Free Shameless Playboy by Caitlin Crews Page B

The heat
of her skin beneath his palm did not match the coolness in her voice.
                 “You
are such a liar,” he said, his voice low, intent on her heat, her passion. “I
thought we covered this already.”
                 He
could already see them together, entwined, entangled. Her long legs wrapped
around his waist, her breasts in his hands. Her lush mouth wrapped around his
hardness. He wanted to take her where she stood, pull her skirt to her waist,
and feel her soft heat with his hands, his mouth.
                 “Please
do not touch me again, Mr. Wolfe,” she replied. Her brown eyes were direct.
Serious. She reached up and took his larger hand in hers, and pulled it away
from her face. “It is completely inappropriate.”
                 “Grace
…” He let her move his hand, but he curled his fingers around hers, holding her
fast. Something urgent was overtaking him, almost shaking him. He had never
felt anything like it. “Do you really think I don’t know you want me, too?”
                 They
were so close, the rain pounding down all around them, stranding them beneath a
noisy umbrella—the only two people in the world. Wolfe Manor, with all of its
howling ghosts and terrible memories, faded away until there was nothing but
the weather, this umbrella and this overly polite, overdressed woman who had
somehow wedged herself under his skin.
                 And
she was dismissing him.
                 She
even smiled, a studiously polite, faintly pitying smile. Lucas had never seen
anything quite like it—and certainly not directed at him. She tugged her
fingers from his grip, and he let her do it.
                 “I
want a great many things that are no good for me,” she told him. Not unkindly,
but with an undercurrent of intensity. “I want to live on nothing but red
velvet cake and dark chocolate. I want to spend my days lolling about on white
sand beaches, reading romance novels and basking in the sun. Who doesn’t?” She
tilted her head slightly, still holding his gaze. “But instead I eat healthily
and I work hard. No one should get everything they want. What kind of person
would they be?”
                 “Me,”
Lucas said. But there was an odd note in his own voice, and it seemed as if the
rain roared in his ears. His mouth crooked to the side. “They would be me.”
                 “Well,”
she said after a long, searing moment. Her voice seemed thicker—or did he only
imagine that? “Life is not about want ,
Mr. Wolfe.”
                 Something
passed between them, electric and alive, dancing in the breath of space between
their bodies and jolting into him. He did not know what to make of it. He only
knew he could not look away.
                 “You
mean your life,” he amended quietly,
as if they stood in the presence of something bigger—something important.
                 “And
in any event,” she continued, squaring her shoulders as if he had not spoken, “I
have a very strict policy against becoming personally involved with coworkers.
I understand you’ve never really worked in an office before—”
                 “If
I kissed you right now,” he said, his eyes trained on hers and the truth he
could see there—the truth that resonated in him no matter what words she threw
out to deny it, “I could make you forget your policies. I could make you forget
your own name.”
                 That
hung there like smoke for a heartbeat, then another, and then, impossibly, she
laughed.
                 At him.
     

  CHAPTER FIVE

 
                 GRACE
thought she sounded on the verge of hysteria—and that was certainly how she
felt, her chest too tight and her skin on fire—but Lucas merely stared down at
her, his beautiful face looking nonplussed and not a little disconcerted. His
hand tightened