Free The Billionaire's Bridal Bid by Emily McKay Page B

wind turbine. Did you get it fixed?”
    “Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, rubbing away the signs of exhaustion. “You have to know that if it hadn’t been important—”
    “Yeah. Dylan said there’s some kind of big presentation in D.C.?”
    According to Dylan, Matt had been working on it right up until he’d left to get ready for their date. They’d only had a few hours left of work to do when he’d left the rest of the team at FMJ. Which explained why he hadn’t simply turned off his phone when he started getting calls. He must have known something had gone wrong. And yet he’d sat there, stubbornly refusing to interrupt their date.
    Matt nodded. “Federal grant money, but the brass is expecting a working prototype in D.C. this week. And we had one this morning when I left work, but then some idiot spilled their drink on it and fried the motherboard.Twenty million dollars of federal funding at stake and some idiot spills Red Bull.”
    She laughed. “I hope it wasn’t Dylan. He seemed pretty sure he was going to get fired.”
    “Actually, replacing the motherboard should have been simple, but the mistake revealed a design flaw we hadn’t seen before. That’s the problem we were up all night solving.”
    “So the Red Bull was a good thing?”
    “Sometimes the worst mistakes end up solving more problems than they create.” Again he gave her one of those looks that could have melted the chocolate torte she’d had for dessert. He moved across the seat, closing the distance between them.
    He reached out and brushed his fingers across her brow, nudging her hair out of the way. “Thanks for letting me handle it.”
    She swallowed. His touch was exactly how she’d dreamed it would be. His voice just as smooth and low. His breath just as warm.
    “No problem,” she murmured, her words coming out on a trembling gasp.
    The heated glance he sent her stirred something deep inside, something that had been buried for years and that she thought was lost forever. Or maybe she’d hoped it had been lost forever. Either way, it was back. The faint churning in her stomach, the heat in her veins. The reckless need to shove aside thoughts of responsibility and the future. To simply seize what she wanted.
    Because what she wanted was so close.
    He leaned toward her, just as the limo navigated a sharp turn. The motion of the car rocked her off balance, and suddenly she was pressed against his chest, her palms flattened against his shirt. His heartbeat wasstrong and solid beneath her hand. His chest warm and muscled. He was no longer thin, as he’d been in his early twenties. Now he was all lean muscle. All strength and masculinity.
    Her gaze fixed on the swath of skin at the vee in his shirt. The place where the long column of his neck met his collarbones, the hollow of his throat. Even though the interior of the limo was dimly lit, she could almost see his pulse. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
    Then she looked up and met his eyes and felt the curious sensation of falling into her own past, into the memories she kept locked away, neatly pressed into the hope chest of her heart, where she never looked at them.
    She’d worked so hard to forget the emotions he made her feel. The yearning. The hope. The love. She’d focused so much energy on that, she’d forgotten to bury the memories of their passion.
    Now, she realized what a mistake that was. Because those memories came flooding back and she had no defense against them.
    And then his mouth was on hers, devouring her. She craved his neediness. The full-throttle surge of his passion. Hot and dark. Tinged with all the buried emotions they’d kept hidden. It rose up inside of her, blocking out thought and logic. Blocking out all sense of reason.
    When his mouth was on hers, all she could do was hold on tight as sensation poured through her. He tasted so familiar. Like all the hope and possibility of her youth. Like the freedom of finally being in charge of her