Temptation's Kiss

by Sandra Brown

“When you drop the Miss Hampson,” she retorted.

  He turned toward Megan expectantly. Josh took his cue. “Terry Bishop, Megan Lambert, local sales manager of WONE.”

  “Mr. Bishop,” she said, smiling graciously and extending her hand. She liked the man immediately. She had expected a wheeler-dealer in the same league as Josh Bennett. Instead this man looked ill at ease in these extravagant surroundings. He'd probably feel more comfortable bent over his drafting board than at a business dinner.

  “Call me Terry, please,” he said. “I've been anxious to meet you. Josh has told me so much about you. I understand you've been friends for a long time.”

  Megan ignored Jo's bemused look as she slid into the booth beside Terry Bishop. “Yes, we met through my husband several years ago.” Josh's looming presence behind her forced her to scoot around the booth and allow him to move in beside her. Had the steel jaws of a trap closed around her, she couldn't have felt more confined.

  Terry Bishop was saying, “Yes, Josh mentioned that. Your husband's early death was tragic.”

  “Yes, it was,” she mumbled, covering her agitation by adjusting her skirt over her knees and placing her purse and shawl between her and Josh's hard thigh. Immediately he picked them up and laid them on the far side of him. Megan shot him a warning look, but he didn't catch it. He was asking Jo what she wanted to drink.

  “And you, Megan? What do you want?”

  I want you to stop pressing your thigh against mine, she wanted to shout. Instead she answered with cold civility, “White wine on the rocks, please.” He kept the hovering cocktail waitress waiting while he momentarily studied her mouth.

  She released her pent-up breath when he turned his head and gave the waitress their order. If only he weren't so close. If only she couldn't smell his tantalizingly spicy cologne. If only he weren't so damned good-looking. If only she couldn't remember how her name had sounded on lips that had kissed her with more passion than she'd ever known. If only she couldn't remember the way his mouth had tasted as it devoured hers.

  Jo launched into an animated tale about a man who had come to her wanting to advertise his recipe for homemade bubble gum on television. His advertising budget was limited to fifty dollars. Terry was still listening avidly when the waitress returned with their drinks. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Bennett?” she crooned as she leaned down, threatening to spill an impressive bosom out of her tight black velvet weskit.

  “I'll let you know,” Josh responded, smiling a slanted grin that Megan knew could melt even the coldest of feminine hearts.

  “Please do.” She turned away with a deliberately seductive motion of her hips beneath the short red plaid skirt.

  Josh chuckled as he took a sip of his scotch and water. “Whatever happened to the hard-to-get approach?”

  “I would think you'd be charmed,” Megan said in a vindictive whisper for his ears alone. Jo and Terry were engrossed in their own conversation.

  Josh set down his glass with a decided thump. For an endless moment, impaling topaz eyes held hers, before sliding down her throat to the deep cleft under the tapering collar of her dress. “That waitress has too much of a good thing. I've always held to the idea that it's quality, not quantity, that counts.”

  Megan's throat constricted painfully. His eyes seemed to penetrate her clothing, stroke the most secret, sensitive places of her body, and reacquaint them with sensations she had long put to rest. Lot's wife had superb strength of character compared to Megan when he raised his eyes to hers once again. She was powerless to look away, even though Jo had launched into another story.

  Josh lay a single finger on her arm as he asked softly, “Did you talk to Atherton today?” But he didn't appear to be as interested in her meeting with her boss as he was in the diamond-studded earlobe he was studying intently. He moved his finger along her arm only enough to stir the fine hairs.

  “Yes,” she said tightly, jerking her arm from beneath his hand.

  “And?”

  “I'm here, aren't I?”

  “I wasn't sure you'd come. You didn't have to.”

  “Oh, I had to or, believe me, I wouldn't be here,” she scoffed. “You knew damn well I'd come, Mr. Bennett. Don't you always get what you want? Don't you do exactly as you please?”

