Free Talking Dirty with the CEO by Jackie Ashenden Page B

out. But had that ever been mistake. One mention of the vanity incident and she’d been stammering like an idiot. Then, for some reason, the net had been ultra-slow and she hadn’t been able to download her questions from her cloud storage drive. And then he’d bloody hijacked her damn phone.
    Crap. Crap. Crap.
    Joseph sat opposite her on the soft plush red couch, one arm along the back of it, holding her phone in the other. A relaxed pose. As if he had all the time in the world.
    “Well?” He raised an eyebrow. “What do you think? Do we have a deal?”
    As if she could actually think with him sitting there, looking so damn gorgeous. She’d thought from the pictures she’d unearthed on the net that he wouldn’t be her type, but had she ever been wrong. The pictures hadn’t captured his formidable charisma, the fizzing, buzzing energy that crackled around him like cut electrical wires. The energy that had been so compelling that night outside the bar.
    Christie tried to kick-start her sluggish brain cells. “Your place?”
    “Yeah.” He smiled that incredible smile of his and a few more of her brain cells expired in ecstasy.
    “As in go home with you?”
    “I think that’s what I said, didn’t I?”
    Christie’s mouth dried, a peculiar feeling curling through her body. A weird combination of fear and anticipation and…excitement. She tried to ignore it. “But why your place?”
    Joseph’s gaze turned intent. He fiddled with her phone, turning it over and over in one long-fingered hand. “Would you like a benign, well-intentioned lie or complete honesty?”
    Something about the way he said it made all the air in her immediate vicinity feel very thin. “Um… Maybe honesty,” she said unsteadily.
    His movements stilled. The look in his eyes pinned her to the spot. “Because after the interview, I’m planning on seducing you.”
    The air went from being thin to nonexistent. “W-what?” Damn, bloody stutter.
    He tilted his head. “Too honest? I could go with the well-intentioned lie instead. And that involves me giving you the interview you wanted, and you giving me the explanation that I wanted, then me shaking your hand and letting you leave. Would you prefer that?”
    He had to be messing with her. They’d both been there, done that with each other. Why a repeat?
    “What I prefer,” she snapped, “is the truth.”
    “I told you the truth.”
    “But you didn’t mean it.”
    His eyes widened. “Of course I bloody meant it. Why shouldn’t I?”
    “Come on,” she said, feeling oddly defensive. “The whole reason you even kissed me in the first place was only because you were grateful I noticed your stupid stereo.”
    Surprise crossed his face. “Actually, honey, if you remember, you were the one who kissed me.”
    She flushed. Oh yeah. So she had. “Well…I didn’t mean to.”
    “You didn’t mean to?”
    Christie’s jaw firmed. “No. I didn’t.”
    “Then why did you do it?”
    “Because I wasn’t thinking straight.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, really.”
    “And what about the sex? Was that only because I was grateful you noticed my stupid stereo too?”
    Anger flared from some deep, fragile part of her soul. “Well, wasn’t it?”
    “No. It wasn’t.” His gaze held hers, so intense all the hot, angry words she’d been going to say dried up in her mouth. “The sex afterward was because I wanted you so much I couldn’t stop myself from having you.”
    Something squeezed hard inside her chest. A hope she couldn’t allow herself to have. “I don’t believe you.”
    Joseph bit off a curse, tossing her phone carelessly onto the couch beside him. Then he leaned forward and reached for her, his hand on the back of her head, pulling her to him before she could move. And then the whole world stopped on its axis as his mouth covered hers.
    The kiss stole her breath. Stole her mind. Every thought vanishing from her head.
    Hot, hungry, and so very, very insistent.
    And over way