“No.”
“I’m making you angry?”
“Yes.”
“Deal with it.” He wouldn’t scare her, but he truly didn’t care if she got mad.
She set her jaw. “I am.”
“Because you’re making me angry, too.” That wasn’t the only thing she was making him. But it was the only one he’d own up to—both out loud and inside his head.
“Poor baby,” she cooed.
“You’re taunting me?” That was what she wanted to do here? He could barely believe it.
“I’m keeping the upper hand,” she corrected him, crossing her arms, accentuating her breasts, increasing his view of her cleavage.
He coughed out a laugh of surprise, covering up the surge of arousal. “You think you have the upper hand?”
“I know I have the upper hand. And there’s nothing you can say or do to make me—”
He took a step forward. He was at the end of his rope here. The woman needed to wake up to reality.
Her eyes went wide, and her lips parted ever so slightly.
“Make you what?” he breathed.
“Zach.” Her tone held a warning, even as her expression turned to confusion and vulnerability.
His attention locked in on her, and her alone.
“Make you what?” he persisted.
She didn’t answer. But the tip of her tongue flicked out, moistening her lips.
He closed his throat on an involuntary groan, and his world shrank further.
He shifted closer, fixated on her lips.
His thigh brushed hers.
Her lips softened, and her breathing deepened.
He inhaled the exotic perfume, daring to lift his hand, stroking the back of his knuckles against her soft cheek.
She didn’t stop him. Instead, her eyelids fluttered closed, and she leaned into his caress. His desire kicked into action. And he tipped his head, leaning in without conscious thought to press his lips against hers.
They were soft, pliable, hot and delicious. Sensation instantaneously exploded inside his brain. He was back on the yacht, the ocean breeze surrounding them, her taste overpowering his senses, the stars a backdrop to their midnight passion.
His arms went around her, and hers around him. Their bodies came flush, the sensation achingly familiar. She molded to him, fitting tight in all the right places.
He moved her backward, pressing her against the office wall. His hands slipped down, cupping her tight little bottom, resisting an urge to drag her sharply against his hardening body. He was on fire for her.
His hands went to her hair, stroking through the softness, cradling her gorgeous face while he peppered kisses, tracing a line over her tiny ear, down the curve of her neck, along her shoulders, to the edge of her soft silk blouse.
Her fingers twined in his hairline. Her lips parted farther, her tongue finding his, her perfect breasts pushing tightly against his chest, beading so that he could feel them. She stretched up, coming onto her toes, fusing her mouth with his, and slid her hands beneath his jacket.
Those small hands were hot through the cotton of his shirt. He wanted to rip it off, strip her bare, hold her naked body against his own and finish what they kept starting.
But a jangling phone penetrated his brain. Sounds from the outer office came back into focus. He heard Amy’s voice. Someone answered, and he came to the abrupt realization of where they were.
He forced himself to stop, cradled Kaitlin’s head against his shoulder, breathing deeply, all anger toward her having evaporated.
“We did it again,” he breathed.
She stiffened, pulling away. “This is why I didn’t want the door closed.”
He let her go, pretending it wasn’t the hardest thing he’d ever done. Then he forced a note of sarcasm into his voice, refusing to let her see just how badly she made him lose control. “You don’t trust yourself?”
“I don’t trust you,” she told him for at least the third time.
Fair enough. He didn’t trust himself, either.
But it wasn’t all him. It definitely hadn’t all been him.
She straightened her blouse and smoothed her hair. “What is it you needed to see me about?”
Zach forced himself to turn away. Looking at her was only asking for more trouble.
“Can we sit?” He gestured to two padded chairs at angles to each other in front of his floor-to-ceiling windows.
Without a word, she crossed to one of them and sat down, fixing her focus on a point on the skyline outside, folding her hands primly in front of her.
Zach’s hormones were still raging, but he inhaled a couple of bracing breaths, taking a seat and focusing his own attention on a seascape painting on the wall past Kaitlin’s right ear.
“I just spoke to my grandmother’s lawyer,” he explained, composing and discarding a number of approaches on the fly. He had to convince her to pull back on the renovations. It was more important than ever, and he couldn’t afford to screw this conversation up.