Love Handles (23 page)

“Good,” he said. “But what about today? You should stay off of it.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you control freak.” He took her arm. “Lean on me. If you act macho you’ll just take longer to heal.”

Damn, he’s big
. She tested his strength by leaning heavily on him, and he didn’t budge. The pain shooting up her heel was better than yesterday morning but still made it hard to walk normally. To her surprise, the two-inch mules her sister had picked out for her relieved some of the pressure. Then she had the dress to go with the shoes, and put the makeup on to go with the dress—

Did he even notice how totally hot she was?

“Something in Ed’s suite?” He bent his knees and took more of her weight on his arm. “Let me guess—an all-you-can-eat donut buffet.”

“You should share these good ideas of yours,” she said. “Don’t be shy.”

They got into the elevator. She pressed the now-accessible button to her grandfather’s floor.

Suddenly she became aware of the location of his hand holding her forearm—right under her left breast. He had to know where his fingers were, yet he wasn’t making any effort to readjust his grip. The elevator door closed and the car rose. She stared straight ahead, not up into the warm brown eyes of her executive vice president who was touching her again.

The old elevator was slow. Her heel throbbed—but not badly enough to stumble sideways as she suddenly did, which forced him to put his arm around her waist and pull her closer.

His body tensed, his hand opening along the curve of her waist, showing her he’d come to the same conclusion. She kept reliving how he had almost kissed her on the front porch of his mother’s house, the way his knee pushed between her legs when he pinned her against the door, and decided that dealing with this issue immediately was of professional value to both of them.

She reached forward and pressed the emergency stop button, freezing them between floors. “Liam—”

And then he was there. Trapping her face with his free hand, he dropped his head and covered her mouth with his, hard and fast. Just as her veins flooded with heat, he broke the kiss and his hold on her and stepped away.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He looked furious, scowling at her and shaking his head like it was her fault.

Scowling back, she moved right up to him until her breasts brushed against his chest, slid her hand around the back of his neck, and pulled him down where she could reach him.

He came to life. His mouth opened over hers in a deep, angry kiss, and she stretched up against him, reveled in the feel of his hands in the valley of her back, the way he held her hips against his while his tongue slipped between her teeth and tangled with hers. His hands couldn’t stay still; they slid up her ribs and up the sides of her breasts and down her spine and under the swell of her ass, all while his mouth devoured her. She forgot about everything but his touch.

He released her again, or maybe she pulled away to breathe. Her back thumped against the wall of the elevator, and they stared at each other, breathing heavily, open-mouthed and shocked.

In a rush, they came together again. After a long, deep kiss, he trailed his lips along her jaw and licked the curve of her ear.

A flare of heat made her gasp. Her knees weakened.

“Bev—”

“Don’t—say it—”

They rotated, and she was the one pinning him against the wall, running her hands up his chest, measuring and savoring the planes of his body. He looked down at her with a stunned, ecstatic expression on his face, letting her break all the rules by herself until it seemed too much for him. He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up to his mouth.

The elevator bell rang, but Bev tilted her head and sucked Liam’s tongue, making him groan. His hold on her broke. She slid down his body until the tips of her toes hit the floor. When her heels landed a shock of pain shot through her leg, and she gasped into his mouth.

He tore his lips away. “You’re hurt,” he breathed.

She tried to hide it. Pressed herself against him.

But he gripped her shoulders and pushed her an arm’s length away. “Let me see.” He sank down to the floor and took her foot in his hands. His thumb rubbed the sore spot, just under the heel, while his hair brushed the outside of her bare leg. She was tormented with warring pleasures and pain.

Putting her hand on his shoulder for support, she struggled for air, wiggling her foot for his benefit. “I’m fine—just—forgot about it.”

The high-pitched elevator alarm bell seemed to be getting louder. Soon somebody was going to call for help.

And not the help she needed. She released his shoulder and limped over to the elevator controls to release the car.

“Good idea.” Liam stood up. “Don’t want the attention.” He reached out to take her arm again, but she drew back and held up a hand to stop him. He stared at her, chest heaving, then turned away.

