Corrupted--A Scorching Hot Romance Read online

  He liked her directness. Liked that she didn’t seem at all interested in playing games, or pretending there wasn’t a massive flood of pheromones renting the air between them. Appearances could be deceptive, of course, but it was refreshing to find a woman who seemed straightforward and down-to-earth.

  Her directness warranted some of his own. ‘It started with the dance, then you bent over the filing cabinet and then you bent over me. What’s a man to do?’

  She smiled, still dabbing. ‘Can’t blame you, I suppose. Men are such basic creatures.’

  ‘Come on.’ He winced as she touched a sore spot. ‘You’re not telling me your intention wasn’t to get the men out there fired up?’

  Not a hint of insult showed on her face, feigned or otherwise, nor in her actions. He liked that too. ‘Why should it always be a woman’s intention to turn on a man? Can’t she simply enjoy moving her body for her own pleasure?’

  ‘Fair enough, but why choose a crowded club to do it?’ He waited until she looked at him. ‘Or do you always like an audience when you give yourself pleasure?’

  Tiny spears of colour bloomed in her cheeks, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He enjoyed watching that spectacular mouth, maybe even more than the fact he’d managed to set her back a step.

  His enjoyment was short-lived when she reached out to the box again. ‘If you’re trying to shock me, you’ll have to do much better than that.’ She undid the cap of a bottle with blue liquid and poured some onto a fresh cotton ball.

  He grinned. ‘You didn’t actually answer my question.’

  With a sexy pout that had his erection throbbing beneath his hands, she held the now doused cotton ball aloft and considered. ‘Do I like an audience when I give myself pleasure? Hmm. Well, to be honest I usually do that in private. For my eyes only.’

  She jerked down the collar of his open-necked shirt, smiled sweetly at him then stabbed him with the fire of hell. He shot back in his seat and grimaced. ‘Whatever kind of bloody healing balm is that?’

  All innocence and patience, she continued to administer to his neck, earning from him several more sharp intakes of breath as she worked. ‘Men are such babies. And here I was thinking you were a grown man.’

  ‘I’m man enough, sweetheart, with all the parts to prove it.’ Suddenly irritated, both by the sting from that bloody liquid and the image of her pleasuring herself without him being there to see it, he reached up and curled his fingers around her wrist. ‘I reckon I’m cleaned up well enough by now.’

  She glanced down at his hand before bringing her gaze back to his. ‘Are you allergic to plasters?’

  ‘No.’ Even if he were, he’d suffer through it if it meant getting this torture over with. Not just suffering at the hands of her less than gentle nursing techniques, or the growing temptation of sampling her very appealing attributes. It was also the way it made him wonder when a woman had shown this much concern for his welfare, if ever.

  The sting of that liquid had not only cleaned the cut but had shaken him back to reality. Yeah, okay, he wanted her. He really wanted her. But the timing sucked. His priority was getting home, grabbing some long overdue sleep, checking final figures and documentation, then preparing himself for the six a.m. conference call with Damian McBride.

  Normally, Connor would take his chances. What was one more sleepless night? Especially if he had the opportunity to share a bed with a hot woman. But he couldn’t afford to take any chances with tomorrow’s meeting. It was too important to him. He’d waited too long. He had every intention of making Damian draw up that contract pronto so they could both sign on the dotted line.

  Which meant he had to call a halt to this extremely pleasant interlude and get his ass back home. He sucked in a breath. ‘Won’t your friends be wondering where you are?’

  ‘They know where I am. They would have seen me come back here with you. If I’m not out in a reasonable amount of time, they’ll call the cops.’

  He realised he still had hold of her wrist, noticed how his hand fitted easily around the circumference of all that soft flesh. With considerable reluctance, he released her. Shit, but he really wanted to seduce his dancing queen, find out if all that bared skin was as silky as it looked. Let his hands slide easily over those sexy dips and curves as he kissed her full lips and drove them both insane.

  ‘Well, stick the plaster on, and maybe you should go back and join them. I’d just as soon not have the cops banging on my door, if it’s all the same to you.’

  She laughed, took off the protective wrapping of the plaster then bent down to place it on his neck. He deliberately kept his gaze averted as she moved closer to smooth the plaster down at the edges, but her scent washed over him. Floral and earthy at the same time. Feminine and sultry. He wanted to draw her close, breathe her in.

  Luckily, she straightened. ‘There. Good as new.’

  He was tempted to tease her, ask if she thought he’d be left with a scar. But, as he figured he had enough of those already, he declined. Some things weren’t easy to joke about.

  Since he didn’t intend delving any deeper into that aspect of his past right then, he pushed such thoughts away and kept his focus trained on her.

  He made a long, slow perusal of her as she stood there staring at his neck. Her tank top had ridden up, revealing a creamy strip of flesh around her midriff, causing saliva to pool in his mouth. And, maybe it was his imagination but the atmosphere was hot and enticingly tempting.

  In the grand scheme of things, who said a man needed eight solid hours sleep anyway? He’d existed on far less than that during his thirty years on the planet and, while tomorrow’s stakes had never been this high for him, there wasn’t much that could go wrong. The negotiations had been undertaken, the sums agreed.

