Bad Engagement (Billionaire's Club #10) - Elise Faber Page 0,9
can do that.” He pushed to his feet, reached for her hand. “I’ll be there at six and we can drive over.”
“You sure?” Kate asked. “Last chance to run screaming for the hills.”
“I’m sure.”
“You don’t have any temperamental cats on the schedule?”
He grinned and she melted from the inside out, letting him tug her to her feet, reveling in the feel of his warm, rough palm against hers. This might all be pretend, but there was one thing that wasn’t fake—the way her body responded. She enjoyed the contact, felt comfortable with him touching her. Okay, so more than comfortable. She freaking loved it, wanted to strip off his clothes and see if his abs were as good as his pictures, wanted to feel the strands of his hair brushing across her stomach as he kissed his way down.
A shiver, even with his coat.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s get you out of the cold.”
Not about to confess why she’d shivered this time, Kate leaned close when he wrapped his arm around her waist, walked beside him as they made their way back to her car. “So, no cats?” she asked, after he’d inquired about where she was parked, and had turned them in the direction of it with the confidence of someone who’d lived in the city for a long time.
“Maybe one or two,” he said, tracing. “But I definitely have a temperamental chicken.”
Her feet skidded to a halt and she tugged him to a stop. When pale brown eyes drifted down to hers, she placed her hand on his chest in a movement that felt natural and yet also far too intimate. But when she made as though to pull back, he placed his palm over her fingers, pressed lightly to keep her hand there.
Her pulse fluttered, but she forced herself to say, “Explain.”
The ghost of a smile. “About the chicken?”
She huffed. “Obviously.”
“I’ll tell you as we walk,” he said, urging her forward.
Narrowing her eyes in mock-warning, she started moving again. “You’d better. What’s the temperamental chicken’s name?”
“Barry.”
Her feet threatened to stop again, but his arm just tightened, hand coaxing her forward. “Tut. Tut. No stopping. My woman is cold.”
Another shiver, this one caused not by her brain and its fantasies, but by the notes of heat beneath that phrase my woman. In another world. In her dreams. In a fake lie that . . .
“Well, my man doesn’t give orders,” she countered.
He burst out laughing. “Maybe more accurate would be to say that my woman doesn’t listen to orders.”
She chuckled. “That would be the truth.”
“So, you want to hear about Barry the Chicken?”
“That may be my favorite question that anyone has ever asked me.”
He snorted. “Is that a yes?”
Her fingers tightened on his chest, pressing against his skin, feeling the steady thrum-thrum of his heart beneath. “That’s a yes.” She grinned up at him, rising on tiptoe, wanting to see his face clearly when he told her the story. Except, she miscalculated and lost her balance, falling against him, her breasts pressed to his chest.
She gasped, nipples hardening, fingers clenching. “Jaime—”
In a move so quick that she could barely process it, she suddenly found her back pressed against the cool stucco of the building they were walking next to. He’d slid an arm behind her back, cushioning her against the hardness of the wall, and his body was pressed to hers, so hot, so hard, surrounding her, overwhelming her, making her head spin, her nipples ache, her thighs quiver.
“I want to kiss you.”
It wasn’t phrased as a question, but rather a statement. As thus, it took her a moment to process his words, especially with him all warm and hard against her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
His mouth was on hers.
No hesitation. No long, slow descent.
One second she was pushing the assent out of her lips, the next, his tongue was in her mouth, stroking along hers, his free hand on her cheek, angling her head so he could taste her properly.
It was a whirlwind, that kiss.
Not gentle or teasing. Not like a typical first date peck.
This was domination. This surrounded her, took her over, filled her with fire that threatened to incinerate her from the inside out.
Then it was done.
He shifted back minutely, slid the hand on her face down her arm, her side, resting it on her hip. But he kept his body against hers, and the feel of him was enough to take her breath away. “Want to hear about Barry the Chicken?”
Her fingers were in his hair,