Beneath the Surface by Gracie C. McKeever Read Free Book Online Page A

faux pas in Tabitha’s book, unless you were in Hawaii.
    Rows of jeans, a few pairs of khakis, a couple of pairs of dress slacks, not one suit in sight, everything in monochromatic shades of brown, blue, and black, except for the Hawaiian shirt, of course. And he had the nerve to make fun of her outfit? Maybe he was like Freud and kept his wardrobe simple so that he could concentrate on more important things, like his writing. Who was she to argue with the logic when the man had walked with a seven-figure advance? He must have been doing something right.
    Tabitha tapped her chin with her index finger, contemplating. She hated to gut his wardrobe; this was devastating for most people. Maybe she could update the pieces, take in a shirt, remove cuffs from the pants, work with the functional pieces already occupying a hanger and add on from there. This would take some time. “Are you color blind?” she blurted.
    “As a matter of fact…”
    “Oh! I didn’t mean to…”
    “I’m not.”
    Tabitha stared at him, felt heat rising to her cheeks and knew they were suffused with color. “That was not funny.”
    He chuckled. “It’s not my fault you didn’t give me a chance to finish and jumped to conclusions. Which you seem to do quite a bit, right?”

    27
    Gracie C. McKeever
    “I do not!”
    He gave her a knowing smile but said nothing and Tabitha silently fumed.
    The arrogance of the man. How dare he presume to know her!
    Jump to conclusions? The only thing she wanted to jump was his lovely bones, but damned if she would let him know it any time soo…
    Tabitha turned to him as he moved closer, her gaze straying down to the bulge in his pants, the looseness of the sweats doing precious little to hide the solid evidence of his arousal. Her nipples tightened at the sight, painfully erect and hard against the ribbed lamb’s wool material of her turtleneck, fingers itching to cup him and make him gasp at her audacity, show him that he didn’t know her as well as he thought he did.
    God, what was it about the man that made her want to do shocking things?
    Whatever it was, she was sure she could do without it, could do without him and those generous luscious lips that were slowly making their way towards her as he leaned forward.
    Her eyes drifted to his, noticed the glimmer in the dark indigo depths.
    She closed her eyes against the light, looking directly into his eyes was like looking into the sun, discombobulating and dangerous. She tilted her head to one side, felt him do the same, felt his mouth against hers, a brief touch, just a hint of a kiss, butterfly wings brushing her lips as his hand came up to collar the back of her neck and press her closer.
    A buzzer sounded somewhere in the distance and Tabitha tried to pull away.
    He held her in place though, stroked the base of her neck with his tongue, licked his way up her throat until he reached her earlobe, firmly took the small kernel of flesh between his teeth, then kissed it as if to soothe his bite. Or make a promise. “I’ll be right back.”

    * * * *
Oh, shit! Oh, freaking hell, he was in trouble.
    He’d kissed women before, hell, a lot of women. But he’d never had his world turned so thoroughly upside down by the simple contact of lips to lips. Shit, not even lips to penis had ever made him feel as vulnerable and excited as Tabitha’s full mouth on his, had ever made him anticipate that live-wire tingle through his body when he caught her neck.
    He could still see the colors, a vivid display of light bursting bright in front of his eyes in an exhibition to put a Macy’s Fourth of July celebration to shame, colors intermittently pinwheeling and sparkling like a variegated ring of fire before he was able to see normally again.
    He remembered his reaction to her handshake, but not even that memory had been able to stop his touching her. Like a cat he was nervous, yet too curious not to tempt fate again. He wanted to feel that excruciating energy that was