Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [41]
“I knew that,” she insisted, sounding about as convincing as one of the kids trying to talk his way into another cookie.
“Of course you did.”
“It’s…” She tried to remember. The thing had been hanging on a padded silk hanger in her closet since the day she’d bought it. “Long!” Definitely long. She thought.
“What shade?”
“Shade?”
“Ruby red?” he asked, the voice so silky, the eyes intense. “Scarlet? Garnet? Is it the soft blush of a rosebud, or the wickedness of a fierce explosion of fire?”
Oh, God. The man painted pictures with his words. Pictures that formed entire scenarios in her brain.
Annie’s whole body quivered, racing to process the sensations battering every inch of her. Breasts tingling and heavy against her shirt, nipples hard and jutting out in demand, arms shaking with the need to twine them around his neck and draw him to her. Every inch of her was affected.
Beneath the desk, her thighs quivered. The fierce explosion of fire he mentioned had erupted between them and it clawed at her, demanding attention. She was aroused and wet, her sex as aware and ready as if she’d been touched by his hands, rather than only his voice. As crazy as it sounded, if he kept on talking like that, her body was going to explode as unexpectedly as it had during her dreams the night before, just from the sultry sound of his whisper.
“Sean…”
He stared at her, certainty of her reaction washing off him, and for the briefest moment, she thought he was going to act on that certainty. To end the waiting, reach out, take her hand, and tug her across the desk. He’d tear her clothes off, set her on the edge of the desk and step between her shaking thighs. He’d fill her as she hadn’t ever been filled. And then, maybe, they’d both be able to think again.
Instead, he did something even more shocking. He slowly rose from his chair and cleared his throat. “Well, I guess I have all I need.”
To do what? The closet romance-novel reader inside her supplied a sudden, hopeful answer—to ravish me? Right here? Right now?
He didn’t say that. Instead, with a few simple words, he deflated her, confused her.
And completely infuriated her.
“So I suppose we should say goodnight.”
6
SEAN HAD TO GET OUT of here, now, while—as the old movies said—the getting was good. Judging by the flash of anger in Annie’s pretty blue eyes, the “getting” might not be good in a few more moments. Because she looked to be building up a head of steam to tell him off. Call him a tease—or worse.
It was his own fault.
Although he’d intended tonight to be strictly about getting the information he needed, and getting an Annie fix to last him until their trip tomorrow, he’d found himself heading down a very dangerous path with her. One that saw them both veer off the main road of slow, casual friendship they should be on. And completely in sexual desire territory.
What kind of lackwit would ask her questions about what she wore to bed, and how big her bed was?
If he actually planned to do something about it, that’d be one thing. But he didn’t. He’d promised her a third date. And tonight—despite how much he’d like to bend the rules and call it one—didn’t count.
Besides, Sean was enjoying this new relationship, the strangeness of being with a woman without the pressures of expectation. He still didn’t want to rush things. Though, if he didn’t get out of here—now—he was not only going to rush things, he was going to set a new land record for getting a woman naked. Then another one for being inside her before either one of them could even think the words “we shouldn’t,” much less actually say them.
He glanced at his watch, noting now long they’d been talking. It was nearly eleven. They’d been completely lost to time, separated from the world outside. “We should go. It’s getting pretty late. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Staring at him, her eyes widened in shock, Annie collapsed back in her chair.
Don’t. Please don’t. If she said it—if she put the words out there between them, words