‘You haven’t even heard what it is yet.’
She looked up at him, and at all that his tortured features proclaimed. She didn’t need to hear it. She could read it in his anguished expression. ‘I won’t sleep with you.’
He drew himself up, his eyes narrowing, and she knew she’d guessed right. But still he didn’t let go of her wrist. Instead he tugged her ever so gently towards him. ‘But you already have.’
‘It was a mistake. It should never have happened.’
‘I wish all my mistakes were so satisfying. And you were satisfying—in every way.’
She wrenched her eyes away, turning them up to the sky, a silent entreaty. Oh God, no, don’t tell me that. ‘Look, Maverick, I just think we should forget about it.’
‘That’s my problem,’ he argued, letting his shoes drop to the sand and sliding his hand down her elbow to capture her free hand in his. ‘I can’t forget about it. I can’t forget how you felt next to me, how good you tasted in my mouth and how good it felt to bury myself deep inside you.’
His words, erotically charged, shockingly intimate, brought the memories of that night bubbling up in both her mind and her body in a heated rush, rendering her speechless as muscle after hidden muscle relived the feel of accepting him.
‘And the way I can feel your pulse racing right now,’ he continued, ‘I don’t think you can forget it either.’
‘I’m being harassed on a public beach,’ she protested in barely a breathless whisper that she knew sounded like no protest at all. ‘Of course my pulse is racing!’
‘And I suppose your nipples always peak like that too, when you’re being harassed?’
Only when I’m being harassed by you.
She swallowed back the retort that would have told him far too much. Shame at her body’s unavoidable reaction to him burned her cheeks. There was no point denying the truth.
‘You want me,’ he continued, leisurely running his hands up her arms in a heated caress. ‘And, God knows, I want you. Why should we deny ourselves what we know we both want?’
‘Because it’s not that simple.’
‘Why isn’t it that simple? You as good as said there was nobody else.’
‘It’s not that,’ she said truthfully, because she knew it was infinitely worse than that—she simply was someone else. But what reason might Maverick understand?
‘I work for you,’ she argued. ‘And I don’t think that bonking the boss is necessarily a wise career strategy.’
He put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up towards his. ‘Is that what you’re worried about—that you might lose your job when it’s over?’
‘When what’s over? Nothing’s even begun!’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘It’s begun. And it’s not going to go away all by itself. Why are you making this so difficult?’
‘I’m trying to be sensible.’
‘No, you’re just being provocative. The more you run, the more I have to chase.’
‘So, how do I get you to stop chasing?’
‘Simple. By letting this thing between us run its course.’
‘Oh, right. I become your mistress for however long, and then what happens? I somehow go back to being PA pure and simple, and you go back to being the boss from hell, and we both pretend it never happened?’
‘Just like it never happened,’ he repeated, ignoring her jibe. ‘But if I don’t get you out of my system I swear I’m going to go mad, and it’s going to be hell trying to work together.’
She believed it. It had been bad enough for a week before they’d made love. Now, knowing what they’d experienced together, and exactly what they’d be missing out on, it would be intolerable. Which was exactly the reason she’d decided to come clean this morning and put an end to the torture.
But leaving wasn’t an option any more.
Did he really believe things could go back to anywhere near normal after having an affair together, after sharing more of the kind of intimacies they’d already enjoyed?
But if he did…
If it were possible…
Maybe there was a chance.
She breathed in, and the smell of beach and sand and sea, and the unmistakable tang of desire, filled her lungs while sultry thoughts invaded her mind.
‘So how long…?’ she started nervously. ‘How long do you think it might take to get me out of your system?’
He gave a careless shrug that belied the glimmer of imminent victory she saw flare to life in his eyes. ‘Two weeks, maybe three.’
‘Wow,’ she said, trying to be light, but knowing it was going to take one heck of a lot longer for her to forget him in a hurry. ‘That long.’