Blame It on the Bachelor (13 page)

That was when he saw Kylie, dressed in a navy blue pencil skirt, modest white blouse and pearls. She sported a soft-sided leather briefcase and an austere version of her mysterious Swiss bank-vault smile.

“Hi, Dev,” she said. “I’m your new account manager from Sol Trust.”

12

KYLIE LOCKED HER knees so they wouldn’t shake and braced herself for Dev’s reaction. It made her feel better when he fumbled the box he held.

He smelled a little ripe, but he was nothing short of devastating with a couple of days’ worth of growth on his cheeks and chin. His damp T-shirt clung to every inch of hard chest, straining pecs and flat abdomen.

Lightning streaked through her as she remembered exactly how his face had looked between her thighs.

Dev cocked his head and quirked his mouth. “Ha. That’s a good one, Kylie. Tell me another.”

He walked past her, toward the back and then right, carrying the crate. He depressed a handle on a metal door with his elbow then opened it, holding the box one-handed with his knee bracing the underside.

She followed him, her high heels sounding like gunshots on the floor.

Dev disappeared inside what looked like a giant, walk-in refrigerator with floor-to-ceiling shelves. She caught up as he set the box down and distributed the contents onto them. When he turned, Kylie gave him a tight smile.

The door of the big fridge closed behind them automatically.

“I’m not kidding, Dev. I work in the loan department at Sol Trust. I’m your new account manager.”

Dev’s expression said that she worked in hell, as a misery manager, instead. “What happened to Priscilla What’s-Her-Face?”

“My boss? She went out on maternity leave.”

He wiped his filthy hands on the legs of his jeans. Then he pulled a utility knife out of his pocket, flipped the cardboard box over and sliced along the seams before folding it down. “Well, then. I guess you’ll
have
to give me your number now.” He laughed without much mirth.

A tense silence followed. Kylie felt her face flaming, even though she’d begun to shiver in the cold. Dev seemed unbothered by it.

Then he said, “I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have said what I did to you, but my ego was bruised.”

Oh. Wow. Was there anything,
anything
sexier than a man who could apologize when he was wrong? It disarmed her. Just like that, all of her righteous indignation at him evaporated.

“Look,” she muttered, “I’m sorry, too, that we got off on the wrong foot—”

His eyebrows rose along with the rest of him. He still held the knife loosely in his fist as he lounged lazily against the shelves, looking like an outlaw. The bare lightbulb overhead caught the blue highlights in his hair, and emphasized the drama of the growth on his cheeks.

The curve of his lips, sensual to begin with, deepened into something truly sinful. “Oh, I seem to remember that we got off, all right. Off
both
feet.” He laughed softly.

Despite another shiver, Kylie flushed hot with mortification and unwelcome, recurring longing.

Why couldn’t she decide whether she liked or hated this guy? Sorry one minute, sexually harassing her the next. He knocked her completely off balance. And he was probably worse than Jack on so many levels.

She wished she didn’t remember every inch of Dev naked. “We’re going to have to put that behind us, because there’s no other option.”

He retracted the knife’s blade and shoved it into his pocket. Then he folded his arms across his sweaty chest. The grin hadn’t faded. “But I’d so much rather get behind
you
again.”

Images flooded her mind, X-rated ones, followed by remembered sensations. His hands on her hips, holding her in place for him. His hands on her breasts, possessing them. His chest against her spine. Him inside her.

She sucked in a breath. The heat in her cheeks was nothing now, compared to the heat under her prim navy skirt. His audacity stole her words, dried her mouth. She moistened her lips with a tongue that felt like sandpaper. “You’re a bastard,” she said in low tones.

“I know,” he whispered, moving into her space. His eyes crinkled at the corners in an unfairly sexy way. “I’m a dirty bastard to remind you of how much you loved it.”

She shook her head. Her hands itched to slap him, but she held one fisted at her side and the other curled around the strap of her briefcase.

He stepped closer, and she could feel his breath on her face. “Admit it,” he said.

She closed her eyes to block out his face: the knowing dark eyes, the clever mouth, the cheekbones that did unlawful things to her knees.

Felt his fingers trailing along her jaw and into her hair, stroking her ear. Her body, damn it to hell, betrayed her by trembling.

“Admit it,” he said again.

She shook her head. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

So he kissed her. It was an act of sheer sensual aggression, the commandeering of her mouth as his playground. And in spite of knowing full well what he was doing, she couldn’t help but respond to him.

He kissed her to make her open to him, sent his tongue marauding to find hers, to stroke it and gentle it into behaving. There was nothing violent in the kiss, but it was possessive as hell and she hated herself for the tiny moan that escaped her throat.

He made a noise of male satisfaction, pulled away and stroked her cheek. “Yeah,” he said a little raggedly. “I got your number, honey.”

