The Passionate Mistake (8 page)

“My babies.
Where I spend almost every waking hour,” he said with a self-deprecating shrug.

“You must be very passionate about your work.”

“Oh, I am. About what we produce within the company, and also the company itself. I don’t need to tell
you
,” his gesture indicated a respectful allusion to her involvement in a family business, “what an immense impact well-run and conscientious companies can have on individuals and upon society too.”

She found her lips curving, charmed at the gallantry of him, who could sit across from a woman dressed as she was, who had approached him as she had, and talk about esoteric things like business ethics rather than sweep her off into a secluded corner to explore the exact depth of the invitation her eyes had offered.

“They can. Yes.” Not that
the improvement of society was a priority for Techdos. Techdos was about take-home profits, about the paycheck involved at the other end of it all. She’d never seen dad look delighted by his work. “You like to make a difference in the world, then.”

Mike
’s eyes sparkled; obviously he was glad of a chance to talk about his – to use his own words – his baby. Her sense of warmth towards him deepening in a way she found peculiar – why should she rate him more highly for wanting to talk to her rather than peel her out of her dress, when getting naked together was her own primary goal? – she drew him out with pleasure that surprised her.

As she did so
she recognized the subtle differences in his attitude. She’d never thought him at all formal of stand-offish in the office. Yet now she saw he had maintained a certain reserve.

For here
and now he set that reserve aside. He spoke to her as an equal, gesturing freely with his hands, leaning his upper body towards her. And under their conversation was that strong thread of awareness, of increasing arousal. She saw it in the way he oriented himself to her, his pupils enlarged behind half-lidded eyes. She watched his gaze fall to her lips as she spoke, saw the telltale way his own fell slightly apart in tune with hers. She felt her heart beat hard and slow, the warmth percolating through her so she was heated and sensitized, the small brush of fabric over her nipples bringing them to hard points thrusting forward. A dull red rose high on his cheekbones, barely visible under the olive of his skin.

No, she had never had more than the faintest hint of that in the office. And even that had been enough to h
ave her flinging herself at him; much to his very straight-laced horror.

Now it was an almost palpable force, filling the space between them so she kept losing her train of thought, dwelling on his graceful hands, imagining how they would feel on her naked skin, what it would be like to undress before him. What
expressions would cross his face then? Would it be the same passion she saw now as he talked about his beloved company? Or could she arouse him more?

She liked to think she could. She wanted to drive him mad with desire. And then satisfy him. Then madden him again. She took small sips from her glass and gave agreeable nods and small comments, a veneer of civilization over the lust.

But she let her eyes tell him. She let them telegraph a different, more primeval message straight to his hindbrain. She rather thought he was receiving. He shifted in his seat, once, and then again, ran a finger under his collar as if feeling the heat and constriction, and when he unbuttoned the top button she almost purred.

But he was a man of some admirable focus. He held together well.

Until she reached out and ran a single fingertip over the back of his hand, from his wrist to the tip of his middle finger, and broke in on what he was saying with the question:

“I would like to leave now. Would you take me home with you?”

He stopped, took a breath, took a swallow from his wine glass. “Certainly,” he said with the utmost urbanity, as if she had asked would he like another glass of wine.

After that first hesitation h
e didn’t miss a beat though, rising and taking her hand to help her up, placing it in the crook of his elbow as he moved down the stairs and to the front door. She stepped quickly to keep up with his long stride, suppressing a nervous giggle at the speed, the nearness of the inevitable moment.

“Coat?” he asked her in the foyer.

“I didn’t bring one. It’s not cold.”

“No, it’s not. I walked here in fact. My home
is very close, and it’s a lovely evening. Shall we?”

“Yes.
Let’s.” She hadn’t known he lived nearby. Convenient, if she had to make an escape on foot and back to her car for some reason. This game was stretching out longer than she had imagined it could. Would he still see it as a joke when he realized she was Cathy from the office? Young, naïve Cathy?

Surely at any moment he’d recognize h
er, realize he already knew her? Not the gauche girl he had thought she was, nor the daringly seductive stranger he had just met, but instead a sophisticated woman. They’d share a laugh at his blindness and then share much more. She couldn’t quite picture what he’d say when he realized, or how she’d respond. But it seemed even more unreal he wouldn’t perceive it was her. How could a man work so closely with someone else and not recognize them? Was she truly
that
good an actress?

