Skin Deep. Tori Carrington

      “What?” He nearly choked on his own tongue.

      “You heard me. You. Me. Why haven’t we ever dated?”

      “We work together. And besides, I’m not your type.”

      “How do you know?”

      He tried to figure out where she was going with this. “Because you’ve never asked me out.”

      “Ha-ha.”

      He tried to cover her up with his jacket again.

      “Try that one more time and I’m going to sock you.”

      Michael froze, immediately recognizing the threat in her eyes. At some point in the conversation, she’d grown serious. And her expression reflected that. Was it when she’d asked why he’d never asked her out on a date date? He’d hazard a yes. But that was a question he wasn’t up to answering right now. Simply because he was asking himself the same question.

      Another applicant for jerkhood sidled up beside Kyra at the bar. Michael’s fingers tightened on his jacket as he moved to place it across the back of the stool.

      The guy in a too white suit that screamed “northern transplant” tugged on his lapels and grinned suggestively at Kyra. “I’ve just come to a conclusion about something.”

      Kyra turned her attention to the guy and smiled. “Oh?”

      “I’ve decided that I want to come back in my next life as that skirt.”

      Michael clenched his jaw at the obvious come-on. And nearly ground his back teeth to a pulp when he heard Kyra’s easy laughter in response.

      She launched into an explanation about how she came about wearing the tight, shiny, sorry excuse for a skirt to the stranger, opening the door to conversation even further. Michael’s patience thermometer edged up with each second that passed.

      “Mind if I touch it?” the latest jerk said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

      “Oh, sure,” Kyra said.

      Michael snatched the guy’s hand away before he could make contact with the leather. “Think again, moron.”

      “Michael!” Kyra stared at him in open shock.

      “Come on,” he said, planting his jacket over her shoulders along with his hands. When she tried to wriggle away, he tightened his fingers until she gave a little yelp of pain. “We’re getting out of here.”

      “Michael…oh!”

      He practically hauled her off the barstool, telling himself he didn’t care if she broke an ankle when she stumbled in those sexy—ridiculous heels. He didn’t stop until they were standing outside the door, much as they had the night before, but this time for entirely different reasons.

      “I can’t believe you just did that,” Kyra said, her face flushed, sparks lighting her remarkable green eyes.

      “Yeah, well, believe it,” he said, allowing her to shrug out of the jacket now that they were outside in the thick August heat. “It was either that or I was going to hit the guy.” He leaned closer to her. “Don’t tell me you bought that stupid come-on line.”

      She thrust out her chin, putting her face even closer to his. “It was original. And he was nice.”

      “He was a jerk.”

      “Well right now, you’re the only one acting like a—”

      Michael wasn’t sure how, when or why it had happened. One moment he’d been arguing with her, the next his gaze had fastened on her animated mouth, and he’d been filled with such an urgent need to kiss her that he…well, he did.

      And the instant his lips met hers, he knew he was a goner.

      Somehow he’d always known, deep down inside, that kissing Kyra would be a life-altering event. She’d bitten most of her shiny lip gloss away, leaving only the smooth, plump texture of her lips. So full. So warm. So inviting. So damn irresistible.

      Her eyes were wide and full of disbelief. But Michael couldn’t help himself. With a soft groan he thread his fingers through her spiky blond hair and hauled her closer, shuddering when she went boneless against him, her lips parted, her tongue darting out as if in anticipation of his next kiss.

      WOW….

      Kyra opened up under the assault of Michael’s decadent mouth. The equivalent of a Fourth of July fireworks display exploded in her mind, the next burst bigger than the last, until her toes curled up tight in her high-heeled sandals. All she could think was that it was a good thing Michael was holding her up or she would have collapsed to the sidewalk in a puddle of steaming lust.

      Oh, sure, she’d often times wondered what it would be like to kiss Michael. But that was usually when she was in bed by herself late at night, reading her latest favorite romance novel. And if she got a little carried away in the shower from time to time with thoughts of Michael’s grinning face running through her mind, well that was between her and her handheld shower massager.

      But the real thing…wow! The real thing was proving to be better than anything even her favorite romance novelist could have cooked up. As Michael’s tongue plundered her all too willing mouth, she thought each and every one of her cells would fuse into the next until she wasn’t so much a separate entity but rather a physical part of the man kissing her.

      Behind her, the door opened, causing Michael’s shadowy dark eyes to open along with it. A spark of recognition seemed to hit him at the same time it hit her and they jumped away from each other as if burned. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, Kyra thought as she fought to catch her runaway breath. What she’d felt, while held so close to him, had come very close to the sensation of being burned.

      And it wasn’t going away.

      “I can’t believe I just did that,” Michael said, pacing a short distance off, then back again. He stared at her as if looking for some sort of explanation on her face, but all she could do was drag the back of her hand sluggishly against her very-well-kissed lips.