  “No,” he growled under his breath, leaning dangerously close to her. “If I'd done as I pleased four years ago, I'd have carried you off that night, made love to you until we were both senseless, and used force, if necessary, to keep you from marrying James Lambert.”

  Megan's pulse thundered in her ears as she stared wide-eyed into the fierce face only a breath away from hers. The resolution that carved it into a virile mask left no doubt in her mind that he meant every word. “Furthermore, if I was doing what I wanted to at this moment, it wouldn't be engaging in this seemingly polite conversation, but thoroughly kissing that succulent mouth of yours.”

  “Mr. Bennett.”

  “What?” he virtually barked to the interrupting maître d’ as he whipped his head around.

  The man took a startled step backward. “Ex—excuse me, Mr. Bennett. Your table is ready,” he said deferentially.

  To Megan's relief, she realized that Jo and Terry had been laughing together and hadn't noticed their host's flare of temper or the residual tension that crackled between him and Megan as they proceeded to their table.

  During the two-hour meal, Megan was oblivious to the sumptuous food and impeccable service. She was captivated by Josh's forceful personality. He discussed very little business and kept up a lively conversation that covered myriad topics. He was delightful to her and Jo and companionable to Terry. She saw how everyone, her late husband included, could have been blindly attracted to this man, who exuded charm and defined charisma.

  At the end of one exceptionally entertaining anecdote, she found herself laughing with the others. Truly enjoying herself, she was caught completely off guard when Josh turned to face her. In a moment of rare intimacy, a powerful look passed between them. Megan felt just as she had when James first introduced them. All her senses seemed heightened now, as then. Josh ruled them all; he was their captor. It troubled her not a little that she was almost his willing prisoner.

  Then, like a locomotive coming out of a dark tunnel, all the reasons she should hate him came barreling toward her and slammed into her with enormous force. She schooled her features into a stoic mask and took a sip of her cold coffee. Out of the corner of her eye she noted the irritation that fleetingly crossed his face.

  “I'm so glad you'll be consulting with us on this advertising campaign,” Terry Bishop said later, shaking her hand respectfully at the door of the restaurant.

  “I'll be pleased to lend any expertise I can, though I think Jo and Mr. Bennett have handled your account flawlessly.”

  “Oh, so do I,” he hurried to assure her, “but another opinion never hurts.”

  He said good night when the valet brought his car under the awning. Jo's bright yellow compact arrived next. She thanked Josh and waved a gay farewell to Megan. When the limousine hummed to a stop. Josh took Megan's elbow and propelled her toward it.

  “I can get home on my own,” she said, resisting him.

  “Yes, you could, but there's no reason why you should.”

  He practically pushed her into the backseat. When she turned to issue him a polite good night, she was startled to find him entering the car behind her.

  “I … I thought you had another car here.”

  “No. I took a cab from the office.”

  “Oh.”

  He settled himself against the velour cushions, stretched his long legs out in front of him, loosened his tie, and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. It was almost as if they were familiar, a couple, as if they rode together in the backseat of the limousine every day. She sat stiffly beside him, staring straight ahead.

  “Are you cold?” he asked when she wrapped her shawl closer around her. Little did he know that it was a d
efensive gesture. She was far too aware of the length and hardness of his male frame, the width of his chest and shoulders, the tapering slimness of his hips.

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He slid his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer. His thigh pressed against hers. “Sure?” he repeated, murmuring the word in her ear. His hot breath tickled it.

  “Don't,” she said, trying to move away.

  “Why?” His nose brushed across her cheek in a nuzzling gesture.

  “Don't,” she said more strenuously, casting a worried glance at the back of the driver's head. A sheet of soundproof glass separated them. She'd find no rescue there, not that he'd thwart his employer anyway. She wrested an exploring hand from her shoulder. “Stop it, Josh. You've been touching me all night. I don't like it.”

  He laughed deep in his throat. “Yes, you do. That's been your problem all along. You like my touch far too well.”

