Beauty and the Barracuda Read Free Page A

mouth—which was kicked up on one side in clear amusement. How many times had she sat in meetings and simply watched that mouth move? How many times had that same mouth brushed over her forehead, nose, or lips in a quick passing that inspired far more than it should have?
    “Nyssa?”
    “Hmm?” God, Sansone’s face was the perfect balance of masculine beauty. His jaw was hard, his cheekbones sharp and his lips… Why did her eyes keep straying there? Why did she suddenly feel as though she could taste…? Nyssa’s thoughts trailed off as one in particular shoved them to the side. I want to kiss you.
    Holy. Fuck.
    Nyssa jerked back so hard that Sansone had to catch her hands to keep her from falling. He came around the counter and pulled her to standing. “You remember now ?”
    She couldn’t breathe.
    “Nyssa, you kissed me.” One hand left her wrist and framed the side of her face, his thumb brushing her bottom lip. “And I spent the majority of my night trying to figure out why we hadn’t done it a thousand times before.”
    No, no, no, no! She gulped in a lungful of air and shook her head. “No.”
    Sansone nodded. “Yes.”
    “Sunny—”
    “Do you have any idea how hard it was to lock you away from me last night when all I wanted to do was curl around you?”
    This wasn’t happening. He was fucking with her, right? Eight years...eight long years of balling up every feeling she had and shoving it as far down as it could possibly go and here he was dredging them up. Why?
    He placed his lips to her ear. “ Cara, you can’t possibly think you’re the only one who wanted that.”
    Panic! She was in a full-on panic! So what seemed to be the most sensible solution? Er...hooking her thumbs into Sansone’s waistband and jerking his pajama pants down until they were at his ankles.
    His head snapped up in surprise, and she took full advantage of his moment of vulnerability to push him backwards and run. She snatched a set of keys off his hook in the foyer before she was out the door and down his porch, listening to him scramble to catch up. He hit the front step and she was already screeching down the street in his Audi, trying to figure out how she’d get him to not only forget about that kiss, but the fact that she’d stolen one of his cars in an escape.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Nyssa had pantsed him. She’d pantsed him and stolen one of his cars. Not superstitious by nature, Sansone had never believed in bad omens. At least not until this morning when he found himself staring down at his pajamas around his ankles. He’d had many an interesting moment with Nyssa but this one, quite possibly, overshadowed all of those. He couldn’t blame her for exposing his slightly pale ass to the early morning air, could he? Sansone had pushed and Nyssa pushed right back...before she ran.
    He’d had no intentions of mentioning that kiss. His plans had been simple—get up, get coffee, pat her on her head and send her on her way. That was it. But then he’d caught her creeping out of his home as if she were escaping a nest of unholy immorality, and he couldn’t help his need to make her stay just a bit longer. The way her dress rumpled around the compact, luscious curves of her form and how her hair had been every which way but the right one made Sansone do what he always did when he felt as though she were trying to wiggle away from him—he cornered her.
    It was the scent of his sheets and his soap that had clung to her exquisite skin. Her gaze had still ben hazy as if she were in a partial trance, and the slightly bruised, swollen look of her mouth gave him vision after vision of her nervously chewing her lips the way she always did when she was over-contemplating something. The feel of her brushing up against him when he’d picked her up had made Sansone grit his back teeth. Touching Nyssa was quite like touching silk; she was perpetually soft and sinfully smooth.
    Even after making her that smoothie, he was going