Early on, Eva had accepted her role as peacemaker and lived it down to her core. She had let it thread into her being and become a part of her. She had learned to squash down her emotions, and the trait had served her well clear through her school years, and especially in her current PR job in the family business. No one handled an overly emotional, in-hot-water celeb like Eva, and because of that her mother was proud of her, for the most part, this latest faux pas notwithstanding. Their “never let them see you sweat” way of living had turned the Ward Group into the go-to PR firm in the city. There was no way she was losing that distinction.
Eva looked down at her hands again and bit into her bottom lip. So what was she doing here now? Why was she going totally against her type and all rational thought? Was it just because she was getting a sexual charge from a ridiculously handsome, dangerously sexy man who infuriated her at every turn?
“You going to make your move, princess, or are you going to keep those wheels up there, spinning, until they come off the rails and you come up with an excuse that will cleanly talk you out of this?”
Shit. Aidan’s low rumble sent a shiver through every shiverable part of her body. Eva’s glance shot up as if on command, only to get hit with yet another thrill when she looked into his darkly devilish eyes.
“It wouldn’t take much thinking to come up with a reason, and you know it,” she said.
He stared, his body so close and that damned sexy smell wrapping around her like a spell. She was finding it hard to concentrate. “Of course I do. Shall we list them?” His expression went soft, as well as his voice. Its rich timber vibrated through her, her nipples tightening with his tone. And then Aidan shocked her, leaning in and licking her lightly on the shell of her outer ear.
Sweet, lovely toe curler! Eva’s breath hitched, and her body slumped back. So much for control. She was grateful to have the counter at her back, or she was sure she would have sunk to the floor.
His voice was deep and rich. “One: We’re here to work together, not play.”
Eva felt herself nod, though she wasn’t quite sure in what direction her head went. Circular maybe?
Aidan then leaned down and kissed her lightly on her collarbone. The ripple threading through her belly went right to her core as her eyelids fluttered closed.
“Two: You’re on the rebound, and nothing good can come from a rebound romance.”
She nodded weakly as he eased closer, his body connecting with hers, a strong capable hand wrapping around her waist, holding her securely as he leaned over. His lips moved, taking a trail upward, that sexy scruff of his teasing at her cheek.
“Three: You, my sweet little perfect princess, are not my type. And judging by your past track record, I don’t seem like I’m the man for you either.”
She may have let out a breathy sigh, as once again she shook her head in the affirmative, while his lips took a walk along her collarbone.
Eva swallowed, trying hard to catch her breath as her hand finally unclenched from his shirt and joined the other that was flat on his chest. His hard and steady heartbeat pulsed under her touch.
He paused in his assent and leaned back, looking her in the eye. “So as for being a Right Now Man?” he asked.
Eva stared, taking his hesitance as an implied question. He had put the ball totally in her court. This decision would be on her, insuring no excuses later. He smiled. “Wheels they are a turning. You sure do like to ponder, don’t you, princess? Shall I list more reasons for you to back away?”
Eva shook her head, a definite no this time as she took in that devilish grin, those full lips made to drive a woman wild. Damn, but he was gorgeous. He was gorgeous and sexy and so wrong for her that he’d be absolutely perfect for right now. His list proved that point. He was the perfect get-over-your-last-man man. An ideal way to balance the scales and get her groove back. Hell, Cori was probably somewhere casting a spell at that exact moment, because there were so many rights to this situation it couldn’t be wrong. But still, Eva frowned.
It was too bad it was all the wrongs that niggled at her. The wrongs that poked at her like thorns in her side.
The text she’d received flashed across her mind. It was from one of her old friends, the type of friend that firmly belonged in the Facebook “friend” category—the type that had no real substantive connection with you but felt obligated to tag you in every loosely related group shot, evite you to every party, and send you social-media birthday greetings and invites to play games on your phone in order to achieve free likes. This “friend” was a notorious gossip, so Eva knew the news would be spread all over by the morning if she hadn’t already been the ninth or tenth person to get the text: Kevin had moved on and was now engaged to a hostess at a restaurant they’d frequented many times.
