Intimate Exposure (17 page)
His beautiful eyes grew suddenly serious, and he reached out and took her hand again, his grip on her fingers light and gentle yet resonant with meaning.
“You’re the woman I love, Vicki.” His voice was quiet, level…honest. “And yes, I
would
like us to go on playing. But not just elaborate, temporary erotic charades, magnificent as they are.” He paused, as if there was a great weight of importance and meaning riding on what he might say next. “I want to share the long game with you, my love. The forever game. I want us to be together and live together and play together for the rest of our lives.”
“I want that too!”
The words just flew out—driven by her subconscious, her heart and her every primal yearning—long before the shreds of her reason could catch up with them. But as Red pulled her towards him, slid his arms around her and settled his firm, mobile lips lovingly on hers, her reason caught up and concurred with the decision, as wild and crazy as it was.
She was in the arms of a man who was almost a mystery to her, and what she did know about him was based on a brief but volatile interaction with him under a slightly assumed name and a false identity. It was completely insane to commit herself to him for the rest of her life on just this. It didn’t make sense.
Furthermore, he was a billionaire, for heaven’s sake, and she was just what she’d told him she was. An unremarkable employee working in the middle management of just one tiny part in his enormous business empire.
It couldn’t work.
It couldn’t fail.
Because she loved him, and she knew he loved her.
Smiling beneath his kiss, she sensed Red holding back. The unstoppable, all-powerful, domineering Red Webster, King of the Pervs
and
King of the Universe, was restraining his desires. Waiting on her word. Not kissing her with half the demanding ferocity that the jut of his rampant cock against her belly told her he was feeling.
The fact that she had the upper hand for once was intoxicating, and grabbing his face between her hands, she put him away from her a little and looked up into his eyes.
“Don’t worry, I want you too, Red. Even if you are an arrogant, lying, infuriating, manipulative bastard!”
“Well, thanks for that.” His large hands came up, taking hold of hers and bringing them down again. Walking forward, he gently but determinedly made her retreat until the backs of her
thighs were pressed up against her desk. “Do you think you could bring yourself to marry me, then?”
His eyes gleamed and he looked down at her mouth, and Vicki could feel the delicious, crazy, thrilling balance between them tipping again, and her beloved’s power rising. It didn’t matter what she said or did now, he wouldn’t take no for an answer and she wouldn’t have expected him to. Even though she had no intention of denying him.
But still, she had to play.
“I’ll consider it.”
“Well in that case, let me give you something to help you make up your mind.”
Laughing low and wickedly, he caught her under her thighs, hoisted her up onto the desk, then reached up deftly beneath her skirt, past her hold-up stockings, and caught hold of her panties.
“Mr. Shanley!” she squeaked in mock protest, reaching down to help him get the offending garment off her. “Someone might come in!”
“Not if they value their jobs,” he growled, swooping down low to whip her knickers off over her ankles before guiding her legs apart and encouraging her to spread her thighs.
“Isn’t this inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace?” she muttered, reaching down for his zipper as he worked on the buckle of his belt.
“I should hope so.” He took her by the hips again and drew her to the edge of the desk.
“Now, Ms. Renard, isn’t there something you’d like to tell me before we proceed?”
She paused for a second, her sex already fluttering at the touch of his beloved cock against her silky entrance. She rolled her eyes and made a show of deep thought, even though all she wanted to do was impale herself upon him.
“Tell me, you perverse little witch. Tell me!”
“I love you,” she gasped, her hips jerking forward of their own accord, just as his did the same.
Then their bodies joined and she met his gaze, staring back boldly. Right into the mysterious, gleaming eyes of the devil who loved her…
About the Author
Portia Da Costa has lived and worked in West Yorkshire, in the north of England, all her life. She began her writing career by mistake, when an artist friend in search of a story to illustrate asked Portia to step up. Although a voracious reader since childhood, Portia had never considered writing herself, but accepting the challenge, she wrote her first ever piece of fiction, a melodramatic tale of doomed romance between a mortal woman and an unusually handsome zombie.
After several years writing purely for pleasure, Portia was first published in 1991. Since then, she’s written well over a hundred stories for magazines and anthologies, as well as about thirty novels and novellas across a variety of sub-genres. Although she’s written sweeter romance in her time, she’s best known for her sizzling hot erotica and erotic romances, some vanilla and some straying into edgier areas like BDSM.
Portia writes full-time and lives in a small, typically Yorkshire town with her husband and their adorable tortoiseshell cat. When she’s not writing, Portia likes to read, chill out and watch television. She also loves hanging out online with cyber friends on Twitter and other social networking sites. Her other interests include art, fashion, Victoriana and popular science, and she also shares her husband’s passion for military history.
Where no great story goes untold.
The variety you want to read, the stories authors have always wanted to write.
With new releases every week, your next great read is just a download away!
Keep in touch with Carina Press:
Read our blog: www.CarinaPress.com/blog
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarinaPress
Become a fan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarinaPress
ISBN: 978-1-4268-9317-9
Copyright © 2012 by Portia Da Costa
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and
™
are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Table of Contents