Free The Secretary's Bossman Bargain by Red Garnier

dangerous back then. I grew up in the streets—I kept running away with my father’s workers, looking for adventure.”
    Did he move? She thought he’d grown bigger, harder, nearer. She sensed his arousal, the thundering in his chest almost touching her back. Or was it her heart she heard?
    He lowered his lips and briefly, only a whisper, set his mouth on her neck. A sharp shudder rushed through her. “Now even bodyguards aren’t safe to hire,” he whispered on her skin. “Wealthy people have armored cars and weapons instead.”
    She closed her eyes, the sensations pouring through her. “No-man’s-land?” Just a croak. A peep from a little bird who couldn’t fly, would willingly be lured in by the feline.
    He made a pained sound and stilled his movements on her. “Were you pretending just now when you kissed me?”
    Oh. My. God. They were actually discussing it.
    Her nod was jerky.
    Marcos hesitated, then huskily murmured, “Do you want to…?”
    She sank her teeth into her lower lip to keep from saying something stupid, like yes. “To what?”
    His whisper tumbled down her ear. “You know what.”
    “I don’t know what you mean.” But she did. Oh, dear, she did.
    “Kiss…” Thick and terse, his voice brimmed with passion. “Touch…”
    Shaking like a leaf in a storm, she wiggled free and walked around him, her insides wrenching. “I told you I could pretend just fine.”
    Heading for the couch and plopping down, she surveyed the food once more, but her eyes didn’t see anything.
    Was she supposed to stay strong and resist what her body and heart wanted when she had a chance to have it? Was she supposed to say no and no and no?
    Marcos plunged his hand into his hair. “That was pretense?”
    “Of course.” He sounded so shocked and looked so annoyed she might have even laughed. Instead, her voice grew businesslike. “So you left. And your father stayed here? In this city?”
    For a moment, he released a cynical laugh, and when he gradually recovered, he roughly scraped the back of his hand across his mouth as if he couldn’t stand remembering their kiss. Reluctantly, he nodded. “You’re good, Miss Hollis, I’ll give you that.”
    “What made you leave here?” she asked, blinking.
    One lone eyebrow rose and this time when he laughed, she knew it was at her attempt at conversation.
    “Well.” Propping a shoulder against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest in a seemingly relaxed pose, Marcos exuded a raw, primal power that seemed to take command of the entire room. “Allende Transport was taken. By my father’s…woman. It was either her or me—and he chose her. But I promised myself when I came back…the transport company would be mine.”
    His voice. Sometimes she’d hear it, not the words, just the bass, the accent. Marcos was larger than life, large in every single way, and Virginia could pretend all she wanted but the fact was, she’d be stupid to forget her position. And she had to make sure the car incident would never again be repeated.
    “Marcos, what happened here and in the car was—”
    “Only the beginning.”
    She started. The beginning of what? The end? She ground her molars, fighting for calm. “We were pretending.”
    “Aha.”
    “Yes,” she said, vehemently. “We were.”
    “Right, Miss Hollis. Whatever you say.”
    “You asked me to pretend, that’s what I’m here for. Isn’t it?”
    His silence was so prolonged she felt deafened. Was she here for another reason? A reason other than what he’d requested of her? An intimate, wicked, naughty reason?
    She could tell by the set of his jaw that if he had a hidden agenda, he wouldn’t be admitting to it now.
    Walking off her conflicting emotions, she fixed her attention on the food. The scents of lemon, warm bread, cheeses and fruit teased her nostrils, but her stomach was too constricted for her to summon any appetite. Usually she’d be wolfing down the strawberries, but now she wiped her hands