  “I did … do … not!” she cried. “The reason I'm here now is purely professional. If you're looking for a woman to manhandle, find another one. I'm sure there are many who would enjoy it.”

  “Not nearly as many as there are purported to be.”

  “I couldn't care less. And stop doing that to my neck.” Idle fingers were sliding along its satiny base under her hair. Her efforts to shrug him off were to no avail.

  “What about you, Megan? How's your love life?”

  “I—” She was about to say she didn't have one, but seeing the foolhardiness in that, she amended, “It's satisfactory—not that it's any of your business.”

  “You're lying again, Megan,” he said tauntingly. “I've made it my business to know all about your love life. You've been out with exactly five men in the last three years. Three of them you only went out with once. You didn't spend the night with any of them.”

  A flush of heat swept up from the bodice of her dress to stain her neck and face. A rage so encompassing that it frightened her filled every pore. “You—”

  He silenced her by laying his index finger against her lips. “That kissable mouth shouldn't utter the obscenities you're thinking right now. Besides that, you're home.”

  Before she could gather her wits, he was drawing her out of the backseat. The night air was redolent with the perfume of early summer flowers. A breeze cooled her fevered skin but not the anger boiling inside her. She was so upset that the intricacies of fitting her key in the lock defeated her.

  He reached around her, plucked the key theatrically from her shaking fingers, and unlocked the door easily. In an instant they were inside the dark house and she was being pressed against the wall of the foyer.

  “No!” she gasped before his mouth swooped down on hers. She fought him, pushing against the rock-hard wall of his chest, whipping her head from side to side, eluding the audacious demands of his mouth.

  Manacling both her wrists in one iron fist, he raised her arms over her head and held them there. With the other hand he trapped her jaw to hold her head immobile while his lips moved over hers.

  As much as she wanted to indict him for this insult, she couldn't fault him with brutality. His lips weren't hard and bruising, but soft and persuasive, as he kissed her once, twice, a third time, lingering longer with each touch of his mouth on hers.

  A knot of tension deep inside her began to uncoil and spread to touch the erogenous areas of her body. Unwanted desire that had been biding in the darkest recesses of her being ventured out, testing its freedom, wandering at will.

  When Josh's tongue probed at her lips and then pushed between them to stroke along her teeth, she heard her own soft whimper of hopeless, helpless despair. Fighting it, denying it, was an exercise in futility. She wanted this man. She had always wanted him. And he knew it.

  But even that untenable fact didn't prevent her from indulging in this one forbidden kiss. She'd rebuke herself later. Remorse was always reserved for later. For right now she convinced herself that it was useless to struggle against his superior strength.

  He possessed her mouth jealously. His tongue plundered it until his monarchy was established unquestionably, then he kissed her with leisure. He savored the honeyed crevice of her mouth, dipping his limber tongue deeper each time to catch every sweet taste.

  She stood perfectly still, not daring to participate, yet holding a tight rein on every nerve in her body that cried out for her to join this orgy of sensations. It wasn't until his hand sinuously glided down her neck and throat to begin unhooking the buttons of her bodice that she realized she was precariously close to surrender.

  She dragged her mouth from under his. “No, Josh,” she said, trying to twist away from him, but only succeeding in educating herself to the strength of his arousal. The hard proof of it against her soft middle alarmed her. Or was it her thrilling reaction to it that panicked her? “No!”

  “Megan,” he uttered in a harsh whisper as he finally released the buttons and placed his palm on the lush curve of her breast, “there's a commandment against coveting your friend's wife, and I was guilty as sin of it while you were married. I've wanted you from the first night I saw you, held you, kissed you.”

  His lips found the soft indentation at the base of her throat and planted ardent kisses there. His hand grew bolder, caressing her in ways that stole her breath away and elicited ripples of sensation throughout her body, sensations she hadn't felt since the last time he had touched her this way.

  “I've given you time—time to heal, time to earn your own wings, time to prove yourself. But by God, my generosity just ran out.”

