Temptation Rising tss-1

by A. C. Arthur

  “Dammit.” She breathed the word. “This can’t happen.”

  “Oh, it can and it will,” was his urgent response.

  Rome was usually a patient lover, albeit an extremely thorough and voracious one. Right now he could think of only one thing. The scent of her arousal was a heavy haze around him, hypnotizing him so that she was all he could envision. There were consequences, he knew, and he thrust that thought to the back of his mind. There was also pleasure, a pleasure he was sure to find deep inside Kalina.

  He was going for his zipper, deftly unleashing his thick shaft, when she pushed against his chest with a force he hadn’t expected. He stumbled back and she used that moment to lift her legs, climb over his desk, feet landing on the opposite side.

  “I said this wasn’t happening.” Her chest heaved as she spoke, lips swollen from his kisses.

  If his erection weren’t so painful, Rome might have laughed at the situation. Never before had he watched a woman literally run from him. And not for one minute did he think it was because she didn’t want him. No, this was about something else. It was about why Kalina Harper was really here in his office.

  “But you want it to happen?”

  “No,” she answered quickly. Too quickly.

  Damn him for being so sexy, for having an appeal that any woman in her right mind would be drawn to. And damn herself for losing control of the situation. This wasn’t like her. She’d never, ever gone this far with a man she’d just met. And on a desk in an office building no less. Okay, she’d berate herself about her momentary lapse of judgment later. For now, she needed to get out of this office and away from this man. Or everything she’d ever worked for would come crashing down around her.

  “Are you sure?” His voice was low, deep as he stood on the other side of his desk, his hand gripping the most delectable arousal she’d ever seen.

  Her gaze rested there, her mouth watering. Shaking her head, she focused once again on his face, on her job. Reaching over to the desk, she picked up her purse, felt safety in the weight of the gun she carried there. Unfortunately, Roman now had a weapon of his own. One he was currently stroking, fingers gliding over the smooth dark tip, enticing her, inviting her.

  “What are you doing here if you don’t want this?” he asked seductively. He knew she was watching him stroke himself, knew some part of her was enjoying it.

  Damn him.

  Kalina cleared her throat. “Like I told you, there was an email I wanted to send before leaving the office. I should have gone back to my desk but I was on this floor dropping off some other paperwork and I thought you were gone for the day. Coming in here seemed more convenient. I guess I was wrong.”

  He didn’t speak, just kept his hot gaze fixed on hers, his hand still stroking his length. Her center clenched, dripped with essence, and practically begged her for release. She stood strong, or as strong as humanly possible under the circumstances.

  “I’m leaving now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “It won’t stop until you slake the need, Kalina.” He was still watching her as he tucked himself back into his pants. “You’re going to want me until you have me.”

  “You’re an arrogant SOB!” She tossed the words at him on instinct. He was exactly that, but he was also technically her boss and the subject of her investigation.

  She really needed to get out of here before she had no job on either front.

  “I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused by entering your office without permission,” she said, turning to walk toward the door.

  The minute her hand was on the knob he spoke again.

  “I could still fire you.”

  She looked over her shoulder, bravado she didn’t really feel sounding in her voice. “And I can bury your ass in the biggest sexual harassment suit of the year. Then where would you be, Mr. Lethal Litigator?”

  He didn’t answer. She knew he wouldn’t. Roman Reynolds liked to play hard, he liked to assess his situation and then go in for the kill. She wasn’t giving him the opportunity to do any of the above. At least not tonight.

  He was right, he could fire her. And she was right, she could sue the pants off him—no pun intended—and his firm. But as she closed the office door behind her she had a feeling neither of them would take those actions.

  Whatever it was that had just happened between them was too big for that.

  * * *

  Kalina had a love–hate relationship with the rain. And the dark. And being alone.

  She sounded like a basket case moving to the window seat in her bedroom looking out into the night with a sigh. Her apartment was empty save for furniture and the few mementos she’d allowed herself to collect. There was no one there to welcome her home, no husband, no significant other. Not even a pet.

  Every day it was the same.

  No, tonight was different.

  She’d gone to the precinct the moment she left the office. It was against protocol, she knew. Her routine needed to remain the same in case anybody was watching her. She should never go to the precinct unless called from undercover by her superior officer. But she needed it, her mind needed the one thing that remained constant in her life. The one thing that mattered. Work.

  Roman Reynolds had touched her. He’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back, wantonly. The heat exchanged between them was unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her life and for the first time in a really long time Kalina was unnerved.

  Her job was to investigate him, to find out what he was doing and bring him down. Not crawl all over his desk, getting hot and steamy with the man. Slapping a palm to her forehead, she allowed another moment of disgust. This wasn’t a pity party she was indulging in this time, it was a reprimand. One she fully deserved from her superior but wouldn’t get because she hadn’t mentioned this new development to him. While she wanted the safety net of work, her mind really wasn’t on the case she needed to build.

  It was on the man.

