Aftershocks Read Free Page B

government studies, she wouldn’t have much trouble obtaining a challenging position, maybe in Los Angeles or Sacramento. Reluctantly, she agreed to Uncle Cecil’s plan.
    Briana hadn’t been thrilled about the part she was to play before she arrived in Courage Bay and interviewed for the job, but she was even less happy when she met Patrick O’Shea and felt her mouth go dry.
    The man was gorgeous in an understated, rugged, pick-a-woman-up-and-carry-her-across-a-raging-river kind of way. He had black hair with a few silver strands beginning to show, and Irish blue eyes that could twinkle with amusement or turn a hard, cold pewter when there was trouble. When he gazed at her, his eyes darkened in intensity. He might not say anything, but she knew what he was thinking. She didn’t think seducing him would be much of a trial.
    Men came on to her all the time. It was something she’d been used to since she was a teenager. With her Nordic genes and statuesque body, she was accustomed to male attention. However, it was unusual for her to respond as forcefully as she did to Patrick O’Shea. She was only sorry that someone she found so attractive should be so corrupt.
    Of course, whatever his standards, she considered herself a woman of integrity. She wouldn’t make thefirst move. It was up to him. But her tape recorder was always in her purse and the batteries fresh.
    She’d discovered in the first week of working for the mayor that when he was out of the office, he sometimes made notes into a small personal recorder. Periodically, he’d give her the recorder and ask her to transcribe his notes, which ranged from budget issues to ideas for future speeches.
    The recorder was common enough, and by the second week of her employment, she owned an identical one. She reasoned that if Patrick ever caught sight of hers, he’d naturally think it was his own. Not that she intended for him to notice she had a tape recorder, but she believed in covering all her bases.
    In two months, nothing had happened.
    Nothing that you could put on tape, anyway. Things like sizzling eye contact. A sudden rise in air temperature that had nothing to do with a faulty air conditioner. And a longing deep inside her that was as rare as it was potent.
    Briana had never found herself in a worse predicament. She wanted Patrick O’Shea. She wanted to run her fingers over the rugged planes of his face, trace the shape of his ears, the scar that bisected one eyebrow.
    Even though his next birthday would be his fortieth, he still had the lean hard body of an active firefighter. She knew he trained frequently at the gym with the guys from his former station.
    She wanted to touch that powerfully built body. She had fantasies of coming together with him naked. Fantasies that shamed her because he was her boss and it was inappropriate for her to think about having sex with him.
    The curse of her situation was that if he did make a pass, she’d know he was as hot for her as she was for him.
    And if he made a pass, she’d also know that he was a hypocrite. A man who would make sexual overtures to a female employee after promising to act with squeaky clean ethics was beneath contempt.
    But now here they were, in this dark elevator, and it was Briana’s body, not her brain, that was in charge. Still thrumming with adrenaline after their brush with death, she suddenly didn’t care much about ethics or campaign promises.
    As his lips crushed hers, Briana responded helplessly, even as she wished deep down that Patrick had turned out to be a better man.
    Five minutes. She’d give him five minutes. Enough time to get some moaning and groaning recorded. If he was like every other man she’d ever kissed, he’d try to get her out of her clothes.
    She’d say no.
    He’d beg her for sex.
    And she’d have him. On tape.
    The man is a hypocrite and a liar, she reminded herself as Patrick’s lips found her throat and she tipped her chin to give him better access.
    Five