Dying to Date(14)

“I added the world’s most decadent brownie to her order.”

“Machiavelli would be proud.”

His lips crashed down onto hers. Smiling against his mouth, Melissa wrapped her arms around his muscled shoulders and gave herself up to the pleasure of his touch. His tongue teased along the seam of her lips, demanding entry even as his hand slid over the curve of her hip. Opening her mouth, she greeted Tarian’s questing tongue with her own eager caresses.

Melissa shifted under him to better fit his body against hers. Even as she moved, she knew she should be thinking about the full office outside her doors. There was work to be done. Meetings to prep for and files to be read. She’d put Tarian off until tomorrow for a reason.

But right now with his hands on her body she couldn’t remember why she hadn’t leapt at any chance to see him again.

Her fingers raked down his back, clawing at cloth when she wanted to feel skin. One of his hands slid up her hose-covered thigh. He was undeterred by her skirt’s hem and merely pushed under it instead.

Not once, in all the years she’d worked, had any man so much as kissed her in this office, let alone engaged in a good old-fashioned make out session. The rational section of her mind demanded she put a stop to this nonsense.

But a far more powerful part of her reveled in Tarian’s attentions. He’d been all she could think about since they’d parted ways yesterday. The man had filled her daylight dreams and consumed her waking thoughts. She’d been counting down the hours till she’d be able to see him.

His hands gripped her thighs, pushing them apart as he shifted more intimately against her. The couch was by no means wide, but Melissa didn’t mind the close contact. When his mouth trailed a burning path down her throat she arched under him, tilting her head back to give him better access.

Her fangs ached to explode from her gums, but she held back. Miss Manners would certainly frown at heavy petting for lunch, and Melissa didn’t even want to imagine what the woman would have to say about biting on a second date.

The knowledge that she had no business lusting after Tarian’s blood didn’t quell the desire. It usually took months to get to the point where she’d be comfortable feeding from a lover. Longer sometimes to convince her partners to accept such an intimate act.

Yet here she was with a man she barely knew, breaking all her rules.

“What is it about you?” she breathed as he cupped her breasts through her dress.

Why did he make her crave things she had no business dreaming about? It was too soon to need him this badly, to lust for his body and his blood in equal measure.

That secret, troublemaking corner of her mind whispered that attraction was always intense between mates. Her father had been unable to think of anything but Abbey once the couple had met.

Melissa shook her head to clear the impossible thought. Whatever Tarian and she were to each other, it was far too early to even contemplate the M word.

Lover, however, was a word she’d be more than happy to consider.

“You really should have come home with me last night,” she whispered in his ear.

“A mistake I’ll regret for a long time to come,” he replied. “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

“Does that mean I have to be a lady?” She reached down to stroke her fingers along the erection straining from his trousers.

His swift inhalation brought a smile to her lips.

“You can be whatever the hell you want to be.”

What if I want to be yours?

She cleared her throat and pushed back the rogue thought. “Right now,” she said, pressing a hand to his chest, “I want to be professional.”

He allowed her to push him off of her, though he arched a brow at her words. “Want?”

Her lips twitched. “Need,” she amended.

Tarian ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Understood. I want it noted I hadn’t intended to seduce you in your rather exposed office.”

“No?”

His boyish smile made an appearance as he righted his jacket. “Hoped is not the same as planned.”

Melissa wiggled her dress back into place and patted her hair. “Do I look like we’ve been doing naughty things?”

“You look perfect,” he replied, reaching out to tuck a curl back into place.

The mixture of lust and tenderness in his eyes would have made her heart race if it still had the ability.

“We could just hang out at my place tomorrow,” she suggested. “I can dazzle you with my cooking skills.”

“You cook?”

She shrugged. “I microwave. And when I have people over who consume food, I am a takeout ordering queen.”

His laughter filled the room, and an inordinate amount of pride filled her that she’d caused such a wonderful sound to emerge.