Temptation In The Boardroom. Paula Roe

      He slid his hand to her nape and took her mouth then. Hot, possessive and never-ending, it wasn’t like his kiss in the car. It promised carnal, exciting things to come and it made her rational brain shut down.

      He pushed her jacket off her shoulders and threw it over the railing. Dispensed with the buttons on her blouse so expertly it made her wonder what the heck she was doing, thinking she could play in Harrison’s sandbox. By the time he’d undone the last button and bared her to his gaze, her cheeks were scarlet. The look of pure lust that crossed his face sent that thought flying off into the nether.

      “You are so beautiful,” he murmured, absorbing her with his eyes. “I swear to God I thought you were an apparition the night I walked into the office and you were sitting in Tessa’s chair.”

      She bit her lip. Remembered her complete mortification. How shameless she must have looked, her skirt riding up her thighs, her lace stockings on display...

      “Oh, yes.” His gaze was on her face. “I had dreams about those. That and the handcuffs... They did me in.”

      She covered her cheeks with her hands. He shook his head and pulled them away. “It was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen...”

      Her heart beat a wild rhythm in her chest. The decadent, openmouthed kiss he pressed against her lips almost felled her unsteady legs. The thought she could never sit in that chair again without blushing, that this would change everything, crossed her mind as his palms closed over the weight of her breasts and his thumbs slid across her hardened nipples. “Don’t,” he growled in her ear as she stiffened beneath him. “Not tonight. Feel.”

      She obeyed his command, because even in her inexperience, she knew only Harrison could ever make her feel like this. It had been that way from the beginning.

      The pleasure he was lavishing on her as he rolled her nipples between his fingers with both hands unearthed a low moan from her throat. Sharp, urgent need lanced through her, sending her fingers to his biceps to curl into taut, hard male muscle. He rewarded her by sinking his teeth into her shoulder in a gentle bite that promised more was coming. Much more.

      Oh, lord. She was so, so out of her depth.

      His knee nudged her legs apart. She anchored her palms against his chest as he ran his hands up the back of her thighs. She had left the lace stockings off for an entire week after the incident, she’d been so mortified. But habit was habit and she loved feeling feminine. His swift intake of breath when he found the lace edging reverberated through her head. “You’re killing me.”

      He slid an arm under her knees and picked her up. She had a vague memory of him doing that that night on the plane, but she’d been half unconscious then. Now she was fully alert, fully aware of the power caged in his muscular frame. Her heart raced in her chest, slamming against its containing walls. He was insanely strong. She had handed herself over to him to do what he liked. It inspired a feeling of mild panic.

      He nudged the French doors shut behind them and carried her through the dimly lit penthouse and down a dark hallway toward the bedrooms. His was the big master suite at the side of the apartment. Her heart reached up to tattoo itself against her eardrums as he set her down in the middle of the lushly carpeted floor and switched on a lamp. She distracted herself with the jaw-dropping view of Central Park while he stripped off his tie and tugged his shirt collar open with a sense of purpose that made her heart stutter. Digging her toes into the plush carpet, she avoided the urge to turn and run out the door of his very expensive penthouse.

      The deliberate way he moved back toward her almost rattled her poise completely. It must have shown on her face because he stopped in front of her, captured her hand and lavished another of those erotic, tongue-infused kisses to her palm. “Trust me.”

      Everything inside her melted. Her gaze fused with his dark, tormented one. “I do.”

      He curled her fingers around the top button of his shirt. She latched on to the direction like a lifeline, slipping the buttons free with hands that shook slightly but managed the job in a far less efficient process than his had. When she had them undone, he yanked the shirt from his trousers and threw it to the floor. He had the most amazing chest she’d ever seen on a man. She rocked back on her heels to take him in. Hard, muscled, honed by the hours he put in at the gym every week, he was the most perfect example of masculinity she’d ever seen. It was almost intimidating to touch him, but she couldn’t help herself. Her hands moved by instinct, sliding up and over him, wanting to learn every inch with this liberty she’d been given.

      Everything about him was impenetrable, indestructible, except tonight his vulnerability allowed her a way in. It was intoxicating.

      She slid her palms over his nipples. He tensed under her touch but held himself still. Fascinated by how rock hard the hair-roughened peaks were underneath her fingertips, like tiny pebbles, she explored them with the pads of her thumbs.

      He groaned. “More.”

      She wasn’t sure what he meant until he covered her hand with his and slid it down over his trousers. The scalding contact with the hard, thick length of him made the blood roar in her head. Eyes closed, she traced him, learned him. He leaned into her caress, his growl sliding into a velvety moan of approval. It made her feel empowered, emboldened. She stroked him more firmly, pressed her palm against the impressive bulge of him and felt him grow harder beneath her touch.

      His palms returned to her thighs, sliding up the back of them. This time he slipped his fingers beneath the lace and caressed the ultrasensitive skin there with fingers that burned her skin. “These stay on.”

      Frankie forgot her task completely as the raspy timbre of his voice shot through her. He slid his palms higher until he reached her lacy panties. Her hands fell to her sides, her head dropping to his chest as he nudged her legs apart with his knee, moved his fingers beneath the lace and touched her so intimately her back arched in pleasure.

      “Harrison.” His name slid from her lips on a groan of pure pleasure. He repeated the caress again, his fingers sliding against her slick skin. Leisurely at first, he stroked her like he might a cat, caressing her nerve endings. Then he deepened it, intensified it. She let him take her weight as her knees buckled. His voice was a husky demand in her ear asking if she liked it. Commanding her to tell him when she wanted more. She did because this was beyond anything she’d ever experienced, it felt that good.

      His hands left her aching flesh. She wanted to scream greedily that it wasn’t enough, beg for more, because she’d never experienced the type of pleasure he was giving her. But he was disposing with his trousers, intent on another kind of pleasure entirely. He slid off his briefs and kicked them aside. Her mouth went dry, her palms sweaty. She could have expected he’d be big because of his size but his arousal, proud and daunting, kicked her heart into a whole other gear.

      He was as aroused by her as she was by him.

      He pushed her blouse off her shoulders, found the back button of her skirt and undid it. She swallowed hard to inject some saliva into her mouth as her zipper went the way of her button and he nudged the skirt off her hips. Self-consciousness would have overwhelmed her then, as she stood there only in her lacy underwear, if she hadn’t been utterly fascinated by the ruddy color staining his cheekbones. The tortured look was gone. Urgent, compulsive desire was plastered across his face. He was totally and utterly fixated on her, as if he couldn’t believe she was real.

      Her gaze tracked him as he backed up and sat down on the bed. He pulled a foil package from the night table drawer and rolled a condom on his impressive erection. She watched him, finding his beautiful body such a turn-on it was impossible to look away. His gaze lifted to hers when he’d finished, his eyes telling her exactly where she was supposed to be. She moved to mere inches in front of him.

      “In my fantasy you had me in handcuffs.” His hot gaze singed her from head to toe. “But you didn’t need them, you had me totally under your control.”

      Her legs felt as though she’d done a seven-hour shift at Masserias. He reached up, slid