A Stranger's Kiss

lift shaft?’
    ‘Why indeed?’ Adam stood up. ‘Come and sit over here.’
    ‘I can’t do that. There’s the little matter of washing up, or have you forgotten about getting every penny’s worth?’
    She gathered the dishes onto a tray and carried them through into a gleaming white galley kitchen. He followed her and took the tray from her hands. ‘Leave them.’ His smile was provoking. ‘Eating time I’m prepared to pay for, but washing up is strictly on your own time.’ He slid his hand under her arm and led her firmly from the bright kitchen to the shifting, fickle light of the fire.
    ‘It’s real!’ Tara exclaimed in delight and relieved to have an excuse to pull free of his disturbing fingers, bent down to hold her hands out to the flames. ‘I thought it was one of those gas things.’
    ‘I have no interest in fakes, Tara.’ He waited while she curled up in a huge leather armchair, then handed her a brandy before stretching out in a chair opposite her, his long legs propped on the hearth. He sipped his drink. ‘Of any sort.’
    She cupped her hands around the glass and stared down for a moment at the pale liquid, watching the firelight strike sparks of amber from the crystal. Over dinner the evening had somehow ceased to be about business. This was not the office. This was the penthouse apartment of an attractive— her mind shied away from the blandness of the word. Attractive was not an expression that evenly remotely applied to Adam Blackmore.
    She regarded him from beneath the screen of her lashes. There was nothing bland about him. He was as invigorating as standing beneath a mountain waterfall and had much the same effect on the ability to breath. Her experience in such matters was limited, but she knew without any doubt that he was the most potently desirable man she had ever met. And the most dangerous.
    The evening had taken a subtle turn so that she had hardly noticed when they had moved away from business. And now they were sitting together before the fire sipping brandy in a manner that implied a perilous intimacy.
    She put her glass down and straightened from the chair. Maybe this was an accepted part of his relationship with his permanent secretary, but there was a limit to how far she would go to take Jane’s place.
    She was his temporary secretary. She wasn’t prepared to take the same role as his lover.
    ‘I’d better make sure that the printer hasn’t jammed,’ she said, but he caught her hand as she moved quickly past him and taking her by surprise, spun her into his lap.
    His eyes fixed her, held her momentarily in his power. ‘The printer can look after itself,’ he murmured, softly into her neck so the words vibrated against her skin and Tara knew that if she allowed her head to fall against his shoulder and parted her lips he would take everything she was prepared to offer and more.
    But there had been something altogether too calculating in the momentary glimpse she had caught of his eyes before he closed them and she shivered. ‘So can I, Adam. But I’d prefer to get up without an unseemly struggle.’
    He raised his head and she caught a gasp between her teeth. Whatever his original intentions, there was no doubting the desire that turned his eyes black in the shifting light of the flames.
    It had been a long time since she had wanted to lie back in a man’s arms. It was nearly seven years since Nigel’s death and in all that time no one had broken through the shell she had erected to protect her heart.
    Almost in panic she tried to move, but he held her firm and despite her brave words she knew that if he chose to keep her captive she would be hard pressed to free herself without resorting to the unforgivable. And she faced the disturbing truth that if he insisted upon kissing her she might never want to be free again.
    For a moment his eyes challenged her to defy him, to ignore the warmth of his body against her own, to ignore the way his mouth curved with sensuous insolence, inviting her to make the first move and risk the surging desire that had surfaced so abruptly when he had kissed her in the wine bar.
    It was hard. Harder still to ignore clamour of her blood pounding with wild impatience through her veins and the way her skin was tingling, begging to be stroked by the long fingers holding her against him, teased by the broad tip of his thumb, already far too close to a betraying nipple, erect against the soft cloth of her dress.
    Another moment