Dream Wedding(128)

For a heartbeat there was nothing. Just the sensation of his skin against hers. Then it hit. The heat, the need, the hunger, the incredible desire to be closer, to have their mouths forever joined.

He kept the contact light, which drove her crazy. His hands didn’t move. He continued to touch her shoulder and her waist, while a voice in her head screamed for him to put his hands everywhere. Tremors started at her neck and worked their way through her body. Her nipples tightened and ached, while between her legs damp heat made her fear she really was melting from the inside out.

His head tilted slightly so their lips could press together more firmly. She clung to him, afraid he would pull back. Her hands moved from his upper arms to his shoulders, then wrapped around his neck. She couldn’t get close enough. She needed more. Desperately.

“Cassie.” His voice was low, thick and strangled.

She uttered two words she’d never before in her life said to a man.

“Don’t stop.”

He groaned, parted his lips and plunged his tongue inside her mouth.

She welcomed his assault, meeting him with one of her own. They touched and stroked, exploring each other, finding pleasure and heat and madness. She worried a little about her enthusiasm until she realized he was holding on to her just as tightly and that the hand on her waist had dropped to her rear and pulled her hard against him.

Speaking of hard…he was. She could feel the ridge of his need pressing against her belly. She’d never felt Joel’s arousal before. Of course they’d never stood this close or kissed with such passion.

He broke the kiss, but only to press his lips against her cheeks, her jaw, then down her throat. Her breathing came in gasps. She didn’t know how much longer she was going to be able to remain standing.

“Ryan,” she whispered.

“I know,” he answered. “I feel it, too.”

So this was passion, she thought through a fog of desire as he reclaimed her mouth. This was the sensation that sparked the books and songs and poems. It all made sense now. For the past several years she’d thought everyone was lying to her and that this sort of thing didn’t really exist. But it did.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have any right to be experiencing it with this particular man.

She broke the kiss, turned on her heel and ran from the room.



CHAPTER NINE

RYAN LEANED AGAINST the windowsill and closed his eyes. He could still feel the heat of Cassie’s body pressed against his and taste her sweetness on his tongue. A tremor ripped through him. It didn’t matter that he was fifteen different kinds of bastard, the wanting inside of him was the most powerful force he’d ever experienced.

The sound of her footsteps died away. There was a moment of silence, followed by a door closing on the second floor. She’d run from him. He hated that she’d done that, but he couldn’t blame her. What the hell had he been thinking?

He crossed over to his desk and sank into the leather chair. His breathing still came in gasps and his arousal ached. He had a bad feeling he was going to spend the next several hours in a lot of pain. Still, none of that mattered. The real problem was that he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been feeling and reacting.

The questions of right and wrong, of what was proper and decent hadn’t occurred to him. One minute they’d been talking and the next she’d been so damn close that he couldn’t help himself.

He’d lost control. He, Ryan Lawford, who always played the mating game by the rules, had lost control with a young woman who didn’t understand there was a game in progress. He’d been blindsided by a virtual innocent. Joel had been the only man in her life, so she should have been the one in over her head. Instead he’d been the one to plunge headlong into passion.

Guilt crept through him, seeping into the cells of his body, replacing the wanting with something cold and ugly.

He’d had no right to touch her. She worked for him. He swore again and wondered what had gone wrong. He’d never once flirted with an employee, let alone dated or kissed one. He’d always been able to separate business from pleasure. To be honest, in the past he’d never been tempted to cross the line. The fact that he’d only done it once didn’t make him feel any better. What he’d done was wrong. Cassie not only worked for him, she worked for him in his house. She was completely vulnerable and at his mercy by virtue of her living under the same roof. He owed her respect. He owed her a work environment in which she felt safe. He owed her the right to get through her day without worrying that she was going to be groped at every turn.

But that wasn’t his only sin. There was also the issue of her involvement with Joel. Cassie was practically engaged to the younger man. He, Ryan, had no business trying to seduce her. If she’d been unattached it still would have been wrong, but this made it unforgivable.