role,” she told him, squaring her shoulders and meeting his eyes with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Not with everything else changing as much as it is.”
A cocked brow challenged her concerns. “You mediated for Masters.”
“Yes. But you’re not Bill,” she said.
“No, I’m not,” Stephen said in a silky voice, ushering her forward with a gentle press of his palm against her lower spine. “Come. It won’t take long at all, and then you’ll be free for the remainder of the day.”
She lurched forward, away from the burning heat of his touch.
“You can handle a meeting in my office, can’t you?” he asked, his mouth crooked with the challenge.
“Of course,” she said, feeling foolish for her reaction even as her pulse quickened against her throat. She strode toward the administrators’ elevator with a brisk, professional clip. “I’m perfectly capable of carrying on a simple business conversation with you.”
He matched her pace and she felt his heated gaze slide over her profile. “It’s not the conversation I’m worried about. It’s the location,” he said with a knowing smile. “You remember, don’t you, how we used to make love in my London office nearly every workday afternoon?”
“No,” she snapped. “I don’t.” Even as she feigned immunity to his presence, her body betrayed her lie. Her skin still tingled from his innocuous touch upon her back and her breath felt perilously shallow. Not that she couldn’t fake calmness with the best of them.
They continued in silence while her pulse picked up speed. Drawing in a deep breath, she braced herself for the onslaught of memories that were sure to come.
Stephen swiped his key and the wood-paneled doors of the elevator slid open silently. “After you,” he said, extending his right arm.
Being careful not to touch him, she stepped into the elevator and immediately turned to face the panel of buttons. How many times had he summoned her to his office under the pretext of some business concern, only to devour her mouth and body the moment the elevator doors closed? And how many times had she welcomed him, launching herself into his arms, winding her legs about his waist, while he pleasured her against the elevator wall? Heat coursed through her at the thought, and she forced herself to remain utterly still as his hot regard against the side of her face sent awareness winnowing through her veins.
You can do this. Just don’t look at him. Don’t breathe.
The elevator’s chime signaled their arrival and her breath escaped in a rush. Before he could say a word, or touch her, she bolted out into the new office space that he’d claimed as his own. She heard his small huff of laughter behind her before he stopped at his secretary’s desk.
“Has Ms. Turner arrived yet?” he asked the older woman, who’d dressed in serviceable tweed despite the early summer heat.
“No. She called to say she was running a few minutes late,” she answered. “Shall I try to reschedule?”
“No. There’s no rush,” he said as he strode into the spacious office that overlooked Central Park and shut the door.
“It looks like we have a few minutes to ourselves before Ms. Turner arrives,” he told her. He joined her at the window. “Can I get you something to drink while we wait?”
Colette swallowed unsteadily. The room was suddenly hot despite its subtle current of air conditioning. “No, thank you.
I’m fine.”
His posture tugged his taupe shirt taut against the muscled plane of his chest and it reminded her of how much taller and broader he was than she. Of how much warmer his skin had always been. “You seem a little tense,” he observed.
“I’m not.” Standing so close, she could smell him, and she fought the urge to simply close her eyes and inhale large draughts until her lungs filled. His scent put any delicacy she’d ever made to shame: spicy, warm, and tinged with just a hint of salt and musk, it made her want to lick him. To taste him and steep herself in all the lovely flavors of his skin. And, even as she told herself not to notice, she was excruciatingly aware of the tanned wedge of flesh at his exposed throat. How many times had she nuzzled that transition from chest to neck, tracing his beautiful, scented musculature with her lips and tongue?
“Are you sure?” he asked. His gaze crinkled with subtle amusement as he surveyed her hot face. “Because your face is a little flushed.”
“I’m fine,” she blurted, trying to disguise her