It was just a picture. And if things hadn’t blown up as publically as they had, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But they had and it was. It was a photo of Kevin and some chick, one she remembered as being a hostess at one of their favorite restaurants. She was a cute girl, that couldn’t be denied, but judging from the photo, Eva could plainly see the woman was everything she was not. Petite and proportioned to be a perfect, curvy hourglass of breasts and hips, the type Kevin had pointed out that Eva was not. The photo showed off the hostess’s assets well, framed in a low-cut cropped top and high-waisted skirt that accented her shapely behind to its fullest. In the photo, she was hugging Kevin and smiling wide. It was captioned “save the date for a winter wedding.” Just freaking peachy. It was little more than a week after he had broken it off with her, and Kevin had moved on and proposed to a hostess chick.
And, worse, it seemed Aidan had the unique ability to read her way too well. In the short time they had known each other, he’d taken her well-built walls and ripped them down like cheap drywall. The astonishing swiftness and ease of it scared the hell out of her. She told herself that with him it could be so easy, that she could get what she wanted, go in and get out, but was she only fooling herself? Never in her life had someone gotten to her so quickly or so easily. Never had anyone brought out her passions so, well . . . passionately.
Eva looked into Aidan’s eyes, this time hoping to see some of that flirtiness, that flash of his, but what she got back was infinitely worse. She saw herself in his smoldering challenge and open wanting, and it scared her to death.
This wasn’t right. She should ask him to leave. She needed to stay on task, but more than that she needed to guard her heart. Eva knew from her own family experiences what happened when someone fell too far in love and let it burrow in too deep. It was the type of thing from which you could possibly never recover. She’d seen it happen to her mother, and she’d be damned if she would let it happen to her.
Though Kevin had hurt her to her core, she knew that in time she’d be okay. Her heart, if not her pride, would mend, and that she could live with. But when she looked at Aidan Walker, really looked at him, it was a whole different ball game. With him the rules would have to change. With him staying on task and going with her set list of men, that was the only way.
Eva looked away, shifting her vision from Aidan’s eyes to his shoulders and his chest, then down to that tight, trim waist. She swallowed, imagining how tight his abs probably were. She inwardly moaned and felt her center go liquid as Aidan leaned in, his erection hard and ready against her belly.
All thoughts of tasks and right and wrong fluttered right out of her head. Hey, they were only talking about right now, right now. Right?
Eva let her other hand venture up and weave through his soft, curly hair. Though shorter than when she first saw him, it was still just long enough to pull her fingers through, which she did over and over. Like an inmate given time in the yard after a week of solitary, Eva let herself stroke and feel with abandon. In that moment, she closed her eyes and committed what she could to the memory of her touch in case she didn’t get the opportunity again. She would treat it for what it was—a special treat, only for tonigh
t. And tonight lasted only so long, as the morning would be here quickly enough. With that thought, Eva leaned up and forward and at the same time pulled Aidan’s head down to hers.
His kiss intoxicated her and thoroughly blew her mind.
In just the span of a moment, the time it took for their lips to connect, the warmth of his full lips fusing with hers spread throughout her body as he took his hand and pulled her in even closer. Leaning back and tilting her head, she opened her lips slightly to take a breath, and his tongue slipped smoothly between her lips, connecting perfectly, stroking from the inside out, sending a heavy rush of desire throughout her body. Her pulse pounded, hard and fast. It was as if he had lit a long-burning fuse, and, in her mind’s eye, she could already anticipate the explosion.
Feeling deliciously wicked, Eva’s free hand slipped around Aidan’s waist, and then lower still over the back of his jeans, to see if his backside felt as firm as it looked. It did, and she pulled him in even closer, shifting her head, turning the kiss around so that now she sucked on his tongue—drinking him in, tasting his manly essence, gaining energy and power from it. She moved down and licked at his bottom lip, took it between her own, and gave it a nip. She felt his smile as his hairs tickled her cheek.
