Free The Dark Side of Desire by Julia James

looked him up on the internet, or saw his photo in the pages of the financial news.
    In this enclosed, contained space, with the anonymous driver invisible behind his smoked glass partition, the outer world beyond the tinted windows was shut out. The world that was full of resentment of her father and responsibility for her grandmother. It all seemed suddenly remote, distant. Instead, there was only the cocooning space of the car’s interior,a world of its own, closed and intimate. Enclosing herself and the man sitting only a metre away from her, his presence so close it was like a physical pressure on her.
    She caught the male scent of him—the faint aroma of brandy, of expensive lightly spiced aftershave. Saw the slight darkening of his jawline, the sable feathering of his hair, the profile of his long dark eyelashes. Everything about him was assailing her senses. She felt faint with it, her breath catching. She clung to the leather strap in the car’s interior, her other hand crushing her clutch bag, her breath held in her lungs, and she could not tear her eyes away from him.
    As if in slow motion, it seemed to her, he turned his head towards her. Looked back at her full-on, meeting her helpless gaze. Helplessly she saw him halt his call in mid-speech. In slow motion he seemed to cut his call, slide his phone back into his jacket pocket, keeping his attention totally, completely on her.
    And she couldn’t tear her eyes away—still couldn’t. She could feel her eyes flaring, her focus dissolving. Her breath was frozen, and his gaze on her made her feel as she had never felt before …
    And then he smiled.
    Not a brief, impersonal one as he had before.
    A slow, sensual smile.
    Personal.
    Intimate.
    It was as if the whole world had slowed down. The car was at a traffic light and the low, powerful throb of the engine seemed to be vibrating all the way through her, accentuating the slow, heavy throb of her own heartbeat. She felt herself dissolving, melting, kept upright only by the physical power of his gaze levelled on her, holding her like a physical grip, refusing to relinquish her.
    He was forcing her to acknowledge him—to acknowledge his power over her. The power of his desire for her …
    Of hers for him …
    Because that was what it was—she knew it, accepted it. Whatever she might think of this man, she knew that he affected her in a way no other man ever had. In a way that she’d had no idea she
could
be affected. She might resist it, resent it, reject it—but she could feel the potent force of it, feel her susceptibility, her vulnerability. Feel herself, her body, the blood in her veins, answering it. Feel it drawing her …
    She sat motionless, her eyes fastened to his, as the low throb of the car’s engine vibrated through her consciousness. She was there, in that captive space, the world beyond nothing but a dim blur of noise and discordant lights. All that existed was her—and the man now reaching out his hand, letting his fingers trail slowly down the curve of her cheek, a smile playing about his mouth.
    And she let him. Let him smile at her knowingly, intimately. Let him reach for her, touch her. Let his fingers draw softly down the satin of her cheek. Felt a thousand nerve-endings sigh like velvet melting.
    Let him curve his hand around the tender nape of her neck, the tips of his fingers shaping her skull. Let him murmur something … she knew not what. Because her gaze was held by his, liquid into liquid, and then his head was bending towards hers, he was taking her mouth with his.
    She could not move. Not a muscle. Not a fibre of her being. Her entire being was in the sensation he was creating, the silk of his mouth laving hers.
    Her eyes closed, helpless, as his kiss deepened. And she yielded to it—to him—for how could she do otherwise? How could she do anything but let this exquisite, sensuous touch go on and on and on? She arched towards him, yearning towards him, and the pressure of his