Page 78 of Nothing to Fear

TWENTY-FOUR

DESPITE THE DISTRACTIONS of that morning, she got a lot done in the city. Though not everything. Back at her apartment, under the pressure of time, her desperation was beginning to show.

“I get that,” she said to the infuriating guy on the phone.

“Now, if you want, we can put something in the books for next week.”

Her hand landed on the kitchen counter. “No,” she said into the handset. “I don’t have—”

“What’s your destination address?”

“I don’t have—” The tap on her front door brought her around. It opened and she glimpsed Darroch coming inside so turned her back again. “I don’t have it for sure yet.”

“Listen, sweetheart, you want me to come help you out?”

This guy was rubbing her all the wrong ways. “You don’t have to patronize me.”

“You got a guy looking out for you, sweetheart?”

The snicker in his voice was the last straw.

“You know what?” she asked. “Forget it!”

Hanging up the phone, she screamed at it once and whirled around.

Damn! Her anger evaporated into lust in less than a second.

That wasn’t just Darroch. That was Darroch in a black shirt, black jacket, perfect hair; the headliner of female fantasies.

Shit. The glint of his cufflink matched the glimmer in his eye and—the phone fell from her hand. She dropped to scramble it up, only the thing flipped free again. She tried to rise andboom, fuck, the damn kitchen counter was closer to her skull than she’d thought. Fuck.

“Babe—”

“I’m okay,” she called out, stumbling forward, fumbling with the skittering phone and another dull thwack shot pain through her abruptly halted toe.

Damnit!

She couldn’t even get upright, couldn’t move without tripping over her own hormones.

“Baby,” he said, right there at her level as she froze in her crouch.

“Do you have to be so delicious?” she asked as he parted her hair, searching for a bump. “You just walk around injuring unsuspecting women, how are we supposed to go about our lives with you oozing your hotness everywhere?”

“You’ve got the cure, baby.”

Giving up, she sank to the floor on her butt. “I do?”

“The only person on the planet who does,” he said, pinching her chin to tip her mouth up to meet his.

Mmm, the biggest aphrodisiac. The only person on the planet who…

Pushing him down, she climbed on, slipping her hands under that jacket to squeeze the impressive globes of his shoulders.

“Darroch,” she breathed, her chin rising as he kissed her throat.

Oh, maybe she should’ve thought about her silk robe or how easily he could loosen the belt and skim his hands across her tingling flesh. When his fingers bit deep into her ass, forcing their bodies together, she growled and pushed down, claiming his mouth with hers again.

The tingle became a buzz and a ringing in—she pulled back to meet his eye.

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