“So the kitten likes to bite?” he asked teasingly.
Eva pulled back and looked at him wide-eyed. What was she doing biting the man? Especially a man like him. He could destroy her and her work with a simple flip of the switch or, worse yet, the playing of a tape. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
She watched as his expression changed, as his eyes went from passionate dark fire to calm understanding. “Done what? Bite me, or started to think about it? If that’s the case, then I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Eva shook her head and looked down. “I don’t know, maybe both.”
Aidan let out a sigh. “Reluctantly, I tend to think you’re right.”
Her brows shot up. Wait, she didn’t expect that to be his answer. Wasn’t that his erection still pressed up against her belly? Still she agreed. “Then it’s settled. We’ll chalk this up to a momentary lapse of reason.”
Aidan laughed at that, the vibration sending a shiver throughout her body. Eva swallowed. “We seem to be having quite a few of those. It doesn’t bode well for our working arrangement.”
She shook her head in agreement, noticing but doing nothing about the fact that she still hadn’t let him go, that one hand was firmly cupped around his ass while another enjoyed the feel of his now thoroughly tousled hair.
“No, it doesn’t,” she said as he lazily tilted his hips and swayed. Somehow she found herself mimicking the movement. “Um, I think it would probably be best if we clearly spelled out the terms of our agreement.”
It was Aidan’s turn to nod as his voice simmered, the heat between them palpable. “I’ll agree to anything you put before me right now, Miss Ward.”
Her hand shifted, moved from his hair to his waist, going under his shirt and taking in the ridges of his muscular abs. This meeting of the minds, negotiation, whatever it was, was getting all jumbled, and Eva didn’t know if she was coming or going. Particularly if she was coming, which was so inappropriate on all fronts. Here she was, supposedly pulling away and getting her crap together, but still her hands were doing the opposite of what her head told her to do. She was delighted when she got a small quiver under the pads of her fingers as a response to her delicate roaming along his abs. “Anything?” she asked. “That doesn’t make you the best negotiator.”
He smiled, baring those devastating white teeth, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he gave her a hot look that ran down her body, singeing each spot it touched along the way. “You wouldn’t say that if you could see things from my current point of view.”
With that, he slipped both hands around her waist and lifted her easily onto the kitchen island. The surprising coolness of the hard granite was a shock to her backside. Eva opened her mouth in instinctual protest as Aidan pushed the phone and her purse aside dismissively, but her protest died before it could be uttered. He leaned over her and tilted her head to the side, raining kisses down her neck and collarbone, lowering himself to the swell of her breasts. He slowly came back up to her mouth to drug her once more with his kiss. Bringing his hands up, he eased the wrap top open and caressed one breast through her black lacy bra, using his thumb to make her already hard peaks even harder. Eva heard her breath hitch as his other hand went lower and trailed up her thigh, trying to gain entrance despite the tight skirt. Eva shimmied and widened her legs, easing his way as her pulse picked up speed.
There was a dangerous spark with his first connection as his fingers brushed against her hard center. Unexpectedly, she bit down on his shoulder to tamper down on her excitement as she tightened her thigh muscles. His head shot up.
Her eyes went wide. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you? I won’t do that again.”
His smile brought a rush of warmth to her center. “Relax, kitten.” His voice was a low whisper, soothing her and her racing heart. “It will take a lot more than that to scare me off. Princess, I’m your subject. Use me as you will.”
Eva suddenly wanted to laugh at the same time she wanted to scream. This was probably so easy for him. She wondered how many times he’d done this. Gone on a job, bantered a bit, played with a woman’s emotions, screwed her, and then moved on. She must be out of her mind. Absolutely bonkers.
But the truth was that, right now, she was also mad and angry and hot as hell for him. She wanted him, and he was here, so why shouldn’t she have him?
Just no strings attached.