  He’d caught her trying to break into his computer and instead of tossing her ass out, firing her, and/or pressing charges, he’d kissed her.

  And what a kiss it had been. Words could not describe … it was beyond sensual, more than erotic, a step past intoxicating. She wanted more. Her body had practically begged for it. The strength with which he’d grabbed her leg, wrapping it around him, still had her center pulsating. The warm-shower-and-vibrator-assisted release she’d indulged in the moment she arrived home wasn’t nearly enough.

  How long had it been since she’d felt the touch of a man, welcomed it, in fact? A little more than two years. About a month before the attack. She’d told her shrink that she was okay with it, that the violation that piece of crap had imposed on her wasn’t that big a deal. She’d survived. And yet, she really hadn’t. Because as much as she enjoyed sexual release, the thought of another man touching her intimately had made her sick. The mere consideration over the past few months would send her into a panic attack that should have had her on medication. Had she dared to ever tell anyone about it.

  Instead she’d stocked up on sexual toys and movies that would give her everything she needed without the physical presence of a man. The dark haunting of a memory.

  Until tonight. Until Roman Reynolds.

  * * *

  Her apartment was minutes away from his office, on the top floor of a corner brownstone. The front entrance had a wrought-iron gate and matching screened door that wasn’t locked. The mailbox showed her name and apartment number. The steps leading up to her were unguarded as he walked up slowly, predatorily.

  A black door with a shiny gold number two on it was all that stood between him and her. Placing his palms on the door, Rome rested his forehead against it, inhaling deeply, painfully.

  He wanted her.

  There was no doubt about that and no real concern. Sex was sex and with Rome it was good sex. He’d been told that before, wore the honor like a soldier’
s Purple Heart. But this was different. He was smart enough to know and to admit that this wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t a normal urge. His blood heated, coursed through his veins like a raging stream at the proximity to her.

  Not only had he picked up her scent the moment he’d crossed the threshold to the building, but he sensed her physically as if she now occupied a small space within him. She was here, just beyond this door. He could knock and she’d let him in. They would sleep together, no doubt about it. The sex would be wild, dangerous, alluring, just like their kiss. But what else?

  There was definitely something else. Rome was wise enough to know that as well. It bothered him, this knowledge coupled with uncertainty. It was unusual for him not to know exactly what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it. Taking precautions and planning was a natural part of him, the human him. Second-guessing wasn’t.

  Who was Kalina Harper and why did she have this effect on him? Why was he here, tonight, at her apartment? And why had he been there, that night two years ago, in the alley to save her?

  His mother would say there were no coincidences in life, there was only fate. A destiny mapped out for each and every breathing being. Rome didn’t believe that; he refused to believe in a plan that included someone’s death. His mother’s death. That wasn’t fate. She wasn’t meant to die and neither was his father. They weren’t meant to go, but Rome had allowed it, because he hadn’t been strong enough to stop it.

  Turning away from the door but still standing utterly still in front of it, he vowed he’d never make that mistake again. He would never fail to act when he needed to, would never be caught off guard again.

  He turned to walk away. Kalina Harper wasn’t a part of the plan, she wasn’t what he needed to focus on. Revenge was.

  * * *

  A hot tongue swiped over thick lips as eyes remained trained on the window. She was there, in a thin robe that did nothing to disguise the delectable body he craved. She sat in the windowsill—thank goodness for bay windows—knees pulled to her chest, the silk sliding down to her waist so that her calves and thighs were bared to him. Did she know he was there? Was she giving him a treat?

  His pulse quickened, arousal lengthening along his thigh.

  Her head fell back, resting against the wall, her breasts jutting forward. Her nipples were hard, kissable. He cursed, opened the car door, and stepped out. Rain sprinkled over his face, falling to his arms and hands as he stood paralyzed by her beauty, her sensuality.

  He wanted like never before, craved the touch and taste that had been denied so long ago. At his sides his fists clenched. The time wasn’t right. It wasn’t now. There was more to it than just having her physically. There would be pain and suffering, long coming and well deserved. It was the way it had to be, the way it would be.

  “Soon,” he whispered, still looking up at the window to the second-floor apartment of the corner house.

  Slowly stepping back into the car, water dripping all over the leather upholstery, he started the ignition and drove away. “Very soon.”

  Chapter 4

  Today was a new day.

  Kalina awakened on time, showered and dressed, and was in her car on her way to work before the first tingles of wariness itched along her spine. Stepping out of the vehicle she looked around, assured herself nobody was following her before stepping into the elevator.

  She’d felt this way before, yet today was somehow different. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that this was a job. She was experienced in working undercover. There was no need to feel like something was about to happen that she wasn’t prepared for.

  Whenever she walked into a sting, garbed in her street clothes and black MPD jacket, gun in hand, target in sight, she felt something. Anxiousness. Pride. Adrenaline. She proceeded with caution, always. Knowing she had backup, knowing they were fighting a huge evil—drugs. She took down the bad guys without blinking an eye. She aimed her gun, gave orders, handcuffed and processed criminals for a living. It was an important job, a necessary one. And she was damn good at it.

