at the dog, her throat going tight. “Sure,” she said casually. “He’s adorable.” The middle of his face was white, with a cute black button nose and big brown eyes, his ears were brown and his body was patched with brown and white. She wanted to pick him up and squeeze the breath out of him. He wasn’t the same kind of dog Teddy had been, but the face was so similar it made her stomach hurt.
She straightened. “How do you look after him, working such long hours?”
“I hired a kid to take him out for a walk every day.” Levi moved into his condo. “Hang on, I have to get him a treat.” He strode over to the counter separating kitchen from living room and lifted the lid off a container to pull out a dog biscuit. “Colin’s fourteen. He was looking for a way to make money. I saw a flyer posted in the store on the corner and gave him a call. Turns out he lives right in this building. So every day after school he comes and gets Chuck and takes him over to the park. Sit.”
“Well, okay.”
It was a joke—sort of, because when he said “sit” in that commanding voice, she really wanted to…sit. He’d been talking to Chuck. But he sent her such a scorching hot look she thought her panties might have melted.
Chuck’s wiggling butt hit the hardwood floor. Levi tossed him the small biscuit and he caught it.
“Good boy,” Levi praised, with a smile for the pup that hurt her chest. Then he looked up at her and the smile changed from affectionate to carnal. “Okay, now where were we?”
She resisted the urge to hurl herself into his arms as Chuck had. Second thoughts crowded the back of her brain, but Levi walked toward her with lazy masculine grace, oozing charm and sex, pushing those thoughts aside.
He closed the distance between them and set his hands lightly on her hips. “Oh yeah. Now I remember. I was about to do this.” He bent his head and kissed her.
Her brain sizzled and snapped into emptiness. His mouth was warm and firm and tasted delicious. He didn’t rush it. He gave her one long, soft kiss, lifted his lips from hers then kissed her again, gently opening wider and deepening the kiss. His tongue licked over her bottom lip and then his teeth gently nipped her there.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I saw you.” He stroked over her lip with his tongue again. “You have a very biteable mouth.”
She swallowed, her knees wobbling a little. She set her hands on his chest. “Thank you.”
“Not to mention other parts of you.” He kissed her again, this time his tongue fully sliding into her mouth. She licked him back and curled her fingers into his shirt. Fire spread through her body.
“I wanna make a confession,” he murmured long moments later, his lips on her cheek.
“What’s that?”
“This afternoon, when you were chewing us out, I got hard.” He sucked gently on the skin just below her jaw. “That’s why I was slouching.”
“Oh my God.” Her fingers flexed in his shirt as sparks rushed through her veins and her stomach did a lusty little flip.
“You were all fiery and bossy and all I wanted to do was punish you for making me hard in the boardroom.”
She sucked in air sharply.
“I wanted to turn you over my knee and spank that tight little ass, and then make you come so hard.”
That was it. Her knees gave out. Luckily his hands were on her and he pulled her up hard against him. Oh sweet geezus, that felt good. She breathed in his scent, deliciously male and citrus-spicy, savoring the feel of his muscular body against hers. And his erection.
God, he’d just articulated one of her most secret fantasies.
A moan slipped out from her lips as he wrapped his arms around her, crushing her breasts to his chest, and kissed her again, this time harder, with forceful tongue and voracious desire. She kissed him back, out of her mind, yes, but damn, he was a good kisser and he tasted good and smelled good and felt so good… God.
The room spun around her. Levi’s hands went to her ass, then lifted her against him. She tried to wrap her legs around him, but the result was a ripping sound from the back of her skirt.
“Shit.”
“Love the tight skirt,” Levi muttered. “But right now it’s in the way.”