Now, if she could get her silly racing heart to listen to her rational mind, this might just be the head-clearing experience she needed to move on, so she could think and do what she had to do. The perfect launching off, so to speak, to her new life after Kevin.
Eva sucked in a breath, then she inwardly smiled. Kitten. She liked it. He was one for silly names. And regular normal her would tell him where he could take his kitten, and his princess too, for that matter, and shove them, but right here, right now, on her kitchen counter, she felt like donning a cute little cat mask and letting the kitten in her out to play. Right now, being his kitten was just what she needed. It was far enough away from her own persona to make her forget herself and her obligations for a while. Eva let a breath out and looked up at Aidan, giving her lips a lick. “Kittens don’t just bite, they scratch too.”
It was fun watching his eyes go wide. So much so that she boldly reached for the hem of her top, undid it fully, and let it drop to the counter.
* * *
Aidan’s breath hitched as he watched Eva make the fluid motion of taking her blouse off, arching her back to show off her slim but still shapely figure to its best advantage, as she dropped the garment behind her. Damn, the woman was sexy as hell in a way that he’d not seen in this lifetime, and he’d seen a lot of women. But there she was, propped up on the damned kitchen counter with what he’d dare say was surprise in her eyes. Could it be the first time she had been on this particular kitchen counter, or any counter, for that matter? One could only hope. If so, that Kevin was more of a dope than even he gave him credit for. But no matter, here she was. In front of him. Wide-eyed but fighting to hide it, up on the counter in her black skirt, black heels, black lace bra, and those white pearls, and sporting an “I’m yours, but just for tonight” smile, looking like every wet dream he’d ever had. She made him rock hard at the same time that she scared the shit out of him.
Aidan felt his eyes narrow as he fought to get control of his breathing. The warning bells in his head chimed like it was freaking high mass in Saint Peter’s Square. All the while, an inner duel—his conscience versus his libido—had him practically wanting to blow a time-out whistle. He knew all the reasons to stop. The list was endless. He’d been going over it and adding to it and taking away from it ever since he first laid eyes on her; that’s why he could so easily r
attle reasons off to her. Hell, he still had plenty more, not the least of which was the fact that he was toxic when it came to relationships, and he knew it. Hadn’t he recently almost gotten his entire team killed, the woman he was sleeping with included? If that wasn’t proof of toxic, he didn’t know what was. Yet here he still was, standing before her with a hard-on that wouldn’t quit, ready to sell his soul to the devil for release.
Shit, what an idiot he was. He should have run home after Lou. Hell, he should have left with Lou and the crew, but stupid him, he couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Eva smiled, a teasing light coming to her eyes. “I feel like now maybe I should pull out the camera.”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Well,” she spoke up again, leaning forward and pulling him toward her with the hem of his shirt. “The great Aidan Walker looking lost. What happened to the cocky, confidant man so full of talk not moments ago? Don’t tell me I’ve scared him off.”
He raised a brow. She was enjoying things way too much, or maybe it was just enough. Her teasing smile and sparkling eyes warmed him from the inside out. He reached out and trailed a finger down her neck and along her shoulder, brought it between her breasts and let two fingers slip into her bra and tease her nipple. He watched as her eyes closed and her nostrils flared, while her breathing faltered. His dick throbbed in time with her shallow breaths. Perfection. The ice princess thaws. She was so beautiful he felt he could almost come just by touching her and watching her like this. It was unbelievably satisfying, bringing that beautiful blush to her maple hued cheeks.
Aidan repeated the motion slowly and steadily, his hands moving in an almost natural, instinctual way as if made to move along the curves of her body. With small circles, he caressed her nipple, while his other hand came up to massage her long, elegant neck. Slowly, she eased back into his caress, trusting him to support her, a trust he so far had done nothing to deserve but somehow wanted to earn. Shifting, he leaned down and added a hot breath to her other breast, delighting when she arched into his mouth, the fine lace, a delicate barrier between her hardened nipple and his insistent tongue.
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