JaguarintheSun Read Free

would shrug and walk away without
a second glance.
    Not surprising the knowledge should rouse his competitive
spirit. In a way the challenge she presented with her thinly veiled nonchalance
only increased his own determination to have her. Why it should also bring a
spurt of anger, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was he wanted her to want him with
as ferocious a need as he felt for her. Wanted her yearning, maybe even
begging, for him to satisfy her lust.
    He sat back, willing his body to relax.
    “Well, that’s the best invitation I’ve had in a long time.”
Despite his best efforts, his voice was still growly, and Cassie’s smile
quirked higher. “Let’s discuss it over lunch.”
    Various expressions cycled across her face in quick
succession. Surprise, disbelief, annoyance and, finally, hurt. She masked it
all with notable efficiency, but not quickly enough to hide the emotions from
his watchful gaze.
    “Oh.” Amusement still lingered in her tone, but now was completely
absent from her eyes. “I didn’t know I’d have to use bribes to get you into
bed, but I guess food is as good a one as any.”
    As she spoke her hands were already reaching for her sash,
preparing to close her dress, but Xbal sprang up to stand in front of her
before she could even get the chore properly started. She froze, her eyes wide
and a little gasp of surprise escaping her lips at the suddenness of his
movement.
    “Not a bribe.”
    He was close enough the sweet scent of her filled his head,
made him want to pounce, to take, to gorge on her delicious body with ferocious
greed. It took all his considerable control to remain still, staring into her
now-flashing eyes.
    “If not a bribe, Xbal, then what?”
    He bent to brush his lips over her warm, moist, enticing
mouth and whispered, “Foreplay.”
    And the shiver that rippled through her was highly
gratifying.

Chapter Two
     
    Cassie wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the turn her
encounter with Xbal had taken. It was one of those situations where you go in
thinking you know what’ll happen but the script you have in your head turns out
to be completely wrong. She’d been envisioning an immediate response—either a
polite “no, thank you” or a crazy, gotta-have-it-now fuck on his couch or desk.
Nowhere in her imagined movie was there banal conversation on the way to a
restaurant, the prospect of lunch as a build-up to the actual deed getting
done. He’d turned her plan on its head, and she felt as though she was upside
down with it.
    If she weren’t so completely rattled, the entire situation
would be hilarious.
    But she was rattled. Not to mention frazzled. Oh, and throw
in a wild, inescapable side order of horny.
    Yeah.
    Hard to laugh when the sensation of Xbal’s lips on hers
wouldn’t go away, when she kept remembering the timbre of his voice as he said,
“Foreplay.” Then there was the slow, careful, terribly controlled way he’d
closed her dress and tied the sash as she stood there trying hard not to
tremble each time his knuckles brushed her skin.
    Yes, it was all so ridiculous.
    Yes, he was amazingly sexy.
    Of course she’d wanted to sleep with him for years.
    But, in the final analysis, it was still just Xbal, her
friend and occasional business associate, a man she admired and genuinely
liked. Just because she’d opened the door to them sleeping together didn’t mean
any of that had changed, did it?
    She glanced up from the menu she’d been pretending to peruse
and another wave of need flashed over her skin and through her veins at the
sight of him across the table. As though sensing her stare, he looked up too
and smiled. Just a small tilt of one side of that beautiful mouth and her
insides melted, need sending a hot, hard signal to her clit, which throbbed in
response. Refusing to let him see just how affected she was by the entire
situation and knowing from experience just how good she was at hiding these
things, she smiled brightly back.
    “So. What about