Page 8 of Price of Paradise

“Yes, but…wait.” She pushed against his chest until he placed her back on her feet. Mae licked her bottom lip, tasting him there. All spice and savage hunger. That was so Gunner. “You’re my boss and you show up out of the blue and I’m supposed to just fall into your arms?”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I know it sounds crazy.Isound crazy, but the other day when you told me you were leaving, I realized something.”

“What?”

“I’ve never gone a single day these last five years without you. Not one, Mae. Even when we aren’t at the office, we’re texting each other.”

“Because we’re friends,” she explained, wondering if there was more to it. Hoping he’d realized he couldn’t live without her. That he somehow cared. “Yes, I’m your employee, but we’ve become friends too. That doesn’t explain your sudden desire for me as a woman. That doesn’t explain that kiss.”

He stepped closer, and a rush of liquid heat pooled between her thighs at his intoxicating nearness. “I can see the way you respond to me,” he murmured. “Don’t act like I’m the only one on fire right now. I won’t believe you.”

Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. Gunner always could see right through her. It was super annoying. “That’snot the point. We’re talking about you following me to Miami, Gunner.”

He cursed under his breath and turned away from her. Several tense seconds passed before his eyes met hers again. “The day I hired you, Mae, you wore a black skirt and a navy-blue blouse. A pair of low heels. You had your hair piled on top of your head in some sort of gold clip thingy. Very appropriate for an interview. Nothing overly sexy about it.”

He remembered what she wore? “Okay, so?”

“I couldn’t stop staring at you. You took my breath away. All I wanted to do was reach out and tug on that clip and watch your hair fall down around your shoulders. It took every bit of strength I possess to keep my hands to myself that day.”

“I…” Mae couldn’t digest what Gunner was telling her. It was too wild. Like a scene from one of her dreams. She’d had plenty of them over the years. And he’d been the star of the show in all of them.

He appeared to notice the moment she dropped her defenses and closed the remaining distance between them. He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Can you stand here and tell me you’ve never thought of us together? Not once?”

“I have thought of you, but I never knew the feeling was mutual.” She frowned up at him. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Same reason you kept silent,” he confided, his voice low and even. “We work together. It would’ve been inappropriate to make a move on you.”

She quirked a brow. “So, instead you fly a thousand miles and crash my vacation?”

“If I’m being honest, I think I saw a chance to have a weekend with you. Not as my assistant. Not as my friend. But as a woman I’m dying to touch. Dying to strip naked and turn all those fantasies to life.”

“Just two people who can’t keep their hands off each other,” she pondered, enjoying the idea. Too much.

“Yes,” he growled. “You game?”

She was, but her brain offered one last bit of saneness. “We could be making a huge mistake.”

“The only mistake is letting this chance pass us by.” He paused, then asked, “Do I stay?”

She lifted her hand and pressed it against the back of his. “Please don’t go,” she whispered.

Without another word, Gunner bent and lifted her off her feet, then swung her into his arms. He brought her to the adjoining bedroom, then placed her carefully atop the cool sheet covering the king-size bed. Gunner put one knee on the mattress, then the other, before straddling her. He kissed her gently and drifted his mouth down over her chin to her neck, teasing her beyond measure. He lifted and muttered, “This black mesh cover-up is cute as hell, but it needs to go.”

“Definitely,” she breathed out. “I agree.”

Gunner sat back, then took the hem of the material between his fists and tugged it upward. “When you opened the door and I got a good look at you, I nearly swallowed my damn tongue.”

Mae tried to concentrate on his praise, but as the cool air hit her belly, she began to lose track. “You don’t think I’m too…curvy?”

“Curvy is good. I love curvy.” He pulled it up and over her head, then tossed it aside. “Shit.”

“What?”

“This little two-piece is fucking sexy as hell,” he praised in a voice rough with arousal.

She looked down at the black triangles covering her breasts and proceeded to blush. “It’s sort of new. Bought it for this trip.”

His intense gaze seared into her. “I’ll bet every guy at that pool wanted a taste of you.”

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