She concentrated on her footing, her sky-high heels making even the smooth sidewalk a potential obstacle for someone as distracted as she. He sauntered along beside her, his hands in his pockets.

They were walking in silence, side by side, and it
was suddenly awkward to her. She reached out to slide her hand into the crook of his elbow again, as before, and he gripped it warmly with his other hand and gave it a squeeze, turning his head to smile down at her. She shot him a naughty look from under her eyelashes and he stopped and turned to her, holding her captured hand out from her body in a dance move to spin her towards him, as his other arm gripped her around the waist.

She fetched up hard against his chest, breathless, a thrill of excitement running through her. Then in contrast to the swiftness of the transition, he lowered his head to hers tantalizingly slowly. By the time their lips touched she was ready to jump out of her skin with the suspense of it, the sexual tension between them sparking like a livewire.

His kiss was an invitation, a subtle offer of pleasure, skilled and knowing. He took his time while the heat bubbled furiously underneath the delicate touch, contained for the moment but with a head of steam building. She wanted to grab him, pull him under with her. But she stopped herself, forced herself to equal his restraint. To let the anticipation build.

A shudder of delight ran down her spine as he stroked her neck with his fingers. She leaned on him, feeling him take her weight and ease her even closer, her softness molding around the harder contours of him.
Oh, it was hard to hold back. She lifted a hand to lay it on the plane of his cheek, her fingertips in his soft, dark hair. Inhaling the scent of him – a woody, fresh smell like cedar – she sent her other hand tunneling between his shirt and the jacket of his suit.

After so many weeks of watching him surreptitiously, it felt illicit to finally have her hands on him, to feel his hard body, know she was going to possess him soon. She pulled his shirt free of his trousers at the back, hidden, so she could
touch his bare skin, her palm smoothing over the deep indent of his spine between the slabs of muscle that covered his back.

He pulled his head away
without releasing his hold, looking down at her in the light of the streetlamps. His eyes looked black in the dimness, his mouth curled in a knowing smile.

“Not far now. Almost there,”
he murmured, then broke away to take her hand. She let him lead her, feeling unexpectedly shaky on her feet, off balance; a strange sensation, to follow a single kiss.

Chapter
Nine

He was right. It wasn’t far. One block more and they were there, he still drawing her onwards. From the street the house had a
modest frontage, hidden behind the high wall; One storey and not very wide, though completely modern. They entered the property through a narrow entryway down a gravel path between plantings of head-height bamboo, dark boulders scattered artistically amidst swathes of grasses and mossy mounds. Very Oriental, and almost certainly the work of a professional landscape designer. It seemed too slick and fashionable for him. Contrived. She imagined he had handed over a wad of cash and told someone to make it happen so he could get back to business, or had bought the house with the garden already in place.

The front door opened with a code, not a key, and the hall was
paved with giant slabs of stone; sophisticated and foreign. Not like him at all. Or at least, not like Mike from the office. Maybe this was where he felt free to relax.

He didn’t let go of her hand, taking her to the right, past a huge window that looked out onto the harbor, a magnificent view of the sparkling lights of Auckland. The house dropped away in levels down the hill in a mass of glass and sharp angles, embracing the night sky with unexpected openness. She had a
confused glimpse of low-slung couches in dark leather and a great expanse of carpet.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked without slowing.

“No,” she responded without elaboration and he flashed her a grin of shared mischief, half-lit in the dim light from the windows. Seeing it she relaxed. It was still him, Mike Summers, unfamiliar surroundings notwithstanding. He squeezed her hand again and she laughed, daringly complicit.

Down a darkened hallway they went, and through a doorway where she was aga
in confronted by a glamorous view. She was not distracted for long though, as he turned and pounced, dangerously intent.

She took the onslaught of unleashed passion, took it and returned it with interest, clawing his jacket off him and flinging it to the floor then starting on the butt
ons of his shirt, hearing a thread snap as she wrenched at it in frustration and one flew off into the darkness. He chuckled soft and low, capturing her hands to hold them pinioned behind her back as he plundered her mouth in a kiss of dominance and possession. She took it for a minute, two, then bit him and wrenched her hands free to thrust them into his hair, arching her body to force it up higher against him.

He growled approval, a throaty purr in his throat as he clasped her bottom to hold her against his erection. The urgent, unspoken demand of it made her
quiver, longing to be closer with nothing between them.

