Corporate Affair by Unknown Read Free Book Online

Kalinda pleaded, knowing she was not exactly in a position to goad him further.
    She would have to use reason and the truth if she wanted to calm him. "I’m not carrying a torch for David Hutton. I’m angry at him for what he did to me two years ago, but I’m not still, in love with him!
    Believe me! I just want a chance to pay him back for treating me so shabbily. It’s called poetic justice!"
    "It’s called being stupid," he retorted, leaning his weight across her chest and gently crushing her breasts beneath the thin covering of the tunic top. With his free hand he lightly stroked the line of her throat. Kalinda felt the slight tremor of response in her body and knew he’d felt it, too.
    "I can assure you that calling me stupid is not a good method of seducing me!"
    His fingers trailed to the unbuttoned collar of the tunic and he smiled crookedly. "Who knows? Perhaps lady executives respond to the more unusual methods!"
    "Let me go, Rand," she ordered forcefully, her eyes narrowed as she looked up at him from the vulnerable position.
    His face softened and she heard the new, coaxing note in his voice. "Honey, can’t you see you’re on the verge of making a gigantic mistake? You’ve said I’m perceptive. Why don’t you pay attention to that perception? Regardless of your motivations, the risks are too great. In addition to being perceptive, I’m also a man. Give me some credit for being able to predict how another man might react in the situation you’re trying to set up?"
    "How would you react?" she whispered, eyes widening with the question. She didn’t know what had made her ask it. Overhead the pines swayed, breaking the path of the sunlight so that it dappled their bodies. Kalinda was violently aware of the warm strength of Rand and the way his maleness seemed a part of their wild surroundings. The clean, musky scent of him reached her nostrils with a tantalizing tang that elicited a response from her body.
    "That’s not easy to answer," he confessed a little roughly, "because I can’t conceive of ever letting you go in the first place."
    "Of course you can," she scoffed bitterly. "I’ll bet you’re an old hand at managing the short-term affair!"
    "If I did find myself in Hutton’s shoes for whatever reason," he went on deliberately, ignoring her provocation, "I doubt I’d meekly sit back and let you have your revenge. If I’d arrived at an isolated mountain resort expecting to rekindle an old romance, I’d make damn sure something did, indeed, get reignited. You’d wind up in my bed, Kalinda, regardless of your intentions."
    "But you’re not David!" she shot back warily.
    "No, I’m not Hutton," he agreed deeply and lowered his head to take her lips with a passion that Kalinda forced herself to admit she’d wanted to taste again. Ever since he’d first exposed her to it last night.
    His mouth moved on hers with mounting desire as his hand slid down the buttons of the tunic,
    unfastening each in turn. When his fingers found her unconfined breasts, Kalinda gasped, the soft, broken moan in her throat stifled by his probing tongue.
    Her own tongue moved instinctively to engage in the small, intimate duel with his and her arms circled him. She raked her nails almost tenderly down the back of his neck and under his collar, delighting once more in the reflexive arching of his body against her.
    "Kalinda, Kalinda," he groaned as he slid his leg between hers. "Give me one night. Just one night. I swear you’ll forget all about him by morning!"
    He reached down to push her legs farther apart, letting his hand trace an erotic pattern against the material of her white pants. She sucked in her bream as he wove the pattern steadily upward along her inner thigh. His mouth began to explore the line of her throat, moving slowly, inevitably toward the hardening peak of her breast.
    "Oh, Rand, Rand," she cried softly, "I shouldn’t let you do this to me. I know I shouldn’t. It's crazy…"
    "Stop worrying