Kiss Don’t Tell. Avril Tremayne

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СКАЧАТЬ he’d chosen her workplace deliberately, because she’d said not here. She’d read up on the alpha male in preparation for tonight; understanding them wasn’t exactly rocket science.

      But if this was an indication of the way he anticipated their arrangement would proceed, she knew she had trouble on her hands. She was the one in charge; she had to be. So best get the derailed train back on the tracks immediately.

      ‘Sweetheart,’ she repeated the word, as though tasting it. Shook her head. ‘No. Not necessary, I think. No endearments.’ She straightened her jacket, frosted her eyes and raised her eyebrows at the receptionist, who quickly averted her rapt gaze. Turning back to Adam, she said, ‘Shall we go?’

      ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Adam said, and who knew a guy could drawl out a Southern style ma’am without any hint of softness? ‘I’m parked in the station across the street.’

      ‘How nice for you,’ Lane said. ‘My car, which I have every intention of driving home, is in the car park of this very building.’

      She started walking towards the bank of elevators, but stopped when she sensed she was walking alone. She turned back to find Adam standing where she’d left him, rooted to the spot, his countenance dark.

      It felt a little like pistols at dawn. Her at one end of the reception area; him at the other; both waiting for the goggle-eyed receptionist to drop a hanky to signal the start of a fight to the death. And suddenly, Lane wanted to giggle. She didn’t, though. She couldn’t, if she wanted the upper hand. The upper hand … and him. She wanted him. Because the kiss had been good. Very good. And that was part of the alpha male she’d read up on, too—the part she needed. The I-know-exactly-what-I’m-doing, take-no-prisoners part.

      She needed to learn how to kiss like that, how to melt a guy using only her lips and tongue. So no giggling; no getting on her high horse, either. It was concession time, and she was happy to negotiate if it would get her the skills she needed, even though the contract had been signed and strictly speaking she didn’t have to.

      Smoothing a hand over her tied-back hair, Lane walked swiftly back to him. ‘I’m sorry, Adam,’ she said, low and soft so the receptionist wouldn’t hear. ‘I know it can’t be easy for someone like to you to take …’ Hmm. She needed a word that wouldn’t set off his alpha temper. ‘To take …’

      ‘Orders?’ he supplied, not low and soft.

      ‘Yes. I mean no. Not … exactly.’ She grabbed his arm and steered him out of hearing range of the receptionist. ‘Everything’s covered in the contract, you know, to make sure neither of us does something the other hasn’t bargained on. The clause about the lessons being taught in my home is there for privacy reasons. Mine and yours. Now, there’s wiggle room in there—for example, I’m happy to come to your place sometimes, if it’s more convenient—but the office is completely out of bounds for me. You can understand that, can’t you? I’m sure you don’t want me popping up at building sites, or at family functions, or—well, you know what I mean.’

      There, that was logical, reasonable. He’d have to see she was making sense.

      ‘I understand you want to call the shots,’ he said. ‘But I don’t work like that. So how much of that “wiggle room” am I going to get?’

      ‘That will depend how valuable you turn out to be.’

      ‘Oh, I’m worth the money, I promise you.’

      She looked into his eyes and knew it was true. Suddenly the hand that was still on his arm started to tingle and burn; she hadn’t even realized she was still touching him. She sucked in a reactionary gasp, released her hold and took a step back. ‘The thing is, I generally don’t enjoy surprises.’

      ‘Sex is full of surprises, Lane.’

      ‘But the contract—’

      ‘Don’t make me tell you what to do with your contract before we’re even through our first date, Lane.’

      It’s not a date, it’s a lesson, and I’m paying you to do what I say. The words trembled on Lane’s tongue, and she had to draw in a deep breath to stop herself saying them. She needed something placatory to stave off a public escalation of hostilities, but she couldn’t think of a replacement response. She didn’t have placatory skills. There was a terse moment as their eyes clashed. And then she gave up. ‘I’m going home,’ she said, simply said tightly. ‘We can discuss it in private if you’d care to join me there.’

      ‘Let’s not “discuss” it to death, Lane, let’s just suck it and see as we go along,’ Adam said. He gave her a cold-eyed smile and closed the distance between them, full of the promise of sex. ‘An expression you can think about while you drive home. In fact, why don’t you spend that drive imagining what I’ll do to you once we’re nice and private, since “discussion” isn’t high on my list?’ Another of those cold smiles. ‘Sweetheart.’

      With a swallow and a nod—which was a ridiculous response, because what was there to nod at?—Lane headed again for the elevators.

      She turned for one last look at him as the elevator doors opened and he—good God!—winked at her. Which discomposed her so much, she took a fraction too long entering the elevator and the doors semi-closed on her.

      She heard him chuckle as she stepped fully in and the doors closed properly, and as the elevator commenced its descent to the car park, she leaned weakly against the wall. Great. It was just great to be laughed at because she was awkward and clumsy and incapable of taking the nuances of sexual attraction in her stride. She knew all about being a laughing-stock to your sexual partner—thank you, DeWayne Callaghan, for that lesson—and she didn’t like it. At all.

      This was not the way things were supposed to unfold. Adam had barely glanced at the contract before signing it, and she’d just bet he hadn’t looked at it since. He seemed disinclined to listen to a word she said about the contract’s terms and conditions. And she was fairly certain what he’d threatened to tell her to do with the contract would be anatomically unpleasant, if not impossible.

      This was not good.

      On the other hand … on the drive home, she fired up her imagination as Adam had suggested, and the visions in her head were fairly eye-popping for a girl who was almost a virgin.

      ***

      It took an hour for Adam to cool off enough to front up at Lane’s. And even then, it took every ounce of his self-control to knock not pound on the door of her super-neat house in her super-neat street, chosen pragmatically, he’d just bet, to be close to the airport for the flight attendant housemate.

      Okay, he was honest enough to admit he deserved to be slapped down for forcing that office meeting on her. And he knew he wouldn’t be pleased if one of his lovers sauntered onto one of his building sites and planted her mouth on him in front of anyone who happened to be in the vicinity the way he’d done to Lane, so she’d hit that nail on the head.

      But it just galled him that she hadn’t slapped him down so much as ‘managed’ him like he was a naughty boy. He would have preferred it if she’d lost her temper, flamed up at him, stomped off without even speaking to him. But no, never in public of course—as he should have known.

      All his hopes now were pinned on her losing her cool the СКАЧАТЬ