  His declaration, not to mention the fingertips slipping past the lacy border of her bra to test the degree of her own desire, both frightened and aroused her. Acting out of sheer animal instinct for self-preservation, she resisted him. Knowing that if she surrendered, she'd be irrevocably, eternally lost, she closed her heart to its own pleadings. Knowing she could never overcome him physically, she used her only weapon.

  “Am I to add rape to all the other indignities you've heaped on me?”

  His head snapped up as though someone had grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked it hard. His raspy breathing echoed loudly off the walls of the still house as he met her accusing gaze.

  If she had expected contrition, she couldn't have been more wrong. Angrily he brought her arms down and hauled her against him.

  “I want you, and I'll have you. There's no doubt in my mind, or in yours, of the final outcome. The sooner you come around, the better for both of us.”

  His scorching kiss was as much an assault on her senses as on her pride. Then, releasing her abruptly, he said a curt “Good night” and slammed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the entryway feeling utterly bereft.

  Three

  Only a moment after Megan entered her office the next morning, she was storming back through the door, confronting her secretary. “Where did those come from?” she demanded. Her pointing finger could leave no doubt what she was referring to. Arranged in a tall lead-crystal vase on her desk were two dozen roses interspersed with fern and baby's breath. That the roses were her favorite shade, a peachy pink color, made her unaccountably incensed.

  “The roses?” Arlene queried, obviously perplexed by Megan's vexation.

  “Yes, the roses.”

  “They were delivered.”

  “When?”

  “About ten minutes ago. There's a…uh…card.”

  Without another word, Megan closed her office door stridently behind her and marched toward her desk. The vase hadn't come from a florist. It had been bought elsewhere and taken to the florist to arrange the roses in. Crystal of that quality didn't come out of a flower shop.

  She jerked the card from the holder and ripped it open. The singular initial leaped off the card to mock her. It was in his own handwriting. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to have roses delivered to her this early in the morning. Had her kiss been that good? she thought scathingly. Was this paym
ent for services rendered?

  Tempted to crush the card and toss it into the wastepaper basket, she laid it on her desk instead and stared at it as she took a seat in the leather chair. “Thank you for the evening. J.” The words implied so much more than there had been. He could make even a courteous gesture seem tawdry.

  “Damn him,” she cursed under her breath. Unobtrusively, Arlene came in carrying a cup of coffee. Megan barely noticed when it was placed in front of her. She continued to stare at the card and curse the man who had kept sleep at bay all night

  More than she wanted to admit, his kisses and caresses had affected her. Over the past years, while she'd been married to James, and after his death, she'd told herself that the kisses she'd shared with Josh in the gazebo had been embellished by her imagination. That night her emotions had been running high. As a soon-to-be bride, she was feeling loved, desired, beautiful, romantic. No wonder a tall, dark stranger had been able to sweep her off her feet. It was the perfect cliché. But it had only been a fleeting encounter. No big deal.

  Why, then, had she never been able to forget it? No, more than that, why was the memory of it never far from her conscious thought? It lurked on the outskirts of her mind, pouncing out periodically with taunting reminders of her culpability.

  “You don't like Josh, do you?” James had asked her one evening over dinner.

  Her fork had clattered to her plate. She had laughed nervously. “Of course I like him. What made you ask that!”

  “I've hounded you to invite him over for dinner. You've always got an excuse why we can't. Every time he's asked us out, you've found a good reason not to go, but insist that I go alone. It looks to me like you're avoiding him. Why, sweetheart?”

  James had been concerned. He had liked the man he worked for. She had teased him about imagining things and promised to have Joshua Bennett over for dinner at the next opportunity—an opportunity that had never come.

  At the Bennett Agency office Christmas party, which James begged her to attend with him, Josh's eyes had seemed to follow her like those of a hawk. When he asked her to dance, she was obliged to do so or cause James to wonder at her rudeness. Josh had taken her into his arms with the detachment of an employer dancing with an employee's wife, yet she had sensed the tension in his sleek muscles.