Forbidden Pleasure

If she hadn’t spent the last three years working with him, day in and day out, she might have missed the tick in his jaw, the subtle darkening of his eyes.

“You’ve never not worked for me before,” he countered, raising the glass to his lips.

Heat flared in her belly, incinerating the oxygen and making it hard to breathe. Her skin buzzed at the change in the atmosphere.

She fortified herself with another sip of the amber liquid that was as heady and intoxicating as the look in his eyes. Warmth tingled through her.

“And that...changes things?” she asked, testing the waters.

Max tossed back the rest of his drink and set the heavy crystal on his desk with undue precision. She felt him breathe, as though he’d stolen all the air from around her for a moment, before it came back in a rush.

“Change is inevitable.”

The urge to give into the pull of him, the magnetism, was overwhelming.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Emma stepped closer, raised up on her tiptoes, leveraging every inch from the platforms of her discount Louboutins.

Their breath mingled as she brushed her lips softly against his.

The sweet shock of what she’d done made her knees weak, and she steadied herself with her right palm against his chest. The hard muscle leaped beneath her fingers, like he was bracing himself for whatever came next. Emboldened by his reaction and warmed by the afterburn of the best Scotch the world had to offer, Emma leaned closer and pressed her mouth to his again, lingering this time to sample the delicious heat flickering between them.

She kept her eyes closed as she settled back into her black heels, cementing the feel of his lips beneath hers, the tingle of contact racing through her veins, even as she pulled her hand back from his chest. When she opened her eyes, he was staring down at her, controlled and handsome as ever, his face devoid of any particular expression. The way he looked at the negotiation table.

She let herself smile anyway. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. You’re right. Taking what you want is incredibly...satisfying.”

He stepped even closer, and Emma’s head swam from his proximity as she lifted her chin to maintain eye contact.

“Are you?” The question, delivered without emotion, caught her off guard.

“Am I what?”

“Are you satisfied? Because I’m not.”

She didn’t even realize that she was still holding the highball glass in her left hand until he tugged it from her numb fingers and set it on the edge of his desk. The muted thud barely registered on her consciousness as something wicked sparked in the amber gaze that held her rapt. “What’s happening right now has always been...”

She didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, didn’t move.

Time slipped by to the heavy thud of her pulse and her mind spun, desperate to fill in the blank.

Inappropriate?

Illogical?

Insane?

Max slid his hands in his pockets, the outward picture of relaxed male elegance, but when he spoke, his tone was low and rough.

“Inevitable.”

CHAPTER TWO (#u84ef1b0d-cb49-5b60-b1f8-1d009b75c186)

INEVITABLE.

The word reverberated through her entire body, confirmation that Max wanted her.

She wanted him, too. All of him. All of this.

He was standing there, his eyes lit with challenge, hers for the taking. And all she had to do was reach out.

With trembling fingers, Emma grasped his tie, tugging until she’d released the silk from its Windsor knot. For the first time since this had started, she broke eye contact, dropping her gaze to the tanned column of his throat as she unfastened the first button.

Her fingers grew defter as she worked her way down the placket of his shirt, eyes hungrily following the swath of skin left in the wake of the gaping fabric—his collarbones, the smattering of dark hair across his broad chest, the ridged perfection of his abs and the intriguing trail of hair that narrowed before it disappeared behind the square buckle of his black belt.

She tugged his shirttails free from the waistband of his pants, then dropped her hands to her sides, beholding the perfection of him. Of the moment. This was it, she realized. Her first memory. And she didn’t want to forget a single detail.

Max pulled his right hand from his pocket and reached toward her. With a deftness that she found intensely erotic, he traced his finger along her skin, from her exposed collarbone down to her cleavage, the light touch singing her nerve endings.

Her whole world narrowed to the sweet friction of skin on skin and her breasts swelled against the confines of the black lace cups of her bra. She gasped at the instantaneous reaction and something wicked kindled in her belly as he began a methodical assault on her buttons, popping them open one by one until he’d reached the waistband of her skirt. He regarded his handiwork for a moment, the thin band of skin revealed by her open shirt, before unpocketing his other hand. Her breath caught in her chest as he grabbed the edges of her blouse, spreading them apart so she was exposed from neck to navel.

Max grasped her hips, then pulled her to him. The air temperature spiked from tropical to volcanic as her breasts made contact with his chest, heat rolling off him in waves. Sodamnhot. Her nipples puckered painfully against the scratchy black lace, and she sucked air into her lungs on a gasp. He smelled like sex and man and hard liquor, and the heady combination had her halfway to wherever he wanted to take her.

As if he could sense it, Max’s fingers flexed against her hips before his big hands traced the side seams of her skirt. His leisurely exploration made her restless, antsy, but before she could do something about it, Max fisted the material and began the trip back up her thighs, bringing her skirt along for the ride, higher, higher, and Emma thought she might die from the slow, sweet torture of anticipation.

Cool air swirled around her legs, wringing a moan from her. Oh God, just a little more.

It took a second before she realized his hands had stopped moving, that he’d taken a step back. Her eyes fluttered open and she was startled by the hungry look on his face. Emma followed his gaze, realizing he’d revealed the black garter belt that held up her nude stockings.

His face was dark and his voice was rough. “You’re full of surprises tonight, Ms. Mathison.”

She swayed toward him as heat pooled between her legs. He always called her Emma, but this fit the fantasy that was playing out right now, and it was so perfect, so deliciously naughty, that she thought she might come.

“Yes, sir.”

His head jerked up at that, eyes flaring with an emotion that Emma couldn’t identify, but whatever it was, it was the first time she’d ever seen him lose that steely edge of control that was part of his legend. The jolt of it was like a lightning bolt to her core.

Whatever silly game they’d been playing was over.

In one fluid motion, he hiked her skirt up over her hips, then backed her up against his desk. The hard edge of it dug into her thighs.

Emma’s teeth scored her bottom lip in anticipation, and his deep chuckle ignited something warm and twisty in her gut. “Not yet,” he told her, but the promise of soon echoed in the timber of his voice. She sucked in a breath as his fingers traced the black elastic of her garters down to the clasp.

“These are so fucking sexy.”

He was pretty fucking sexy himself, she decided as he traced the lacy edge of her stockings from front to back before his big hands gripped her thighs and boosted her onto the smooth onyx surface. It was cool against her bare skin, but her shiver had more to do with the man in front of her filling up the space between her parted knees.

She’d always known Max Whitfield was a force to be reckoned with when he had a goal within his sights, but now that she was the goal, the true depth of his focus was staggering. When he looked at her, the world narrowed to the heat in his eyes and the pounding of her pulse.

He leaned close, planting a hand on the desk on either side of her hips. Eagerness fizzed in her chest and time slowed as he wet his lips. She braced herself for impact, but it was futile. There was no preparing for Max.