His hands stroked her
back, her sides, searching for a way to get her out of her dress. She released the hidden zipper without breaking the kiss, her arms behind her back curving her like a bow. He took advantage of the breasts thrust up high, cupping one in a broad palm as he supported her with his other hand on her back. She drew in a sharp breath at the heat of his hand there, her nipple puckering tight and sending a bolt of sensation shooting down deep inside her.

He peeled her dress off and she let it fall to the floor before returning to press her naked belly against hi
m, the cups of her strapless bra a hindrance, an interruption of sensation. The cotton of his shirt felt delicious against her as he wrapped hot arms around her, bending her back in another of those devastating kisses. Eyes closed she was unbalanced, lost and whirling with him as her only anchor.

Then he toppled them both onto the bed, rearing back to strip his shirt off his arms and throw it away before returning, swift and sure,
his mouth consuming her, hands moving from one part of her body to the next with hungry insistence as if trying to take her all in at once. Her own hands were busy at his waist, trying to find space between them to release him from his trousers.

He tilted his hips to one side to give her access and in a moment she had freed him, taking the hard, solid weight of him in her hand, stroking and squeezing until he groaned and shuddered. Then he froze and cursed.

“What?” she asked, grip loosened in her fear she had hurt him somehow.

“Protection.
A condom. I don’t have any. Do you?”

She bit her lip, seconding his dismay. “No, I don’t.” Dammit, she should have thought, shouldn’t have assumed . . .

His hand continued to stroke her restlessly, breast to waist to hip and back again. “We don’t have to. We can just . . . fool around a little.” Reluctance and resignation were both clear in his voice. Neither of them suggested a trip out to find a condom. She didn’t want to let go of him. His hands told her he felt the same.

“I’m on the pill,” she said tentatively.
“My last health check up was eight months ago. All clear, and I haven’t had sex since then.” She blushed to speak frankly like that, but desire was riding her hard, and the alternative was delay or abstinence. No option.

A grin broke out over his face, and he rolled her so she straddled his chest, his hands on her waist. “Mine was six months ago. Ditto and ditto,” he said in triumphant expectation.

“Well then. Ahem.” She gave him a coy look, head tilted to one side, her mouth a prim moue.

“Well then indeed.” He reached up and cupped her neck, tugging her down towards him. She came willingly. But in the instant before their lips met he paused, lifting her slightly so he could read her expression. “Truly?” he asked with a hint of sternness
.

Putting
humor aside she paused to let him see her earnestness then said with absolute certainty: “Yes,” reassured by his caution. “I’ve never had sex without a condom,” she shared impulsively, feeling a little thrill at the thought of breaking that taboo.

His eyebrows went up in surprise at the admission,
then his eyes crinkled at the corners. “It’s been a long time since
I
have. Years,” he responded with the air of someone confiding a secret in return for hers. She smiled, pleased at the feeling of shared confidences. She liked his playfulness in the midst of this headlong lust, a leavening of humor soothing that small, uncertain part of her that was scared to be here, boldly in his bed.

She leaned down and took his earlobe in her ear, sucking on it gently, then paused to whisper, “I understand it can be quite a . . . pleasant sensation for a gentleman
.”

“I should think it will be rather unspeakably pleasant,” he said thickly, and she felt his erection pressing against her bottom.

“That’s a nice thought.”

“I’m enjoying it.”

“Oh really?”

“God, yes.
I’m thinking how wet you are here,” he ran a single fingertip over the silky material of her underpants, saturated now and clinging to her engorged folds. She shook at the indescribably intense sensation. “And I’m imagining how it will feel to slide inside you, so hot and wet and . . .” he gave a muffled groan as she reached down between them, took his erection in her hand and stroked the tip of it over her flesh where his finger had been a moment ago.

He jerked, grabbing handfuls of the pillow and twisting it as he threw his head back. She watched, fascinated and entranced as she repeated the action, difficult as it was to focus when she wanted to just close her eyes and drown in the sensation.

When she paused for a moment, recovering from a near-orgasmic quiver, he pushed the gusset of her panties to one side and lifted his pelvis just enough to enter her, straining to be slow. She felt the thick rod part her, let him just enter her, then she pulled up and away. He exhaled in frustration and gave her a hot stare, which she met with a raised eyebrow, lowering herself far enough to take in an inch of him then lifting away again.

His hands
left the mangled pillow and went to her hips, gentle and coaxing, luring her nearer, tempting her to come impale herself. She resisted then obliged, resisted and obliged, never more than an inch.

