled her from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes and she smiled shyly.

‘Do you like it?’ She stepped into his luxurious apartment and gave a little twirl. The dress followed her, as soft and tantalising as a whisper.

He caught his fingers in her hair and pulled her towards him.

‘You look like a goddess,’ he murmured. ‘Some kind of exquisite, ethereal creature.’ His finger was now tracing her bare shoulder and her body reacted with mindless excitement. She could already feel her nipples tightening, and her breasts were heavy and sensitive, in expectation of being touched by him. She felt faint thinking about his mouth circling her nipples and licking them until she could scarcely breathe.

But she pushed him gently away and walked towards the kitchen, from which was wafting a delicious smell.

‘Have you surprised me by cooking?’ she teased, putting some necessary distance between them because she didn’t want the evening to start with them in bed.

‘You know I don’t do that.’ She looked so damned edible standing there, delicate and fragile and breathtakingly pretty—an exotic counterpoint to the hard masculinity of his kitchen. He would have pinned her against the wall and taken her without preamble, but she had dressed to impress and he would savour the anticipation of getting her out of her clothes. ‘My dependable caterers have done justice to some fillet steak and…’ he
came close, close enough for her to breathe him in, and lifted the lid of a saucepan ‘.some kind of sauce.’ He remained where he was, dipped his finger into the sauce and held it to her mouth. ‘Taste it and enlighten me,’ he murmured, already so hot for her that it was beginning to get painful.

He lounged against the counter, his feet loosely crossed at the ankles, and gave her a look of burning satisfaction as the pink tip of her tongue licked the sauce from his upheld finger. Like a cat finishing the last remains of the cream.

‘Brandy and peppercorn, I think. And I don’t see why you
can’t
cook for me now and again.’ She gave a mock sigh of wistfulness. ‘You’re a perfectly good cook. I know. You’ve done lots of wonderful things with Samantha. Remember that risotto?’

‘Correction,’ Matt told her wryly, ‘Samantha has done lots of wonderful things with me. My role is solely to do as I’m told.’

‘Since when do you
ever
do as you’re told?’ She relaxed enough to smile, but tension was still blazing inside her.

‘You can always put that to the test.’ He leant against the counter, hemming her in. ‘Command me, my beautiful little witch,’ he breathed into her ear, before nibbling the side of her neck and sending a flurry of piercing, pleasurable sensations rippling through her. ‘Would you like me to get down on my knees and push that sexy dress up so that I can drive you wild with my mouth? Hmm? Or we can always go for something a little more kinky…. It would appear that dessert comes with custard.’

‘Stop it!’ Tess laughed, hot and flustered, and feebly pushed him away—but he had set up a very evocative image in her head that she was finding difficult to dispel. ‘We’re not going to do any such thing.’

‘Sure? Because I saw a flash of temptation in your eyes just then…Now, let me just see how much you dislike the idea…’ To hell with not moving too fast and giving the dress time to have its moment of glory. Still supporting himself with one hand flat against the edge of the granite counter, he reached down and inched the silky fabric upwards. His eyes didn’t leave her face.

‘You have no self-control, Matt Strickland,’ Tess protested weakly.

‘Tell me about it. And what about you? I’d say we’re even on that score.’ He felt the softness of her thighs. The cloth was bunched around his hand and he shrugged it away as he dipped his fingers beneath the lacy band of her thong and slipped them into her.

Tess melted. Her eyelids fluttered shut. This wasn’t playing fair! She blindly searched for his mouth with hers, but after just a fleeting kiss he pulled back and whispered, in a sexy, velvety voice, ‘No chance. I want to see your face when you come.’

‘Okay. You win,’ she groaned jerkily. ‘But let’s go to the bedroom…make love…ah…’ She couldn’t finish the sentence. Her body was moving of its own accord. Her head was flung back and her eyes were shut as his fingers continued to plunder her, moving fast and hard, then slowly and gently, teasing every ounce of sensation out of a body that felt as limp as a rag doll.

Colour climbed into her cheeks and her breathing became laboured, and then she was falling over the edge,
shuddering with the power of her orgasm and crying out, at which point Matt brought his mouth against her so that he could breathe in the wildness of her groaning.

‘That,’ he murmured when she had climbed down from the mindless heights of pleasure, ‘is an excellent way to start any evening.’

Under normal circumstances Tess would have been in enthusiastic agreement with that statement. Matt knew just how to excite her in unimaginable ways. But tonight she had another purpose, and as soon as she had smoothed down her dress she was back to feeling as nervous as a kitten.

Without looking for ways to be critical, she realised that he was utterly oblivious to her mood—but then thoughts of her leaving would probably not have crossed his mind. For weeks Tess had nurtured the hope that what they had would leave him wanting more. They shared a lot together. He might be ruthless and driven in the work place, but with her he had been tender and thoughtful, and with Samantha he had shown boundless patience and a resilient ability to take the knocks and somehow find a way of turning them around. Would he be able to give her up without a backward glance? She had subconsciously chosen to think that he wouldn’t, but now, as he whistled softly and made a great show of doing things with the pots and pans, she wasn’t sure.

If he was that tuned in to her feelings then surely he would have picked up on the fact that she was more subdued than usual?

Now he was chatting to her about work. He sometimes did that, even though he had once commented wryly that
he really didn’t know why he bothered, because the second he started he could see her eyes glazing over.

She accepted the drink that was proffered and settled on one of the leather dining chairs at the kitchen table. He was fairly useless in the kitchen. A tea towel was slung over one shoulder and every cooking utensil seemed to be out, even though he was really just heating up a variety of dishes. In between stirring things and peering under lids he chatted and sipped his wine, occasionally glancing round at her, and even in the midst of her anxious thoughts she still warmed at the hot possessiveness in his eyes.

‘But do you miss it?’ Tess asked abruptly, as a plate of food was placed in front of her with exaggerated flourish. ‘The long hours, I mean? For weeks you’ve managed to be pretty sensible about getting back here in time, to see something of Samantha, so do you miss the work you would have been putting in otherwise at the office?’

In the middle of topping up their glasses, Matt paused and looked at her. Something uneasy stirred in him, but he quickly put that to rest by telling himself that nothing was amiss. She might be a little quieter than she normally was, but she had melted at his touch the way she always did. He never seemed to tire of her helpless excitement whenever he touched her. It turned him on in ways that he no longer bothered to question.

‘That’s a strange question. I work for several hours after Samantha has gone to sleep. It’s satisfactory.’

‘So…does that mean that you’ve restructured your life?’

‘Where are we going with this conversation?’ Matt
tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. He had become accustomed to her undemanding nature. It suited him. She was always happy to fall in with whatever he wanted, and over the weeks he had discovered that her lack of complication suited him in ways nothing else seemed to have suited him in the past, but there was something insistent about her at the moment that seriously threatened to ruin the atmosphere.

‘It doesn’t have to go anywhere,’ Tess told him, picking at her fillet steak. Her appetite was fading fast. ‘I’m just asking.’