In Too Close

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CANDLELIGHT FLICKERED IN Elizabeth Anders’s office, reflecting off the lacquer finish on her Louis Sue Parisian art-deco desk. The stone floor was cold under her feet and she glanced down to see that she’d inadvertently slipped off her Jimmy Choo shoes. Suddenly a shiver raced down her spine. She felt as if someone else was in the room but couldn’t see anyone. There was no sense of menace...more a heightened anticipation. She knew the person in the shadows.

Bradley Hunt.

Her best friend, the man she kept at arm’s length but secretly lusted after. She held him at bay because her goals were too important to get tangled up in sex. And he was a playboy, someone who worked hard but played even harder. Not the kind of man she could ever be interested in, but...

He liked to play at being relaxed and easygoing and he wore his thick brown hair collar length like a corporate raider and always had a day’s worth of stubble on his jaw. He seemed casual but he was just as intense as she was when it came to business. The main difference was that she worked for an exclusive luxury hotel chain and he worked for himself.

He revealed himself and her breath caught as her eyes moved over his rippling muscles and lean six-pack abs. He arched one arrogant dark brown eyebrow at her as he flexed his pectorals. Then he strode toward her.

She groaned as a wave of pleasure swept through her and she knew that no matter how much she might say they were just friends she craved more. She’d wanted him from their first meeting at his frat house when he’d been shirtless on that warm, sunny day and had offered to help her move into her dorm.

Now, as his arms wrapped around her and he drew her closer into his embrace, all those old feelings came flooding back. His mouth was hot, his tongue talented as he used his kisses to melt away the last of her resistance. She knew better than to give in to passion, but for once she wanted to forget all of that and experience everything he had to offer.

Bradley’s hazel eyes were half closed and a dark flush spread across his cheeks as his lips continued their slow, sensual descent. His breath was warm and each exhalation brushed against her neck as he nibbled at the length of it. Shivers of delight pulsed through her and she squirmed, trying to get nearer to him, but he refused to let her close the gap. Only the heat of their bodies touched and, of course, his mouth on her skin.

His hands hovered just over her chest. Their eyes met as she glanced up to see why he wasn’t caressing her. His gaze on her body was intense as he slowly traced just one finger over the exposed flesh.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice deep and husky. It was a tone she’d only heard from him one time before.

The last thing she wanted to do at this moment was debate the wisdom of this. She took his hand and guided it to her breast. He moaned her name on a long, guttural sigh as his hand encompassed her entire breast and squeezed it gently. “Lift your shirt,” he said, the command in his voice mirrored in the intensity of his stare.

His hands were already there. First, just that sensuous rubbing over the globes of her breasts, and then cupping them as his fingers moved in ever-narrowing circles while he touched then tweaked her nipples. She squirmed and shivered as she felt a pulse of heat between her legs.

She parted them and leaned back as his hand drifted down to her stomach and then settled on top of her feminine mound.

Bzzz! Bzzz!

Elizabeth jerked awake and sat up to find her own hand between her legs and her cell phone vibrating on the nightstand. She sighed. Of course she’d have a hot sex dream about Bradley Hunt. It made sense. One kiss five years ago had ignited a flame inside of her that had never been extinguished.

She glanced over at the phone and saw Bradley’s smiling face on the screen. It was a selfie he’d sent to her. The man had an ego as large as the Wasatch Range that surrounded Park City.

Groaning, she reached for the phone. At first she’d thought she conjured him up with her erotic dream, but then cold, hard reality hit her. She’d left a message for him earlier so he was simply calling her back. “Do you know what time it is?” she asked by way of greeting. The clock said 2:00 a.m. Her pulse was still racing. She wanted to be calm and collected but so wasn’t. Something about Bradley always got her riled up.

“Sorry, I’m in London. I can’t ever remember the difference between GMT and Mountain time.”

“Seven hours, lame-o,” she said. “You run a multimillion-dollar sport outfitter and travel all over the world opening retail stores and yet can’t tell time.... How do you do it?”

“I can tell time, Lizzie, just not time zones. Anyway, I wanted to be the first to congratulate you on your promotion, and I knew our friends would wait until the hour was decent.”

“But not my bad-boy best friend,” she said, trying not to sigh. A part of her had hoped he’d called because he remembered their friends-with-benefits pact, but clearly that wasn’t the case.

“I like being first,” he replied.

That wasn’t news to her. When they’d first met, he turned getting good grades into a competition and she’d risen to the challenge. She hated to lose. Had to bite her lip and smile politely when she did, and in Bradley she’d found a fellow competitor who always wanted to win. If things had been different... She thought of her torrid dream and the one scorching kiss they’d shared five years ago.

“Did you fall back to sleep?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.

“No, of course not,” she said.

“Then, what’s up, Lizzie?”

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Lizzie?” She was stalling for time. How was she going to bring up something that had been said so long ago? Something he’d more than likely forgotten but that she’d kept tucked away in the back of her mind as a kind of insurance policy.

“An infinite number, but I like it,” he said. “Lizzie suits you.”

“My boss wouldn’t agree,” she retorted.

Lars Usten, former Olympian and owner of the very exclusive Lars Usten Lodge and Spa luxury hotel chain, never called her anything but Elizabeth.

“He doesn’t know the real woman.”