Free Reaching First by Mindy Klasky Page A

thought about hiding behind the door, about letting it shield her. But that wasn’t what this night was about. That wasn’t why she’d asked Tyler to come to her.
    She planted her feet against the slight spin of the room, and she opened the door.
    The shock on his face was transparent. His eyes grew huge, and she heard his breath catch in his throat. She saw the muscles of his belly tighten under his T-shirt, saw the flicker as his fingers tensed. “Jesus, Emily,” he breathed.
    She wanted to cover herself. She wanted to fold her hands across her breasts, arch her palms over the nearly exposed juncture at the top of her thighs. Her feet ached to escape into her office; her entire body longed to flee.
    But her brain didn’t want her to go. Her mind wanted her right here, right now, with this man beside her.
    Tyler glided over the threshold. He apparently had the presence of mind do to what she did not—he closed the door and shot the bolt, all in one smooth motion. “I was going to bring you something,” he said. “Stop for flowers. But there wasn’t any place open after midnight on Sunday.”
    “I don’t need your flowers.” That voice didn’t belong to her. Those fingers didn’t belong to her—the ones that were closing around his hand, bring his palm to her chest. To her breast.
    His fingers traced over the camisole’s lace, igniting a song inside her head, a humming that synchronized with the wavering edges of the room. Without thinking, without planning, she arched toward him, wanting to feel more than that one finger, wanting to sense more than that one line of lace.
    And he understood exactly what she needed. Through the satin of the garment, he brushed against her nipple. The rush of sensation lanced through her, from the tight bud that he caressed, through her belly, into the mysterious warmth that throbbed between her legs.
    His lips followed where his palm had gone, suckling through the fabric. His hands spread across her back, supporting her as she yielded to the sensation. Her hair was trapped beneath his fingertips. Her neck arched like a bow.
    He shoved at the cami, pushing it up to her neck. In the same motion, he moved his head to her other breast, tongued the aching nipple that had been ignored for so long. The feeling was sharper, deeper, now that she was no longer protected by the cloth, and a gasp of pleasure forced its way past her lips.
    The sound embarrassed her. She’d never exposed herself to a man this way, never been as explicit about what she wanted, and when and how. Sure, she’d made out with any number of boyfriends—friendly groping on a couch, heated fumbling with zippers, with inconvenient folds of cloth. She wasn’t totally inexperienced with what one person’s hands could do to another. Even with what mouths could do.
    But this was the first time she’d ever offered herself up for a man, the first time she’d ever made herself this vulnerable. And if she didn’t do something now , she was going to lose her nerve completely. She was going to chicken out and cover herself and retreat into the safety she’d preserved all the rest of her life.
    And she didn’t want that.
    Not any more. Not with Tyler.
    She closed her fingers around his wrist, pulling his hand to her side. He looked at her from eyes gone smoky with desire. “No?” he asked, and she felt him start to back off, a look of confusion beginning to twist those incredible lips into a frown.
    “Not here,” she whispered.
    And she led him up the stairs.
    The sweeping staircase looked like something out of a movie set. It was designed for Scarlett O’Hara to stand at the top, for white-clad society girls to pose for their debuts. But Emily didn’t let that stop her as she steadied herself against the classic railing. Taking a deep breath against the vodka-infused waves in the air around her, she led Tyler to her bedroom.  
    She’d lit candles. Nearly a dozen, glinting off the giant mirror suspended over