She struggled to pull herself together, but his body heat enveloped her, as did his scent. He wore no leather today, but somehow he still smelled faintly of it under the musk of exertion. “You want me,” he said. “Same as I want you.”

What she
wanted
was to push him away, and at the same time, she wanted to yank up his shirt and lay her cheek against his chest. Climb him like a tree.

She felt like a crazy woman. She
was
a crazy woman. She should never have been in a closet with this guy to begin with, and now she was in a
refrigerator
with him?

Sure enough, there were crates of tomatoes and boxes of asparagus, bins of mushrooms and stacks of cheeses. Containers of sour cream stared at her, lined up with mayonnaise and milk.

The sheer incongruity of it almost made her laugh, except the situation wasn’t funny.

She fought for what was left of her breath and made a declaration. “We can’t do this, Dev.”

Since he showed no inclination to move, she put her hands flat on his chest in order to push him out of the way. No dice.

“Why not?” he asked in reasonable tones.

“Because…because…we just can’t. There’s a moral issue at stake.”

He smiled down at her. “Oh, I assure you that everything I want to do to you right now is completely
im
moral.”

Her heart lurched and hopped, behaving like a mutant frog. Or was she confusing her heart with her— Never mind. That hard, hot pulse was
every
where.

“Some of it might even be illegal,” he mused.

“Dev—”

“And impossible. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it.” He waggled his eyebrows, leering at her.

“Okay, really—”

“That pearl necklace of yours has me wanting to add to it, if you know what I mean.”

God help her, she knew exactly what he meant, and more X-rated images flashed before her eyes. A naked Dev straddling her, sliding his cock between her—

“Dev,
stop it!
” She was afraid she might explode; blast off like a female rocket, leaving nothing but her damp, charred panties behind.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? You’re sounding a little strained.”

She glared at him, letting her eyes travel deliberately to his crotch. “Am I? Well, it’s your fault. And you appear to have shoved a cucumber down your shorts, you jerk. You’re no better off than I am.”

He flashed white teeth at her. “Cucumber? More like a giant butternut squash, darlin’.”

She slid away from him and made for the door. “You’re impossible. I’m here on
business.
”

“And like I said, I’m all too ready to give you the business.”

She turned her back to the exit. “Do you ever think about anything besides sex?”

He eyed her as if he were starving and she were a slice of key lime pie. “Not when it comes to you.”

The door was frigid and she pressed against it for relief from the heat of her own body.

“Well, get over it. Seriously. Snap out of it. Because I have a job to do, here, and you’re going to have to help me do it—
with your clothes on.
Mine, too.”

Dev sauntered toward her and instinctively she tried to back up, but had nowhere to go. “Me, I’ve always been a big fan of naked account management.”

“No. No, no, no. No naked account management. Not happening.”

He chuckled and kept coming for her.

“Stop right where you are, or I’ll—” She didn’t know what she’d do. But the threatening tone was good.

“You’ll what, babe?”

She cast about for a sufficiently dire consequence.

“What will you do?” he taunted softly. He stood a foot away, looming over her. “Spontaneously combust?”

Yes.
“Of course not.”

His leer was back—not that it had ever truly gone away.

“Don’t you lay a
finger
on me, or I
swear
I will—”

“Hump my leg?” Dev was openly laughing now, and she didn’t appreciate it one bit.

Game over. “I’m leaving,” she said, feeling wildly around for the door handle.

“No, you’re coming,” Dev told her. Then he leaned over and bit her nipple, right through the white blouse and her bra.

“Ohhh!”

Worse, he took the placket of her shirt in his teeth and ripped open the snap buttons, holding his hands in the air to demonstrate that he
hadn’t
laid a finger on her.

Then, still using his teeth, he tugged down the edge of her bra and captured the other nipple in his mouth, triggering chaos throughout her nervous system.

She leaned weakly against the steel door and gave in to the hot, sucking pleasure. Gave in to that clever mouth and Dev’s utterly stubborn, wily, no-hands seduction.

He gave equal attention to her other breast before making a suggestion that was just short of a command. “You should pull your skirt up, now.”

“I should?”

Dev dropped to his knees in front of her, still keeping his hands idle. “I think it’s a real good idea, unless you want me to chew it off.”

She met his gaze. She shook her head ruefully. He raised a completely corrupt eyebrow and waited her out. Still holding his gaze, she reached for the hem of her skirt and pulled it up, past her knees, and slowly up her thighs.

Dev nodded encouragingly.

She hesitated as she got to the apex.

“C’mon,” he said. “All the way.”

She pulled it to her waist.

And Dev bent forward and slipped his tongue under her thong.

13

KYLIE ALMOST COLLAPSED against the door as Dev touched her there, pressed his face between her legs. Pleasure took over and all conscious thought fled. The sense of the forbidden, the knowledge that discovery could be imminent, only heightened the sensations.