They both began straightening their clothes. Bev didn’t know her own thoughts, let alone his. In seconds, the elevator doors opened, and they stood on opposite sides of the car, not looking at each other. His face was flushed, but blank. She had no idea what to do next. What was he thinking? Casual sex had always been a disaster for her, but what else could this be? They were in a fucking elevator. Literally.

She stepped off the car in a daze, and he followed.

Seeming remarkably calm, he strode down the hall ahead of her. “You were going to show me something?”

She felt flushed. Ashamed of what she’d begun.

She’d known this might happen. He didn’t need to see what she'd done to her grandfather’s suite in person—he’d get the same email as everyone else. She’d just wanted to see his face when he found out she was going to open up an employee gym and lounge for everyone in the building—and had wanted to be alone with him again.

Hanging back to hold the elevator door, she let him walk ahead. “You go see for yourself,” she said. “I need a minute.”

He stopped and turned. Glanced down at her disheveled dress. “Right.”

She backed up into the elevator and pushed the button to close the door between them. Anything to get away from him and think.

“Hold on.” Liam stuck his arm in the door and gazed at her with dark, unblinking eyes. “My place.”

“What?”

“My place. Tonight.”

“Just like that?”

He closed his eyes for a second. “Let’s hope so.”

“What about your sister?”

“She won’t be invited.”

Her mind was annoyed with his tone, but her body began to thrum in anticipation. “I don’t know where you live.”

He nodded, glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone, and lowered his voice. “It’s a highrise on Beale, at Folsom. My building is the one with the purple guitar sculpture out front. I’ll meet you there, near the sculpture, at seven,” he said. “Can you remember that?”

She turned away, heart racing, and punched the elevator button again. “My memory isn’t the problem.”

Chapter 14

W
hen Bev came into view at the end of the street, casually dressed with a floppy leather purse slung over one shoulder, Liam let out the air he’d been holding in his lungs in a slow, steady exhale.

The breeze whipped her loose hair into the air around her head. The soft, dark waves exaggerated the fine bones of her face, her long neck, the generosity of her mouth. Was she as terrified as she looked? He strode forward to meet her halfway down the block, reached up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear as soon as she was close enough to touch.

She jerked her head away. “We need to talk.”

First he had to shut up the voice in his head that was shouting,
She came!
and get a grip on the torrent of emotions tearing through his body. “Let’s go up to my place.”

“I’m not going inside. We can talk out here.”

Stifling a howl of disappointment, he nodded and turned to walk at her side, determined not to scare her away. He wouldn’t touch her again until they were in his condo. “I know what you’re thinking, believe me,” he said. “I never get personally involved at the office anymore. I even refuse lunch invitations from my own staff. Nobody knows anything about me outside of work they didn’t learn from Ed or old newspaper clippings.”

“This is supposed to impress me?”

“You think that getting involved with me—more involved, because let’s face it, we’ve already crossed the line—is going to screw up your goals at the company. Am I right?”

She stopped and crossed her arms over her chest. The sexy dress was gone. Now she hid herself under a pea-green, shapeless sweater his brother might have picked out for himself. He knew what she was trying to do, but it was hopeless.

I can still imagine you naked, babe.

“You can’t convince me it won’t hurt our working relationship,” she said.

“What working relationship? I’ve been trying to screw you over since you got here.” She cracked a smile, and he took the opportunity to guide her another few feet closer to the entrance. “If anything, scratching this itch will probably help us get along better.”

She started walking again. “Wonderful. You’re comparing me to a rash.”

Maybe he shouldn’t wait until they got upstairs to remind her of her own desires. Cupping the back of her neck, he dipped his head down and brushed his lips against hers, inhaling the scent of her deep into his lungs. “I want you, Bev.” He trailed kisses along her cheekbone to the hollow below her ear and felt her tremble.
Good. Now don’t push her too fast
. He lifted his face a couple inches above hers. “I made dinner.”

