Saving the CEO(8)

He waited a beat before he spoke, and in the pause she stared at his lips. Forget nonchalant, as he stuck his tongue out to lick his lips, there was no way not to stare.

“You said rules are meant to be broken.”

There wasn’t even time to gasp before his mouth was on hers—his mouth, tasting of scotch, and his hands. He was everywhere as he pressed her against the brick wall of the building.

He tore his mouth from hers and she did gasp then, greedily sucking in air to fill the vacuum the intense kiss had created. He pressed against the soft flesh of her belly. His desire was unmistakable. “Do you feel that?” he bit out, his voice as raspy as his face—she hadn’t really noticed his five o’clock shadow until it was being rubbed against her cheek. “Do you?”

“Yes,” she breathed. Suspended in a web of white-hot lust, she was unsure if she’d managed enough volume to make herself audible.

“This is what happens to me when I sit at your bar and watch you.”

Holy—

Before she could finish the thought, his mouth was back on hers, his tongue testing the seam of her lips. She opened, and he sucked on her lower lip. When he shoved his tongue into her mouth, she could have sworn she felt it between her legs too.

“I have rules, too,” he whispered, dragging his mouth down her throat until he hit the first button that was done up on her shirt. “And this”—he grabbed the button between his thumb and index finger and pulled until it simply snapped off—“is against them.” With a groan, he lowered his mouth to the exposed flesh.

And there she was, shoving her chest up shamelessly, trying to make it easier for him to access her cleavage with that wicked, wonderful tongue. When the next button popped off and a hand pushed inside her shirt, taking the place of his mouth, she dropped her head back. It was too much work to hold it upright. And when the hand pressed aside the cup of her bra and went straight for her already taut nipple, rolling it between thumb and forefinger, she broke a rule of her own, cursing despite herself. “Oh, shit.”

He laughed, a low, self-satisfied, almost mocking laugh that made her want to punch him. But she feared doing so would make him stop, and right now the most important thing was to make sure that he never, ever stopped.

“We should stop,” he whispered, removing his hand from her shirt.

“Shit.” Once more for good measure—why the hell not? See, once she started, it was all potty mouth all the time.

He took a step back, into the streetlight, and revealed himself to be…completely unaffected. While she, panting and sweaty and breathless, felt like little pieces of her were scattered about the dirty snow at their feet…he was as cool and unruffled as ever. She had heard him groan at one point, hadn’t she? Or—please no—maybe that had actually been her?

He narrowed his eyes at her with a look she could not decode. Voices made their way into her consciousness, and she looked around, disoriented. Had he stopped because someone was coming? Or because she was a disappointment?

“Should I apologize?” he asked, no inflection in his tone. The question was followed by the jingle of the seasonal bells Edward tied to the restaurant’s door.

She shook her head no, not trusting her voice. If she spoke, she might do something as humiliating as beg him to kiss her again.

Sara and Camille—she could make out the voices now—approached, chattering and laughing. Her eyes darted around, searching for an escape, which was ridiculous because it wasn’t like they were doing anything wrong. She looked down at herself. He reached out and closed her coat, tucking one lapel over the other.

The chattering stopped as the women halted and took in the scene. “Cassie?” said Camille, with her signature upspeak. “What are you doing?”

“We were just, ah, talking about scotch,” she said. “Are you two going to the subway? I’ll walk with you.” She formed her lips into a smile. “Have a good evening, Mr. Winter.”

He did not smile back, merely said, in that completely neutral tone that gave no hint as to what was inside his mind, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Cassie.”

She didn’t know that he knew her name. The way he said it—crap. She had to get away. “Shall we?” she said to the girls, her voice just a little too chipper. They followed, having the sense to at least wait until they were out of earshot before unleashing their interrogation. When they were half a block away, Cassie risked a glance back over her shoulder.

He was gone.





Chapter Three


Though it just about killed her, Cassie waited until ten the next morning to call Danny, who had never been a morning glory, even in the brief period when she’d been sleeping with him, and they’d both had to get up at five so he could sneak out her bedroom window and down the fire escape before school. Not that her mother ever would have noticed. Heck, her mother would have sympathized—a high school boyfriend was how she’d gotten knocked up with Cassie in the first place.