Taming Tall, Dark Brandon

Yes! Andrea thought, her lashes drifting down.

Their bodies were inches apart, not touching, yet the heat of rising passion wove around and through them, as though they were one entity.

The kiss went on and on, and desires soared.

What in the hell are you doing? a voice thundered in Brandon’s head.

He was allowing his damnable male ego to run roughshod over common sense and decorum.

For Pete’s sake, man, get a grip.

Brandon broke the kiss, took a ragged breath, and dropped his hands from Andrea’s face. Without speaking, he turned and strode from the room, closing the door behind him with more force than was necessary.

Andrea blinked, placed one hand on her racing heart, then rested the fingertips of her other hand on her tingling lips.

Never in her entire life had she experienced a kiss like the one she’d just shared with Brandon.

That kiss had stolen the very breath from her depleted body.

That kiss had created vivid images in her mind of clothes being torn away so that there was no barrier between her and Brandon.

That kiss had been the prelude to slow, exquisite lovemaking with Brandon that would have been ecstasy in its purest form.

That kiss never should have taken place.

“The nerve of that arrogant man,” she said, narrowing her gaze. “How dare he just march across the room and kiss me senseless? Just who in the blue blazes does he think he is?”

In the next instant she sighed, her shoulders slumping as fatigue swept over her.

She could rant and rave from here to Sunday, she thought dismally, but it wouldn’t erase the fact that she had been a very willing partner in that kiss. She’d savored every sensuous, heart-stopping second of it, and had not wanted it to end.

She had never behaved so recklessly, so... so wantonly.

“I’m not myself,” she said, pressing one hand to her forehead.

She didn’t care how angry her theories had made Brandon. They were sound and true. Her state of exhaustion was causing her to act and react out of character.

She would dismiss from her mind what had taken place in that room with Brandon. When she saw him again in the hotel, she’d be pleasant but cool, nod a greeting, and keep moving. She would not engage in further conversation with Mr. Hamilton, and she certainly would never be alone with him again.

The rest she desperately needed would restore her to normal, she told herself. The two-week sentence she was facing in this freezing cold little town would pass quickly, then she’d get into her ridiculous red sports car and whiz back down the mountain to Phoenix, where she belonged.

With a decisive nod, Andrea retrieved her suitcase, opened it and removed dry clothing. When she entered the bathroom, she gasped as she saw her reflection in the mirror above the sink.

“Oh, good night,” she said with a burst of laughter.

She looked like a drenched kitten. Her hair was sticking up in places and was plastered to her head in others. The circles beneath her eyes were darker than ever, making her appear ghostly. Her suit and blouse were wrinkled and soggy.

“Why on earth,” she said, leaning closer to the mirror, “would a man like Brandon Hamilton want to kiss you?”

Andrea straightened and then frowned, aware of a funny chill tiptoeing around her heart.

Brandon hadn’t wanted to kiss her, she thought. He would have kissed anyone who had insulted his masculine ego the way she had. The kiss had been a product of his anger, not his desire for her.

That made sense.

Then why, if that was so all-fired reasonable, was she registering feelings of disappointment and rejection ?

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, unbuttoning her suit jacket. “And I don’t care. Just forget it.”

Please, Andrea, she thought, dropping the sodden jacket to the floor, just forget it. For your own good.

Three

When Brandon left Andrea’s room, he glanced longingly at his apartment door at the end of the hallway, then shook his head and went to the elevator. He hesitated, his finger poised at the button.

He’d walk down the five flights of stairs, he decided, in lieu of taking some much-needed private time in his apartment. It wouldn’t be fair to Jennifer to leave her stranded at the front desk when she had things to tend to in the dining room.

Brandon started down the wide, carpeted stairway, each step thudding in an angry cadence directed at himself.

He should be shot at dawn, he mentally fumed. Strung up by the thumbs. Tarred and feathered. Run out of town on a rail.

Where was his brain? His sense of right and wrong? He was the proprietor of a hotel, who had blatantly kissed one of the guests without her permission. Cripe, he was probably staring at a lawsuit that would wipe him out financially. One kiss and he would now be rendered a moneyless derelict, living on the streets of Prescott.

Brandon stopped on the landing of the third floor and dragged both hands down his face.

Andrea Cunningham had pushed his macho buttons, and he’d behaved like a Neanderthal. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, her dismissal of the fiery attraction between them had ignited his fury. He’d become blindly determined to prove her ridiculous theory wrong.

So, he’d kissed her.

With a shake of his head, Brandon resumed his plodding trek down the stairs.

That kiss, he mused, had been sensational. Desire, hot and heavy and coiling, had exploded within him like a rocket. He’d been consumed by it, and had come very close to losing total control.

Brandon narrowed his eyes.

That reaction, by damn, had been mutual. Andrea had returned the kiss in heated abandon.

What did that mean? Why hadn’t she shoved him away, smacked him right across the face, then hollered the roof down?

Hell, he didn’t know what had gone on in Andrea’s mind when he’d kissed her, nor what she might be thinking now that she was alone. Women were so complicated, he wouldn’t live long enough to understand any of them.

The question at hand was... now what?

What should he do, say, how should he act, the next time he saw Andrea?

Maybe he should just wait and see, take his cue from her. That seemed like a very good idea, since he was messing up royally when left to his own devices.

“You’re such an idiot, Hamilton,” he muttered as he reached the lobby.