She didn’t pull away. “Made? Or bought?”

“I buy the pasta, then boil it all by myself.” He drew back and typed in the keycode at his building’s front door. “You'll like it. Lots of carbs.”

She sighed, annoyed again, and he congratulated himself on distracting her enough to follow him deeper inside. They got onto the elevator, and this time he kept his hands to himself.

The car rose twenty floors, and the doors slid apart.

“You didn’t have to cook.” She didn’t move.

He put his hand in the door and smiled at her. She looked stricken, staring at him. Then she followed him into the carpeted hallway.

April had better not be there. If she hadn’t gone out like he told her to, he’d hack into her blog and decimate her social life. But the condo was quiet and dim and filled with the smells of simmering garlic and tomatoes. He held the door open. “Here we are.”

He heard her breathing the rich cooking smells, exhaling with a distinctly feminine groan of pleasure. He felt a surge of desire so intense he fisted his hands to stop him from pinning her against the front door and taking her right there.

Apparently unaware of his struggle, she studied the furniture. “Of course you have a real Winzler.”

He admired the swell of her breasts, as much of them as he could see under the baggy fabric. “I’m going to burn that sweater.” He hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her hard against him for another kiss.

After a painfully brief kiss, she shoved him away. “We talk. We eat. We do not—” she pointed at his mouth, “—do that.”

For the first time he realized he may have been overconfident. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he leaned back in the doorway to the kitchen and kept his gaze fixed above her neck. “What would you like to drink—wine? A cocktail?”

“Water,” she said. “Just water.”

He sighed. “Make yourself comfortable.” He should have just handed her a glass of wine the moment they walked in the door, and he shouldn’t have kissed her like that. Something about Bev made him needy. Desperate. He readjusted his jeans.

From the kitchen he peeked around the breakfast counter into the living room, drank in the sight of her sitting in a narrow upright chair with her knees pressed together and fear in her eyes, then reached under the sink where he hid his best scotch. God knows his sister would never look for cleaning supplies.

“That’s not water,” she said when he handed her a glass of it.

He took a chair on the opposite side of the room, ten feet away. “Sure it is. Mostly.” He kicked his own back and let the fire singe the fuzzy corners of his brain. “You want to talk, talk. I’m listening.” He stared at her and had the blinding vision of kneeling at her feet with his head between her thighs.

Still sitting primly upright, she frowned at the glass resting on her knee. “If we—do this—everyone will know.”

“If we don’t people will think we did anyway.” He took another gulp. Which was true. If they were going to pay, they might as well play. He looked at Bev over the rim of his glass.

She shifted uneasily in her chair, exaggerating the swell of her hips in the seat. Then she lifted the glass and drank.

Liam’s heart, already racing, began to pound against his ribs. He tossed back the last of the scotch and got to his feet, not breaking eye contact with her. She took another swallow.

“I want you,” he said, walking over to her.

She frowned. “Well, I find you repulsive.”

Her mouth was rosy and glistening from the scotch. He leaned down, grinning, and licked it from one corner to the other while his hand slid around the back of her neck and dug into her thick, bewitching hair. The scotch had tasted good in the glass, but on her skin it was a narcotic. He had intended to guide her to her feet but found himself on his knees, kissing her while she sat on her chair, whimpering, moaning.

He trailed kisses down her neck, nibbling gently until he hit the thick acrylic knit. “I'm taking this off,” he said in her ear, and tucked his fingers under her sweater and teased it up over her ribs.

She giggled then frowned, pushing him away half-heartedly. “It tickles.”

His cock strained against the fly of his jeans. She sounded so young and sweet, but he knew better. He saw through her, how every act of niceness was carefully calculated and planned ahead. How she managed to disarm her enemies with charm. How she always seemed to get exactly what she wanted without ever seeming to fight for it.

“Tell me how you like it.” He dipped his head lower to taste the naked skin of her belly. He licked her navel, and she jerked, sighed. He wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her soft flesh against his face. Her bottom came off the seat of the chair, and she clutched his shoulders for balance.