The CEO's Little Surprise

Above all, when she told him what to do, he’d do it.

“I’m okay. Thanks,” she threw in before he started mimicking her again.

“I’m not okay.” He bent his head to murmur into her ear. “And I like you where you are.”

His breath on her skin and his hard thigh between her legs—hell, his voice alone—ripped through her in a white-hot streak of lust.

Insanity. She needed that nice man, pronto, so she could slake this thirst. A couple of rounds with Mr. Gentle-and-Attentive and she’d be good for another year or so. Gage Branson wouldn’t cause so much as a blip on her sex radar.

“This is supposed to be business only,” she reminded him, but her voice cracked in the middle of the sentence and she doubted he was listening anyway.

“Hold still.”

Eyes on her hair, he reached up and plucked one chopstick from her chignon, tossed it to the wooden slats under their feet and went for the other one as she yelped.

“What are you doing?” she protested as her hair spilled down her back.

“I couldn’t help it.” His own voice broke as he threaded both hands through the strands, winding up the locks around his fingers, a groan rumbling in his chest that vibrated her rib cage. “Your hair. It’s so beautiful. Why do you put it up?”

“It’s professiona—”

His mouth hit hers and stole the rest of her words as he kissed her into stunned silence. Hot and wet, his tongue slid through her lips and pleasured her relentlessly.

Tugs at her hair tilted her head back, and he took her deeper into the sensuous haze. She lost all sense of up or down, all sense period because, oh, yes, Gage was kissing her again and she wanted it.

The emotional tangle? Not on the agenda. If she could separate business from pleasure, she could surely separate pleasure from love. No broken hearts this time. She’d take a lesson from the King of Fun and have some.

Without warning, he pushed her against the wooden post. It wasn’t brick biting into her back. Close enough.

His mouth drifted to her throat as his hands untangled from her hair to cup the back of her head, drawing her against his magic lips. She arched into him, and a moan escaped her throat, echoing in the still night.

All at once, his hands seemed to be everywhere, racing down her sides, at her shoulders. Pushing down the neckline of her dress. Her breasts sprang free of the fabric and he cupped one, bending to draw her taut nipple into his mouth.

She gasped. Exquisite. The pulls of his mouth and tongue buckled her knees but he had her. Yes, he did. He held her firmly in place as he pleasured her with his talented mouth. Shutting her eyes, she let the pleasure fork through her, damp heat gathering at her center until she thought she would burst if he didn’t...

He did. One hand snaked under her dress and found her folds beneath the scrap of underwear. The barrier didn’t exist to him. Clever fingers danced over her burning flesh, inside. Out.

Anyone could walk by. It heightened the pleasure...somehow. She hissed and opened wider, encouraging him to go deeper. Faster. Her breath came quicker as he drove her relentlessly, sucking at her breast, touching her intimately.

And then one final stroke shattered her resistance. She rode wave after wave of release, crying out at the strength and intensity of the pleasure he’d given her. Gage. Smart, funny, tender, amazing Gage. She’d missed him.

That was...not good. Oh, it had been good. But somehow he’d gotten below the surface, past her emotional armor.

When she floated back down from the heavens, he was watching her. He leaned in to set her dress back to rights, hands lingering, touching, pleasuring, and he murmured, “Take me back to your place. I want to do that again properly.”

Again? She shook off the miasma of Gage and stared up at him, stricken with guilt. That beautiful face stared back at her and she longed to fall into him again without reservation, without fear. Without complications. Without agendas.

What was she doing? This wasn’t the time to be playing around with fire, not with her career at stake and her company on the brink of disaster. Not when she wasn’t sure she could actually stay emotionally uninvolved. She couldn’t be vulnerable to him again, couldn’t fathom how she’d pick herself up if he flattened her. Could. Not.

“I...can’t.”

And then her throat closed, forcing her to swallow the rest.

His expression blanked and he stepped back, releasing her. “Okay.”

His tone said it was anything but. He didn’t press her, though, which she was pathetically grateful for. Because if he had, he’d probably have broken down her resistance in about four seconds.