Karena let out a nervous chuckle. “Oh, please. Don’t flatter yourself.” Her back hit the wall and he kept right on moving until his body invaded what she needed to be her personal space. Her heart was pounding and she fought to keep her breathing normal. “I’m just trying to decide what’s more important, getting to the bottom of this stolen-picture drama or kneeing you in the balls. What do you think?”
At the end of the day, training and upbringing aside, Sam was still a man. As such, he grimaced at the mere mention of the harm she threatened to his most prized possessions. “First, I’m not the enemy, so there’s no need to run from me,” he said calmly because he didn’t know any other way. “Second, finding out what’s going on with the painting is definitely important but not to the point that you neglect your own personal needs.”
With one more step he was so close her perfume smelled as if it had been sprayed on him instead. She was a lot shorter than him, the top of her head coming to his pectoral muscles. Yet with his continued progress toward her, she’d lifted her chin and tilted her head so that she was staring directly into his eyes.
Sam realized in that moment that he wanted her beneath him, there was no question about it. He’d thought she was sexy the first two times he’d seen her, in a passing kind of way that all men noticed a good-looking woman. When he’d heard her voice on the phone this morning he’d thought, hell, maybe his chance at getting close to her was happening. Spending the day in Manhattan waiting like a schoolboy with a crush until it was time for her to get off from work to see her again proved he was going to lose the battle of taking things slow, which was normally his repertoire.
“Besides,” he said, remembering her comment concerning his groin area because all the blood in his head was now rushing to that location, “kneeing me would be a dangerous option. Not to mention painful, and I’m sure it’s not your intent to cause me pain.”
She lifted a brow and he wanted to touch her there, to feel the smooth hairs just above her eyes. Anything to get his hands on her because his fingers itched to touch, his mouth watered to taste. “I’m hungry,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Yes, he was, she thought, and so, quite possibly, was she. His body was pressed hard against hers now, his hands at her sides remaining still only by the control she saw straining at the surface. His body trembled with that control, that need to stay still battling with the desire to reach out and touch.
And, God, she wanted him to touch her. Never had she been weak to the needs of the flesh. With her mind made up about what type of men she would involve herself with and the limitations where relationships were concerned, Karena owned enough sex toys to open her own online sex shop. She used them more than she probably should and often wondered what effect all the electricity moving in and out of her body would have in the long run. Still, she was a woman and a professional who knew how to do what was necessary to survive in the world she’d built for herself.
Unfortunately, right about now she was so starved for the real thing, if Sam touched her she was bound to spontaneously combust, and then what?
Hadn’t she just had this conversation with Monica? He was here for business and business only. She definitely needed to keep that thought in mind.
“Maybe you should leave,” she said finally when the silence was giving her too much think time. “Go home, get yourself some dinner. Call me in the morning.” And she would go home and try to figure out this mess she’d made of her career.
“I want you to join me,” he persisted.
“We don’t always get what we want, Sam.” His name whispered past her lips and she watched as his eyes lowered to her mouth. Instinctively she licked her lips, then regretted the motion as Sam’s head began to lower.
Oh, God, he was going to kiss her. He couldn’t.
He was a breath away, warmth caressing her skin. He shouldn’t.
She braced herself, feeling the sizzling ache deep inside.
He wouldn’t.
Oh, please, let his lips hurry up and touch hers.
When they did, all pleas were futile, all thought vanished and her mind clouded.
The taking was slow, his lips touching lightly against hers as if testing the waters. They touched hers a second time, and she was the one to step closer. Third time was the charm, as his tongue snaked out to meet with hers as if in silent agreement.
Warm, wet, enticingly slow, he kissed her and she kissed him right back.
Her hands clasped around his neck, his around her waist. The kiss deepened until his moans echoed in her ears, her heart thumped in her chest.
As far as kisses went this was, as Deena would say, off the chain.
