The Elliotts: Mixing Business with Pleasure. Brenda Jackson

she managed to both comfort and challenge him, something no other woman had done.

      “If you don’t come back to my place,” he said, lifting his hand to brush snowflakes from her hair, “I’ll start thinking you can’t resist me.”

      Erika scowled. “You’re so full of yourself. Despite the fact that you’re loaded and entirely too good-looking, you are not all that and a bag of chips.”

      “What’s not to love?” he asked, taunting a response out of her.

      Her face turned serious. “At some point you have to love in order to be lovable.”

      He felt the punch of her statement in his gut.

      “But maybe you just haven’t found the right girl yet,” she said and smiled. “I’ll go to your apartment, but I need to grab a few things first.”

      “You’re going in there in the dark?”

      “It won’t be the first time,” she said and unlocked the door. “Probably won’t be the last.”

      “Wait a minute,” he said to Erika, then turned to the driver. “Can you bring me the flashlight you keep in the glove compartment?” he asked and Carl brought it to him. “Take the car around the block if you need to. We’ll be a few minutes.”

      “We?” she asked, glancing back at Gannon in surprise. “You sure you can handle it?”

      “I haven’t been in your place in a while. I want to see what you’ve done with it.”

      “It’s not bad,” she said, automatically reaching for a light that didn’t turn on. “I got some help from a decorator that contributed to HomeStyle. But you may not get the whole effect since it’s so dark.”

      “That’s okay. I really just wanted to smell it,” he said and inhaled the combined scents of peaches, vanilla and sugar cookies.

      He felt her gaze on him. “Smell it?”

      “Your place always smelled good to me. Sometimes it smelled like cinnamon and apples. Sometimes it smelled like tropical fruit. It always made me want to come in and sit down and stay for a while.”

      “But not too long,” she muttered under her breath. “Candles. You can experience these wonderful scents in your own home with candles.”

      Before he could interject, she went on as she led the way to the kitchen. He wondered if she was part cat with the way she could see in the dark. “Or since you’re filthy rich, you can pay someone else to make your home smell wonderful.” She rustled in a cabinet. “Could you shine the light up here, please?”

      He illuminated the cabinet and watched as she pulled down instant hot chocolate and another box and a bag from one shelf and some kind of liquor from the upper shelf. “We came in for hot chocolate.”

      “And Godiva Liqueur,” she added. “And a couple of apples and toiletries. If I remember correctly, you don’t keep food in your apartment.”

      “I’m never there, so it goes bad. But I have a full bar.”

      “Bet you don’t have Godiva Liqueur,” she said and headed out of the room.

      She was right. He didn’t.

      “Sissy liquor,” she called from down the hall.

      She’d taken the words from his mouth.

      He heard something fall on her bathroom floor. “Oops. Flashlight, please.”

      He hurried down the hall and found her on the floor groping for her toothbrush. She glanced at him and smiled. “Don’t leave home without it.” She stood with an assortment of things cradled in one hand and with her other hand reached for his flashlight. “Need to borrow this for a minute. You just wait here.”

      “Why don’t you let me go with you?”

      “Because,” she said and pulled the flashlight from his hand and left him in the dark.

      “Does this mean you’re getting a sexy negligee to surprise me?”

      “No,” she said, and a minute later the light from the flashlight bobbed toward him, signaling her return. She carried a tote bag along with her purse. “I’m ready now.”

      He wondered what she’d put in her tote. Lord, the woman made him curious about the most mundane things. He took the flashlight and led the way to her door. “If you were stranded on a desert island, what five items would you take?”

      “Cell phone.”

      “Not unless you had satellite coverage.”

      “Like you,” she said.

      He turned abruptly and she walked into his chest. “Are you mocking my wealth?”

      She looked up at him, and because of the darkness he could only see the suggestion of a glint in her eyes. “Yes.”

      Something inside him burst into flame and he hadn’t even a little bit of a desire to snuff it out. Instead he slid his hand through the back of her hair and tilted her chin upward and lowered his mouth to hers.

      Her soft inhalation cranked up the heat. He could taste her excitement on his lips. He rubbed his mouth over hers until she eased open her lips and he could slide his tongue inside. Her mouth hugged his tongue the same way her body would hug him intimately.

      He thrust his tongue in and out of her mouth and felt himself grow hard with the sensual motion, with the heady suggestion of having more of her, of feeling her beneath him, wet, hot and ready ….

      He felt her drag her lips from his, turning her head to the side. “Oh wow,” she whispered, her breath uneven. “I thought you said I would have to beg you to touch me.”

      Gannon forced his sex-muddled mind to clear. “You didn’t? I could have sworn I heard you beg. But I haven’t broken my promise even if you didn’t say anything,” he continued, feeling an odd tension build between them. It was about sex and something deeper, something he couldn’t name.

      She looked up at him, her eyes dark with arousal that ricocheted through him like a wild bullet. “How?”

      He cleared his throat. “We’re at your place, not mine.

      I told you I wouldn’t touch you at my apartment unless you begged.”

      She narrowed her gaze. “Sounds like a technicality. How can I trust you to keep yourself—” She broke off and glanced away. “How can I trust you to keep yourself to yourself at your apartment?”

      “You can trust me,” he said. “I give you my word.” Even if I die from a hard-on that won’t quit, he added silently.

      An hour and a half later they’d eaten a frozen pizza and she was fixing s’mores in his microwave. A fire blazed in the fireplace and he was sinking into his favorite leather chair with a glass of whiskey. One minor adjustment would complete the picture.

      If Erika would strip off her clothes, straddle his lap and kiss him into next week, the evening would be perfect.

      Instead she was bundled in an extra sweatshirt, sipping her doctored hot chocolate and positioned too far away from him. It was only three feet, but Gannon knew it might as well be a mile.

      “I’m glad you talked me into this,” she said, leaning her back against the couch. She lifted her cell phone. “Since I asked my neighbor to give me a call when the power returned, I know it would still be cold and dark at home.”

      “Feeling grateful?” Gannon asked.

      Erika met his gaze and caught his unspoken suggestion.

      She gave a tiny shake of her head. “Yes. I’ll have to bake some brownies for you in a few days.”

      He swallowed a groan. He didn’t want brownies. Why did this woman remind him that he hadn’t had sex in