Kiss Don’t Tell. Avril Tremayne

ball rolling?’

      Starts the ball rolling? Adam swallowed a laugh. She was brazen enough to pay a man for sex but couldn’t actually talk about it without sounding like a prude. Ball rolling? It was kind of adorable.

      ‘Well is it unappealing?’ she asked again, a little impatient now.

      Adam knew exactly what the early stages of arousal felt like, and figured Lane was certainly appealing to something in him, because the half-moon of bra he could see through the slackened opening of her shirt was pushing him into it—and God only knew why, since that bra was the most utilitarian undergarment he’d ever seen on a woman. Maybe seeing Lane even slightly dishevelled was as forceful as seeing another woman butt-naked. Especially coming on top of that kiss earlier, which had been so much hotter than he’d expected it to be.

      ‘I like women who take the initiative,’ he said, and somehow managed to sound like he was talking about the weather. He was going to match her cool for cool if it killed him.

      Lane’s shoulders seemed to slump—yet they didn’t actually move. ‘Then what is it?’ she asked, rebuttoning herself briskly.

      ‘There’s just no need to hurry.’

      ‘But there is,’ Lane burst out, then seemed to catch herself. ‘Look, please understand, I’m not giving you an order, or trying to coerce you, or telling you what you should be doing. This isn’t … isn’t personal.’

      ‘Not personal?’ It was news to him that sex wasn’t personal. He waited, fascinated, for what would come next.

      ‘No. It’s just that I’m giving a presentation on economic indicators in the morning and I therefore need to be in the office early. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to step things up, so I can … um … check … my slide deck … um … before … er … What are you doing?’ Because Adam, one slow step at a time, had come right up to her.

      ‘This,’ he said, and reached out a finger to run the tip of it around the edge of her lips. ‘One of the first things to learn is that you don’t have to do everything all at once.’ He circled his fingertip inwards. ‘Waiting can be extremely … exciting. Lesson … Number … Two.’

      Oh, God, her lips were soft. He moved his finger again, running it down her chin to the top of her collar, dipping it just below the stiff white fabric to rest where her clavicle dipped in the centre, at the base of her neck. He had to pause there because his breathing was becoming erratic. And he was supposed to be the experienced one! His finger still hooked in her shirt, he kissed near one eye, then the other, until her eyes closed, then he softly kissed her eyelids.

      He moved back again, but Lane’s eyes stayed closed. She was leaning forward, lips parted, showing him that he was her guide in this, that she was willing to be led. It was as though that uncomfortable scene at the office had never happened, as though she was giving herself to him, putting her trust in him. It set off a strange feeling inside him. A shivery feeling that he wanted to understand for both their sakes before he went any further. It was something to do with how she could be both tough and soft at the same time.

      No, it was more than that. A surprising jumble of things was making him uneasy.

      She was super smart, but intuitively as well as academically—she’d had him pegged at the office, despite her woeful lack of experience with men on the prowl, making him wonder how she could know what he was doing and yet … and yet not know him.

      She was clearly not a sulker—because here she was, ceding control to him despite the way he’d behaved.

      She was driven to succeed—and yes, Sarah had told him she was like that, but it was startling to see her so absolutely focused on the goal at hand; she’d set aside the embarrassment he’d caused her without going over it endlessly and making him grovel, because she just wanted to move on.

      He had to admit the whole Lane Davis package at that particular moment was pretty damn classy, which made her anything but unappealing. He wanted to touch her, and touch her, and keep touching her, and—

      Stop now! Adam’s brain ordered. But somehow, his finger moved again. Then both his hands were moving. One button … two … a third … a fourth, undone. One more.

      Adam watched the rise and fall of her chest. The plain white cotton bra was bared to his gaze, the hint of her shockingly full breasts visible over the tops of the cups. The freckles meandering down her cleavage were a sweet imperfection on her otherwise perfect skin. His finger couldn’t seem to help sliding along their path. He wanted to kiss them, one by one.

      Danger ahead, he could feel it.

      ***

      Lane’s breath caught as his finger circled each dot in the row of freckles she’d always thought she hated … until now. His touch was so strange—his calloused fingertips like a raspy whisper against her skin. She could feel a spinning sensation inside her, but didn’t know if it was in her head or somewhere else. She wanted to open her eyes, watch what he was doing, learn what he was doing, see his face, but her eyelids felt so heavy. Her arms felt heavy, too. Even her breasts—especially her breasts—felt heavy, the tips so sensitive she wished his questing finger would touch her there and relieve the pressure.

      But he didn’t. His finger dragged upwards, making a slow retreat along the same path, and Lane knew instinctively he would do no more that night. She opened her eyes then, biting down on a sigh of disappointment. Men weren’t supposed to pull away from you when you were making it so easy. Even she knew that.

      Adam’s fingers moved against Lane’s flesh. He was refastening her buttons.

      She sucked in her breath as his hands brushed the tops of her breasts. It was on the tip of her tongue to demand he do what she was paying him for, but the words jammed in her throat. She’d embarrassed herself enough for one night, oozing at him like an overripe Camembert cheese. And she suddenly couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear the thought that she was forcing him to touch her when he clearly didn’t want to.

      ‘Please don’t bother,’ she said. ‘I can do it.’

      She turned her back to him, her own hands moving into action. She was forcing the last button through its opening when Adam’s hands on her shoulders stopped her.

      He turned her around and very deliberately undid the same five buttons. ‘I want to do it,’ he said huskily, and started doing the buttons up again while she stood rigid. ‘Just so you know, at the end of three months, I’m going to know every button of yours intimately. This is just the start.’

      But Lane wasn’t fooled by the sexy voice. The buttoning/unbuttoning was nothing but a lesson in who was the boss. A mechanical lesson, putting her—the student who knew nothing—in her place. A lesson she’d bought and therefore had to value.

      On that basis, she concentrated on not swooning towards him again and tried instead to analyse what it was about the way he smelled, the way his roughened fingertips felt, that made her feel so restless, so … edgy. She came up with nothing. She was clearly going to have to work harder, think more, feel less, divorce her body from her brain, if she was to make these lessons work for her.

      Adam was frowning, his hands sliding up and down her arms as though he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. And then, abruptly, he stepped away, jamming his hands in his pockets.

      ‘I can’t make Sunday,’ he said. ‘If you want to uphold your two-night minimum, you’ll have to reorganize your weekend and meet me on Saturday.’

      Lane said nothing. She was trying to work out why his voice sounded so sexy. It wasn’t as though he was saying anything seductive. It was nothing more than a calendar entry.

      ‘Okay, Lane?’ he asked.

      The way he said her name was slow and husky. Sexy, even when he wasn’t saying anything specifically associated with sex.

      ‘Lane? I’ll come to you, okay?