When he lost patience and flipped her she
gave a small exclamation of surprised disappointment the game was finished. But he didn’t press his advantage, instead kissing and sucking his way down the front of her body until he reached her underwear. He pulled it off down her legs and settled between her thighs.

There he set up a delicate suction, waiting until she was wild and bucking against his mouth
. Then he suddenly stopped to nibble delicately on the tender skin of her inner thigh, a loss of stimulation that drove her instantly insane. She hissed in frustration and glared at him. He met her eyes with a mocking smile. After a moment he laid his mouth on her again, sucking and lashing her with his tongue. She tried to keep eye contact but it was impossible. She had to writhe, trying to escape and to get closer to that wicked mouth in the same motion. Then again he stopped. She hammered the mattress with a closed fist, a whisper away from orgasm.

“Hush,” he murmured in c
alm authority. At that she jack-knifed. With rough hands she pushed him from his stomach to his back, he allowing it after an instant of surprised resistance.

S
he engulfed his erection in her mouth. She couldn’t take it all – nowhere near – but between her mouth and both hands she had the entire length enfolded. Tasting both his response and her own, she started a wicked rotation, each hand at counterpoint to the other and to her mouth, watching him shake with the effort to control himself, keep from thrusting or moving or doing anything that might stop the sensation.

They had turned it into a competition between them,
humor submerged in the intensity of challenge. She drew it out, watching for the signs he was near crisis, slowing and softening her stimulation to keep him back from the edge and then ramping up when he seemed to be pulling himself together.

She loved it;
the heady power of it; the control; the struggle for dominance. She knew he would turn the tables on her soon, felt the anticipation. He seemed gentler than she, more inclined to pull back. She had no such hesitation. He would say if he didn’t like something, and until he did she would please herself.

He reached down, hooked a big h
and under each of her arms and drew her – with due caution – up his body. She released her new toy in good time, a smirk on her face as she encountered his somewhat shell-shocked expression.

“You’re a hellion,” he said
, an old-fashioned, evocative term that tickled her fancy.

She gave a triumphant laugh, ending in a squeak as he flipped her and pinned her to the bed
, defenseless underneath him. His hand hooked behind her knee and pulled it upwards to his chest, tilting her pelvis at an angle that gave him easy access. She could feel his cock there, pressing at the entrance to her body. She wriggled experimentally and found there was nowhere to move. He reached a hand underneath her lifted thigh and inserted his finger into her, strumming his other fingertips delicately over her tender flesh, flicking and rubbing until she could not pick out a single sensation, there was such an overwhelming flood of sensory information.

Then amidst the maddening glide and slide of fingers came the unmistakable feeling of stretching to take a shape that was so silky and slick and yet almost too big, no matter how slippery.

She opened her eyes wide and found him looking down at her, all motion halted except for that slow push to enter her. Their eyes locked together, intense, intimate, boring into the other as if more than bodies were joining.

She was holding her breath. So was he.

It was too much,
too
intense, this stillness after the frantic haste of desire, the rivalry and jousting. He slid in, and slid in further, and further still, agonizingly slowly. Finally he came to rest, pelvis against hers, embedded to the hilt, absolutely nothing between them.

She couldn’t name the expression he wore. It was something like
tenderness, and something like wonder, and some surprise. For a long moment – only seconds, but it seemed to last forever – they were suspended there. Then he bowed his head to take her mouth in a kiss. She felt he was searching for something. What she didn’t know, nor did she know how to give it to him.

S
he pulled her arms free and put them around his neck, bringing him in close, closer. Wrapping him up in herself, twining around him. Too close to look at her again with those questioning eyes.

He made a sound between a sigh and a groan,
holding her tightly, so she was surrounded by the heat and hardness of him above, beneath and inside her. It made her feel delicately feminine. Not a sensation she was used to, as a woman who took control and demanded her due in the bedroom. She flexed, testing the bonds he had created. Pushed away, unsettled by the languorously relishing tone he introduced, his head buried in the curve where neck met shoulder, laying kisses there.

It was too much. She wanted the battle, the clash. Not this unfamiliar . . . sweetness.
It wasn’t just the expression in his eyes after all. With his whole body he told her . . . something.

So she closed her
own eyes and focused only on the sensation of it, undulating against him in a tiny movement magnified by her arousal, so the heat of his skin touching a thousand nerve endings on her own skin was a deafening orchestra. She dug her fingernails into the muscles that ran down either side of his spine, surprising a jolt and flex that drove him even deeper into her, making her gasp and tilt her head back.