  In which case...

  Connor eyed her up and down, making sure she couldn’t mistake his intention. No point wasting valuable time with unnecessary rituals and peripherals, like pretending they both weren’t interested in each other.

  ‘Since you’ve taken such good care of me, why don’t I buy you a drink?’

  ‘A minute ago, you were trying to get rid of me.’

  Yeah. And he would wonder for ever what particular brain malfunction had brought about that insane notion. There was being cautious and there was being a complete dickhead. What man with his head on straight denied himself a quick roll in the hay with a hot and willing woman?

  ‘I was just making sure we were thinking along the same lines.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘You. Me. A bottle of whatever is your pleasure.’ She bit her bottom lip again and he could see cogs turning, wheels spinning. Determined to get her agreement, he tapped a finger to the plaster and pursed his lips in a pitiful manner. ‘You can’t surely be considering abandoning me so soon? I might start bleeding again.’

  She laughed, a deep rumble of sound that shot fresh heat through his blood and promised extremely good times ahead. He leaned forward and reached out to take her hand, noticing how her fingers stiffened momentarily beneath his before relaxing. Not wanting to push things too hard too fast, he let go of her. ‘Why don’t you go and tell your friends you won’t be needing the cops?’

  She raised her eyebrows, amusement evident in her eyes. ‘That might be a little premature.’ She replaced the lid of the first-aid box. ‘But say I agreed to one drink, I’ve got a feeling you wouldn’t be satisfied with that. Am I right?’

  He knew instinctively that he needed to change tactics, maybe back off a little. Despite that she seemed to be matching him in the verbal banter stakes, it was hard to deny her tentative manner as she’d asked him what his intentions were. He hoped to hell he wasn’t making her uncomfortable.

  Not that she’d appreciate any kind of subterfuge either.

  Straight-shooter, he reminded himself. She didn’t play games. ‘Look, let m
e tell you where I stand. I think we’ve got this mutual thing going. I’d like to buy you a drink and see where it leads. If it leads us beyond that drink, then I’ll be an extremely happy man.’

  Her breasts hiked as she sucked in a breath. While he hadn’t shocked her, he’d pushed her off-balance. He kind of liked that. There was a certain satisfaction in unbalancing a confident woman. From nowhere came the unsettling thought that right then he was almost as desperate to get her affirmative response as he was that contract from Damian McBride. What the hell was that about? Perhaps he really had been without female company for too long.

  She didn’t respond but kept eyeing him as if she was trying to figure him out. He chanced an easy smile. When she screwed up that delicious mouth, he held his breath, willing her not to back out now. Not when he had images of her doing incredible things with that mouth.

  Slowly, she picked up the box and took it back to the cabinet where she bent and slid it into the lower drawer. His throat went dry at the sight of her perfect ass in those tight-fitting white jeans.

  She closed the drawer and stood. Her back went ramrod straight as she looked at the captioned photograph on the top of the filing cabinet. The one taken when he’d received an industry award last year.

  He walked over to stand next to her, making sure not to crowd her.

  ‘Look, I think you’re a woman who likes to call it straight and, since we both know there’s a strong physical thing going on here, why waste time pretending otherwise?’

  She continued to look at the photograph, then took another deep breath and turned to look up at him, making his pulse kick like a frigging donkey.

  After a brief hesitation, she placed her palm against his chest, and he swore her guarded eyes went a darker green. ‘I do like straight talking, but I also like to think around things.’

  ‘Then start thinking.’ He winked, smiled. ‘Make it fast.’

  Another hesitation, then she laughed. Shit. He really liked that laugh, the way she paused before she got the joke and then the laugh bubbled from deep in her throat.

  ‘Trust me, as much as I’m tempted, it’s not a good idea. For a variety of reasons.’

  ‘Name one.’

  She blinked, as if she hadn’t expected the question. ‘Well, we don’t know each other. Like you said, the response is physical.’

  What the fuck was wrong with that? ‘Physical responses can be the best ones,’ he said with a waggle of his eyebrows. ‘Less chance things get complicated.’

  She laughed again, her eyes meeting his for long moments. It made him wonder if she was enjoying their flirtatious banter as much as he was but was determined to hold back, to fight against their obvious attraction. ‘You may be right about that.’ Her smile was a little wistful as she reached up to tap the plaster. ‘Make sure to keep that on for a while.’

  What the hell did that mean? Was she giving him the old heave-ho? He wasn’t prepared to let her walk away that easily.

  Maybe he really had come on too strong. She said one of the reasons this was a bad idea was because they didn’t know each other. Well, that he could remedy.

  ‘So, about that drink.’

  She was at the door, her back to him and with her fingers wrapped around the handle. For what seemed like an age during which Connor held his breath, she stood there, no doubt taking her time to deliberate.

  Then she turned to look over her shoulder at him. ‘I’ll meet you at the bar.’

  Copyright © 2020 by Faye Avalon

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  ISBN-13: 9781488062322

  Corrupted

  Copyright © 2020 by Cathryn Fox

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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