The Boss's Mistletoe Maneuvers by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom Read Free Book Online Page B

quakes. She wasn’t acting or kidding around. Kim had been deadly serious about needing to shun what was going on with this holiday.
    Wanting to ease the pain reflected in her eyes, and needing to fix what he had set in motion, Chaz pressed his mouth to hers before even knowing what had happened. When realization hit, he kept very still with his mouth resting lightly on hers as he sized up what he had just done.
    Her lips were soft, slick and completely, heartbreakingly tender. Way better than anything he could have imagined. Light-years beyond better. But the biggest surprise of all was that he hadn’t gotten close to her out of lust or the lingering effects of the dress and the shoes. It had been an unconscious need to comfort her, protect her.
    He had just glimpsed something sad curled up in McKinley’s core beneath the glamour and efficiency. He had wanted a confession, and instead had stifled that confession with a kiss.
    He didn’t move, draw back or try to explain. Neither did she. His pressure on her lips remained slight but steady, in a connection he had desired from the first time he’d seen her. He supposed she might scream when he let her go, and he completely deserved the slap he’d receive, though in this circumstance, his intentions had been honorable.
    Her lips, her breath, her taste, fascinated him and moved him further, stirring emotions tucked inside. Strands of her blond hair tickled his cheek in a way that suddenly seemed right and completely natural. And since it was too late, anyway, and the damage had already been done, he added more pressure.
    As the illicit kiss deepened, Kim’s lips parted beneath his. She let a sigh escape and didn’t pull away. The slap Chaz expected never came. Their bodies remained motionless, inches apart, as their breath and mouths explored the parameters of this very public forbidden kiss.
    Her breath was enticingly hot, deliciously scented and as seductive as anything imaginable. Reeling from the sensations and spurred on by those seductions, Chaz dared to draw his tongue slowly along the corners of her mouth. As he breathed her in, tasted her lipstick, felt the moistness of her tongue meeting his, she joined him in this unexpected faux pas.
    For a minute, for Chaz, they were no longer employer and employee, or adversaries; only a man and a woman acting on a primal attraction that they had tried unsuccessfully to ignore. Giving in, ruled by feeling, Chaz tossed away all thoughts about the possible consequences of such a public display, and went for broke.

Four
    K im gripped the table with both hands. She heard the sound of her glass tipping, rolling, and couldn’t reach out to stop it from crashing to the floor. She was locked to her new boss in a battle of bodies and mouths and wills. In a bad way. A physical way.
    And it was sublime.
    It was...beyond words.
    With her eyes closed, she could sense Chaz Monroe’s body in relation to hers and knew it was too far away for the flames to be so hot and all-encompassing. After several seconds with her lips plastered to his, her hands left the table as if they had a mind of their own. She was only vaguely aware of curling her fingers into the front of his beautiful blue shirt.
    He tasted like beer, desire and of plans gone south. They weren’t supposed to be doing this, like this. They were enemies of a sort, which made their actions run contrary to everything she had planned. How could she actually like the kiss she was supposed to hold against him if the harassment case idea became necessary? And was that plan necessary now?
    Then why didn’t she run away?
    She hardly thought of anything but Monroe’s mouth, and the result had her floating in a sensory fog. The kiss seemed to go on forever. Some distant part of her mind warned that she had to get out of this situation. She had to get away right that instant. This kiss could prove her downfall as well as his.
    Yet her breasts strained against the red silk, her nipples