An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,74

about him and her and this desk.

Judging by his darkened gaze, he was of the same mind.

It started with a kiss across the desk. Until that was ridiculously uncomfortable and they laughed and she tugged his tie, leading him around to her side. His hands were on her waist, his mouth crashing onto hers. She wrapped her arms around him, threaded her fingers through his dark hair and kissed him deeply.

In a second he had her perched on the desk, her legs and skirts parted and hair tumbling down her back. The promise of this had powered her through the day and now the moment was here and she no longer wanted to think of departments or displays or lists or figures. Just this. She knew he felt the same.

His strong hands making short work of her dress.

His hot mouth blazing a trail of pleasure from her lips to lower and lower to her breasts, where did the wickedest things that had feeling the wickedest feelings. Like she was completely his, at his command.

And command he did; Dalton took control. Urging her legs apart. He kissed her there, teased with his tongue and fingers until she was writhing hard and crying out as the climax crashed over her.

She waited, breathlessly.

But not passively.

She had to touch him, too, feel the strong planes of his back, his arms around her as he stood and kissed her. This, this was what she’d been missing, what she had been hungering for. The sweet friction of his body against hers, the hardness of his cock wanting entrance, the drunkenness from his mouth on hers.

“Yes,” she breathed, arching her back.

She felt him hard, throbbing with wanting. Or maybe that was her wanting. His touch, the scent of him, everything had her practically panting with desire for more of him, all of him.

But only if it meant something.

It had to mean something that he could kiss her with a passionate intensity that she thought of more and forever, and Take off my clothes and take me right here, right now, on this desk where I conduct business.

It had to mean something that he was the only man who would understand her—the real her, the woman she was becoming. Dalton understood her days, he knew just how she wanted to spend her nights. She couldn’t imagine any other man sharing both those things with her.

She doubted any other man would meet her like this—her office, her terms—so agreeably and without judgment.

And all Dalton wanted was meaning.

She was thinking about it. If she was thinking at all. His thumbs were flitting over the dusky centers of her breasts, bared to him and the night, and it brought a soft hiss of pleasure to her lips. The man knew how to tease her.

And then, she stilled.

“What is it?”

“I . . . nothing.”

He pulled back and gazed right into her eyes.

And then she heard it again. They both heard it again. Now that they both weren’t breathing hard and driven to distraction.

They heard the sound of low voices and footsteps in the hall.

Dalton pressed a finger to her lips, motioning for her to stay silent. He pulled himself together and crept to the door before flinging it open with a loud bang that made her flinch with the sudden bang of it.

“Who’s there?” His booming voice echoed down the empty hall. But there was no shaking the feeling that someone had been there. And they had both heard it. She wasn’t crazy.

She had hoped she was crazy. She hoped she had imagined the sound tonight and all the other times that she’d been the last to leave or the first to arrive. The sound of footsteps, the click of a door locking, the feeling that someone was near.

She hastily buttoned her shirt—with whatever buttons remained; Dalton was proving perilous to her wardrobe but also lucrative to her buttons and trimmings department on the second floor. She met him at the door.

“Anyone there?” she asked.

“They’re gone. Hopefully not thieves. Are you all right?”

She nodded. “We should go. I’m not quite in the mood now. Here.”

He nodded, understanding.

Only when she went to close the door behind her—and lock it—did they see. It hadn’t been thieves, but vandals.

Someone had painted the words Whore Go Home on the door.

Nothing had been stolen other than her peace of mind and sense of equilibrium. It was disturbing enough to see such violent language, especially directed at herself. But it was worse to consider that someone had been