  So riding an elevator up to a law office shouldn’t make her nervous or have her looking over her shoulder. And yet stepping off the elevator she did just that.

  Focus.

  Walking to her desk, the conversation with herself was like a pep talk of sorts. Despite what had happened yesterday she was back to finish up the job she was hired to do. Ferrell had been adamant yesterday when he called that she find something. And later when she’d stopped by the precinct, he’d been pacing in his office. She remembered thinking he’d looked like some kind of caged animal behind the glass doors moving intently back and forth, muttering to himself as if he were in his own little world. Of course she found that only minutely strange since Jack Ferrell wasn’t exactly the sanest person she knew.

  That could probably be said for a lot of law enforcement agents who’d been on the job for twenty, thirty, sometimes forty years. Something about working on the right side of the law tended to wear on people if they weren’t careful. This job could become all-consuming, making any semblance of a normal life practically impossible. With a cringe she thought she was dangerously close to that very description and she hadn’t even been on the force for ten years yet.

  Still, Ferrell’s behavior registered as strange, but not enough for her to forget the real priority. Dropping her purse into the desk drawer, she booted up her computer, all the while thinking of what else she’d discovered yesterday.

  Roman Reynolds was one hell of a kisser.

  That tidbit of information would not go into her report, but she remembered it just the same.

  He was also hiding something, of that she was beyond sure. Catching her in his office the way he did called for more dire actions than tossing her on the desk for a little touchy-feely. Actually, the touchy-feely was out of line, but she wasn’t going to argue that since she’d been breaking and entering.

  But Roman hadn’t called the police, and he hadn’t fired her. Why?

  Keying in a password to the company’s financial database, she thought about more possibilities. He couldn’t know who she was or why she was really at the firm. Her cover was airtight; Ferrell said his superiors made sure she was a normal working girl when they’d given her the résumé and references for the interview with the firm. She couldn’t be traced back to the DEA, either, since she wasn’t even on their official payroll. So why did Roman look at her as if he knew all her darkest secrets? And why did the look make her want to tell him anything he didn’t know?

  “Good morning!”

  Kalina jumped at the sound of a cheery female voice.

  “Oh,” she said, fingers stilling on the keyboard as she looked up to see a woman she’d seen every day for the past two weeks. “Good morning,”

  “Sorry I startled you,” Melanie Keys said with her customary smile. In her hand she held a Tweety mug that spoke again of cheerfulness.

  A forty-something woman, Melanie was about five foot three with riotous flaming red hair and creamy ivory skin with a parade of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She was a legal secretary. Roman’s secretary.

  There was a small kitchenette on each floor of the firm that housed coffeemakers, a small sink, and all the accoutrements to having a hot morning beverage. Kalina was generally a tea drinker, but each station had tea bags and hot chocolate packets as well. She was on the main floor with the large kitchen, which she assumed Melanie was headed to. Kalina just wasn’t sure why.

  “Coffee??” she said as if reading Kalina’s mind and wiggled her mug.

  The one thing Kalina had learned so far being at the firm was that the employees stuck together in clusters. Everybody seemed to migrate into one clique or another. She was sure that if she worked here on a permanent basis, she’d continue seeking the solitary confines of her cubicle. But since her main goal was to obtain as much information about Roman and his dealings as possible, getting coffee with his secretary was a prime opportunity.


  “Sure,” she said backing away from her desk. “I don’t have my own mug.”

  “It’s okay, they have firm mugs in the cabinets,” Melanie said as they began walking side by side past empty cubicles of co-workers who hadn’t yet made it into the office. “But I suggest you bring your own tomorrow. Just because they load the dishwasher in there doesn’t mean they actually run it, or that it runs well, if you know what I mean.”

  Kalina nodded. “So why aren’t you getting coffee on your floor?” That was a question she just had to get out of the way. She had a feeling that Melanie hadn’t stopped by her desk by chance.

  “Uck, somebody put three packs into the machine. It looks like motor oil and smells strong enough to have me walking in my sleep for the rest of the week. No, thank you.”

  “I see,” Kalina chuckled. “I’m Kalina,” she said since she and Melanie had never formally been introduced.

  “I know. I’m Melanie, but you can call me Mel. Mr. Reynolds had me pull the email we were sent when you started. Each time a new employee starts at the firm, human resources sends out an email introducing them to everyone. Mr. Reynolds said he must have overlooked the one about you. If you ask me he didn’t see it at all, probably didn’t even pull up his emails that day.”

  “Does he do that often? Not check his emails?”

  “No. Normally he’s on top of everything from emails to voicemails to mail that’s come in and is going out. But these last couple of weeks…” Mel trailed off as they approached the front desk. The main reception area was located in the center of the floor, just across from where the elevator doors opened. The kitchen was on the other side so they had to walk through and pass gossip central to get there.