His technique was slow, persistent and right on the mark as Karena felt sensations rippling fiercely throughout her body. This was breaking another of her rules when it came to men. She didn’t do a lot of kissing. It was too intimate and stirred too many emotions. Like right now, she felt as if she was falling weightlessly into a swirling pit of desire lined with fluffy white clouds designed to make the fall smoother.
Heat licked at her with each stroke of his tongue as she felt his hold on her increasing until he was almost lifting her off the floor. His mouth opened over hers, devouring her lips, strangling her tongue. And still, she felt as if he was holding back, giving her only a taste…of what was to come.
Sam was lost, felt the stranglehold of control that normally surrounded him slipping just a bit. He hadn’t meant to take the kiss this far, only to get a small taste. But she’d opened to him immediately, like a flower waiting to bloom. When she wrapped her arms around him, going higher on her tiptoes to meet his insistent embrace, he almost shivered.
He wasn’t a player by any stretch of the imagination. He’d had only two serious relationships in his entire thirty-one years. Unlike his brother, Cole, his goals where women were concerned were already etched in stone. Love. Marriage. Family. That’s what his parents had and that’s what he wanted. Any woman he took to his bed more than once would have to know that right up front.
Damn, she tasted good and felt good, wrapped in his arms with her body pressed hotly against his own. Desire speared through him with an intensity that had him holding her tighter, tonguing her deeper. His erection throbbed and he lifted her until it was cradled against the flat indentation of her belly.
He could take her right here, right now, and give them both a pleasure they longed for. But that would be crass, not to mention unprofessional. No, he wanted the seductive Ms. Lakefield in his bed for hours on end, not propped up against this wall screaming his name, because that would never be enough.
With those thoughts running rapidly through his mind, Sam pulled away slightly, giving her a second to breathe before nipping her bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth and feeling her tremble once more. One more taste and he swore he was going to let her go. His tongue traced her lip, slid along the line of her teeth. She pulled her head back away from him and he groaned.
“Don’t run, Karena,” he whispered huskily, moving his lips closer to hers, his tongue already extended and waiting for her to join in.
For a split second it appeared she would back down, but then something sparked in her eyes and her tongue once again touched his, twirling around him in a sensual dance that had him moaning. His eyes were just closing once more, his mind slipping into the trance that her taste weaved around him, when his cell phone rang.
He’d planned to ignore it, Karena could tell by the way his arms tightened around her. She couldn’t blame him, this was one helluva kiss. She’d felt it all the way down to the tingle in her toes. Yeah, that probably sounded real corny, but damn if she was lying. Sam Desdune definitely had skills in the kissing department, and if she wasn’t careful she’d be ending her self-induced sexual drought right here in the lobby of her art gallery.
The phone chirped again and she forced herself to pull back. “Answer it,” she said, breathing hard and lifting a hand to wipe the moisture from her lips.
He only stared at her for a moment and she nodded toward the phone that still rang at his waist. Finally he reached for it but still kept her pinned to the wall. “Desdune.”
“I’ve got identification and a passport. Are you near a fax?” Bree said in her efficient way.
“What’s the fax number?” he asked Karena and repeated it to Bree.
“That’s the machine in my office,” Karena said, using this diversion as an opportunity to slip away from him and move in the direction of her office.
Grateful for the space she walked quickly, knowing he was watching her but refusing to bask in the feeling of sexiness that emanated with just one look from him. She wasn’t an amateur in the game of boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy and girl have sex. And after what they’d just done she was thinking more and more that sleeping with Sam Desdune would be just as explosive as the kiss they’d shared. Her business-only stance might have to be readjusted.
Pushing through the door to her office, she saw that whatever he’d asked be faxed to them was already being transmitted through the machine.
“Your office works fast,” Karena quipped.
“It’s Bree, my twin sister. She takes her job about as seriously as you take yours.”
“Smart woman,” she said, lifting the first page from the machine without looking at him.
He was about to say something else when she gasped.
“It’s not him.”
He moved closer to her. “What?”
She handed him the paper, dread filling her eyes, her entire body tense. “That’s not the man I met with in Brazil. It wasn’t Leandro. Monica was right. I got played.”