Beautiful Stranger by Christina Lauren Read Free Book Online

“And I can’t believe you kept that video.”
    He had the presence of mind to look contrite. “I’m sorry. I really did intend to delete it.” Leaning forward on his elbows, he said, “The thing is, I can’t seem to stop watching it. Watching that is better than a shot of fucking whiskey for my nerves. Better than even the filthiest porn.”
    A low hum spread through my belly and between my legs.
    “And I suspect that you like hearing that. I also suspect that the wild Petal I met at the club is a much larger part of Sara Dillon than you like to think.”
    “She’s not.” I shook my head. “And I can’t do this.”
    “ This ,” he said, “is simply a meal. Sit down with me.”
    I didn’t move.
    “Come on.” He sighed quietly. “You let me fuck you on Saturday, you put my hand beneath your clothes a few minutes ago, and now you won’t join me for lunch. Do you always make a point of being so confusing?”
    “Max.”
    “Sara.”
    I hesitated for a long beat before I slid into the booth beside him, and felt the radiating warmth of his long, solid frame next to me.
    “You look beautiful,” he said.
    I looked down at the simple black dress I wore. My bare legs peeked out below the hem and just above the knees. He ran a finger from my shoulder to my wrist and my bare skin broke out in gooseflesh.
    “I won’t come to your office again like that,” he said, so quietly I had to lean a little closer to hear him. “But I do want to see you again.”
    I shook my head, staring at his long fingers on me. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
    When the waiter stopped at our table, Max’s fingers lingered on my hand, and when I was unable to think of anything to order, he chose meals for both of us.
    “I hope you like prawns,” he said, grinning.
    “I do.” His hand on mine, his leg so closely pressed to my thigh, what did I want? I didn’t want to be continually distracted by a force of energy like Max, but I remained unable to pull out of his orbit. “Sorry, I’m a little distracted.”
    His other hand crossed over his body and slipped below the table. I felt the light brush of fingers along my thigh. “Distracted by me? Or by work?”
    “At the moment, you. But I should be distracted by work.”
    “You have plenty of time for that. I’m going to wager your assistant sent you out to eat.”
    I leaned back to look at him. “Spying?”
    “No need. He looks like a busybody, and you look like you rarely remember to take lunch.” His fingers pushed the hem of my dress up higher, higher, higher to my hip bone. “This all right?” His accent dropped the last bit of his sentence into a whisper.
    It was more than all right, but my heart pounded with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Once again, I was letting him completely take my reason away, hide it in this dark corner where I couldn’t find it.
    “We’re in a restaurant.”
    “I’m aware.” He slipped beneath the soaked lace of my panties and slid his fingers over my clit, dipping down into my wetness. “Good God, Sara. I’d love to spread you on this table and have you for lunch.”
    For a brief pulse, my skin ignited. “You can’t say things like that.”
    “Why? We’re the only people in this place besides that old man in the corner, the waiter, and the cook in the back. No one can hear me.”
    “That isn’t what I meant.”
    “I can’t say things like that because of what it does to you?” he asked.
    I nodded, unable to say anything when he slipped two fingers into me.
    “We have maybe ten minutes before our food comes out. Think I could make you come that fast?”
    It wasn’t as if he didn’t already have two fingers deepinside me, but for some reason when he put it like that, I grew hyperaware of where we were. It was a torment: the knowledge of what I should do in a quiet restaurant like this—sip my tea, eat my lunch—and the desire to do something completely unlike me: have this man finger me where anyone