Sometimes the past won’t stay where it belongs.
Sara’s number one rule of dating: closed off, secretive men need not apply. Years of therapy helped her move past the damage done by her emotionally abusive boyfriend, and she’s ready to date again. Someone funny, laid back, and easy to talk to. All things her coworker Taylor isn’t.
Taylor’s quiet. Too quiet. He operates in permanent stealth mode, and he hides his secrets as well as Sara does. She doesn’t want to be attracted to him, but after a night spent in a hotel room together, trapped by a blizzard, she can’t deny there’s a fire-hot connection between them, waiting to ignite. Their working relationship inches closer and closer to friendship, until one day she gathers her courage and kisses him.
It’s the match Taylor was waiting for.
What starts as a sweet, fumbling friendship quickly becomes a passionate and intense affair. Just when Sara’s starting to feel safe in Taylor’s arms, his secrets come out, and she wonders if she’ll ever be able to stop looking over her shoulder.
She took in the living room as she shrugged out of her coat, then faced him, her nerves still evident, but mixed with something else. A couple of something elses. Desire. Determination. She stepped into him and slid her hands up his chest, tipping her head back. “Taylor?”He splayed his hands across her back, the warm silk of her hair tickling his skin. “Yeah?”
She dropped her gaze to his mouth, flicked it back up to his eyes. “I don’t want to go slow.”
Jesus. He’d known it would happen. He honestly didn’t believe it would be tonight, not even after the kisses they’d shared in her office. He glided a hand up to cup the back of her head. “Sara—”
She rose on her toes and cut off his protest with her mouth. “I want this,” she whispered against his lips. “I don’t want to go slow. Not anymore.”
It’d be easy to take her at her word. But she’d been cautious for so long, he had to be certain. “We can wait. Just dinner, remember?”
She kissed him again, harder, hotter, her tongue darting out to probe at the seam of his lips. Before he could respond, she broke the kiss on a pant. “Now. I want you now. I’m not going to break, so don’t you dare hold back on me.”
The way she was vibrating against him, her mouth teasing and seeking, stretched his control to the limits. If she wanted this, he’d give it to her. He crushed his mouth to hers, her taste ripping through him as he plunged his tongue into her mouth. Hot and tart and quintessentially Sara. He traced her curves with his hands as she met him kiss for kiss, the sinful heat of them clouding his brain. Her body was fantastic. Full, high breasts he wanted to see uncovered. A slightly rounded belly, the curve of her waist flaring out. His hands continued their journey, skimming down to her hips, cupping her ass. She needed to get out of the skirt. He vaguely remembered it hampering her movements earlier, sitting on the edge of her desk. Sliding his hands over the thin material, he found the zipper and drew it down, groaning as her tongue completed a particularly clever maneuver. He was going to take his time. He was greedy, wanting to know what would make her sigh. What would make her scream.
The skirt slipped down her legs, and as soon as she’d stepped out of it, he grabbed her hips and picked her up, bracing her against the wall. She met heat with heat, need with a towering one of her own, her mouth working over his jaw and up to his ear as her fingers plucked at the buttons on his shirt. She lifted her head, lips swollen from his, and smiled darkly. Her hands slid over his shoulders and pushed the shirt down his arms.
He had to touch her. Had to have her skin heating under his hands. Capturing her mouth, feeding off her moans, he stumbled down the hall and into the bedroom, lowering her to the bed. Then he yanked her up, whipped her sweater off, and urged her down again, pinning her to the bed.
She felt so damn good under him. Soft and curvy and warm, the spicy scent of her perfume surrounding him, her body fitting to his in all the right places. Her arms and legs locked around him as her hips tilted up. It shoved him onto the edge, his dick aching, and he had to drop his head to her shoulder to keep from tearing the rest of his clothes off and plunging into her right then.
When she’s not plotting ways to sneak her latest shoe purchase past her partner, Amanda writes sexy, snarky romance and urban fantasy. She likes her heroines smart and unafraid to make mistakes, and her heroes strong enough to take them on.If she’s not writing, she’s reading, drinking hot chocolate, and trying not to destroy her house with her newest DIY project. She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and no, it really doesn’t rain that much. Check out more at her website.
