The loud tooting of a horn plus some raucous catcalls had Alex wrenching away from her, his breathing ragged as he glowered at the passing car full of teenagers. Her eyes had flown open with the shock of his abandoning her so abruptly, leaving her still panting and flushed with heat.
‘Damn,’ he muttered, running his hands agitatedly through his short fair hair whilst scooping in several deep breaths. Shaking his head, he spun away from her, striding over to stand on the edge of the hill, his legs spread wide, his fists balled by his sides.
Harriet stayed where she was, staring over at him, dazed and more than a little shaken. It wasn’t every day that she ached to have sex with a man within moments of their first kiss. Not that this was just any man, of course. This was Alex, her boss.
After staring down at the valley for several seconds, he whirled back to face her once more, though still keeping his distance.
‘That shouldn’t have happened,’ he ground out. ‘I never meant for that to happen.’
‘No,’ she said. Harriet didn’t imagine for one moment that he had. ‘Why did you do it, then?’
His laugh was very dry. ‘Come now, Harry, don’t play the ingénue with me. You’ve been around. You know how this works. If truth be told, I’ve been wanting to do that since the first day you walked into my office.’
Harriet blinked. ‘What? You mean at my interview?’
‘Yes, at your interview. Even then, I had some misgivings. But I fooled myself into thinking I could keep my hands off. I’ve never been partial to pursuing women who were in love with someone else, no matter how attractive I found them.’ He dragged in a deep breath, then let it out slowly, his expression self-mocking. ‘But fate conspired against me this week. I broke up with Lisa and you broke up with Dwayne. If I hadn’t hugged you, then taken you out for coffee, none of this would ever have happened. I certainly wouldn’t have organised for us to be alone like this.’
The meaning behind his last words took a few seconds to sink into Harriet’s somewhat scattered brain, any flattery she’d been experiencing over his confessed attraction soon obliterated by shock.
‘Are you saying that this so-called business trip was a deliberate ploy on your part to seduce me?’ She’d imagined it might be for a brief moment earlier in the week, before dismissing the idea as ludicrous. ‘You never really needed me to oversee this estate while you’re away, did you?’
Alex shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘No, I didn’t need you to oversee this estate for me while I was away—and, yes, it was just an excuse to get you alone. Though I’m not keen on the word “seduce”.’
‘What else would you call it?’ she threw at him angrily. ‘You know full well I would never want to have an affair with you. You’re my boss!’
‘You didn’t mind my kissing you just now,’ he reminded her with brutal honesty. ‘But all that is beside the point. I saw the folly of my ways in time and changed my mind about trying to seduce you, since you seem to like that word. Perhaps because it stops you from taking any responsibility over what just happened.’
‘You kissed me, Alex. I didn’t do a thing!’
‘Nothing except look so deliciously sexy this morning that I haven’t been able to think of anything else but making love to you all day.’
An already flustered Harriet homed in on his patently false words.
‘You don’t want to make love to me at all,’ she snapped. ‘You want to have sex with me. That’s a totally different scenario.’
‘True,’ he said before walking slowly back towards her. ‘But nothing changes the fact that we can’t go back to the way it was between us, Harry. You want me as much as I want you. Don’t deny it,’ he said, close enough now to reach out and place his large hands on her suddenly trembling shoulders.
Harriet somehow found her tongue, despite it lying thick and dry in her parched mouth. ‘That doesn’t mean I have to do anything about it.’
‘True again. But why deny yourself something which can give you pleasure? And I can give you pleasure, Harry,’ he murmured, his right hand lifting off her shoulder to trace circles around her gasping lips. ‘Lots of pleasure.’
‘I didn’t realise that you could be this wicked,’ she choked out.
‘There’s nothing wicked about sexual pleasure, Harry,’ he said, his bedroom-blue eyes going all smoky with desire. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with our having a sexual relationship, provided we keep it out of the office.’