Free Her Perfect Stranger by Jill Shalvis Page B

away. Fat chance. Her other hand slid around his waist, her fingers slipping beneath his T-shirt to the base of his spine before stroking up his bare back. A simple touch, even an innocent one, but it set him on fire. His hands were busy, too, dancing down her arms to her hips, sliding beneath her shirt to glide along bare, warm skin he couldn't get enough of. Their kiss was long, wet, deep and noisy, but just as he brought his hands around to cup her breasts, one of the bedroom doors behind them opened. Corrine froze and he felt her honor. Silently swearing at the loss of her hot body and their privacy, he put a finger to her lips and quickly backed her into the bathroom. Like two teenagers they stood stock-stil in the dark room, listening. Nothing. "My God," she whispered. "I can't believe I— That you— That we—" "Nearly ate each other up?" "Don't say it." She sounded disgusted, and it made him mad at her all over again. Why, he wondered, did he care about this woman? Why did he care that his teammates were grumbling about her cool and controlled demeanor, that they didn't see the real Corrine as he did? Why did he care that beyond the facade she showed the world, she had the deepest, most soul-wrenching eyes he'd ever seen? "We nearly...again." She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, and her abject misery fueled his growing temper. "You can only have sex with me as a stranger? Is that it?" "We were not having sex!" "So when you were writhing and panting in my arms only a minute ago, tearing at my shirt, whimpering for more, pawing at me, demandingmore... what was that?" She tried to stare him down, but he didn't stare down easily. He could see the wheels turning in her head as she strove for a way to make this okay in her little dream world, where they didn't have this shocking need for each other. "All we did just now was kiss," she said finally, nodding her head as if she could live with that particular fantasy. Time to pop her little bubble. "Honey," he said with a disbelieving laugh, "ifthat was just a kiss, I'll eat my shorts." "It was!" "How is it then that you were two seconds from coming, and I'd barely even touched your breasts?" He didn't need light to see the hot flush of anger on her face. "You're impossible!" she spat. "I really hate that!" "And you're ashamed of what we did. I hate that." They stared at each other, but there was nothing left to say. 7 THE NEXT DAY WAS SPENT in one meeting after another again, and by the end of it, Corrine was mentally drained. It wasn't the work; she loved that. It was Mike. She couldn't forget how he'd looked when he told her he thought she was ashamed of what they'd done. She'd let him believe it, and in doing so, had hurt him. See? This was what happened when one acted irresponsibly. And having sex with a stranger in his hotel room definitely constituted an irresponsible act. But it was the oddest thing... she couldn't truly bring herself to regret what they'd done. Not one moment of it. She sure as hel wasn't ashamed, either. Which meant, for honesty's sake, she had to set the record straight. Then and only then could she get on with life and put her ful concentrationinto this mission. It took a while until she was free of the bureaucracy and red tape she had to dance through all day in her meetings with NASA officials, scientists from no less than five other countries, and a representative for the students' experiments, but finaly she went in search of Mike. Her intentionwas to straighten this out, which in no way explained why her body was humming at just the thought of seeing him again. Nope, she attributed that to hunger. She couldn't find him. She couldn't find any ofher team. As a last resort, she hunted down Ed, one of the administrative assistants. "They're out to dinner," he said. "They?" "Your team." Was that pity in his eyes? It was hard to tel, as he vanished as soon as he'd answered, remindingher that most of the assistants lived in