Hungry For You - Argeneau Series - Book 14 Page 0,68

way the chair teetered with each blow, not to mention the fact that the damned thing was on wheels and could roll out from under her at any moment.

Cale hurried across the room as—finished with her pounding—she dropped the hammer on the chair seat and picked up the print to hang it. She’d just released the print when he reached the chair, and said sharply, “Jesus, Alex. You’ll break your—”

Breaking off with a curse, Cale reached out to catch her as she gave a start, slipped, and then lost her balance as the chair shifted under her. He caught her close to his chest, closed his eyes briefly with relief that he’d been there to do so, and then snapped them open when she said with irritation, “For heaven’s sake, Cale. I nearly broke my neck. You shouldn’t startle people like that.”

Cale stared down at her scowling face with disbelief. “You—I—”

Alex raised her eyebrows when Cale gave up trying to say whatever it was he was trying to get out and simply stared at her with frustration. She had no idea what had upset him so much. He was the one who had nearly scared her silly. And he was still holding her pressed tightly to his chest too, which was kind of discomfiting for her. She had the most ridiculous urge to slip her arms around his shoulders and press even closer, but managed to resist. Instead, she forced herself to stare back into his face and wait for him to set her down.

Okay, it wasn’t really his face her gaze was focused on. For some reason she had zeroed in on his lips and couldn’t seem to drag her attention away from them as her mind replayed scenes from her dream the night before. Images of those lips moving across her skin and closing over her nipple ran through her head, and she was just thinking that it seemed terribly hot in her office all of a sudden, when she realized that those sweet lips she was staring at were drawing closer.

He was going to kiss her, some part of her mind yelled in warning, and Alex knew she should turn her head away, or kick her legs to be set down, but found she was unwilling to. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted to know if it would be as wonderful as it had been in her dream.

Surely nothing could be that good, Alex thought faintly, and then his mouth drifted softly over hers, brushing across them as lightly as a butterfly’s wings, once, then twice before settling so that his tongue could slide out to urge her lips apart. Alex wasn’t aware of giving her brain the order to do it, but her mouth parted willingly enough, allowing his tongue in, and she had to revise her belief that no real kiss could compare with those from her dream. This was definitely as good or better, she decided, as his tongue swept in to tangle with hers.

Cale tasted of lemon meringue pie and coffee, the snack they’d had during the last break he’d insisted on while they’d been antiquing. But it was combined with another taste entirely his own, and Alex found herself moaning and shifting slightly in his arms so that herhands could creep up around his neck. Cale immediately deepened the kiss, his mouth becoming more demanding, and she found she was actually clutching at him and turning her upper body so that she could press closer.

She wasn’t aware of his moving until he set her down. Alex was vaguely aware of the desk top suddenly beneath her bottom, but that was all the attention she could manage to spare. Her focus was on the hands now sliding over her body, and then playing over her breasts through her sweater.

Alex groaned and arched into the touch, then gasped when he broke their kiss to trail his lips to her ear. She immediately turned her head into that caress with a gasp, her body shuddering as he nipped at the lobe. She opened her eyes with confusion when he pulled back, and then she glanced down to see that he was working on removing her sweater and had already pushed it up her chest to reveal her bra. Alex instinctively raised her arms to help him, emitting a little sigh when he tugged it up over her head and off, then shuddering when his hands immediately moved to cover the silk triangles over her