Sharon Kendrick - Priceless

‘Only because I asked him about fishing. He says he gets fed up with people always wanting to know which bank he’s taking over next.’

‘Are you aware that he’s one of the most powerful financiers in Europe?’ questioned Salvatore coolly.

‘No, of course I’m not,’ scoffed Jessica. ‘Finance not only doesn’t interest me—it also confuses the life out of me. Now, do you mind if I start working?’

He linked his long fingers together. ‘You don’t usually ask.’

She wasn’t usually remembering just what it felt like to have his lips all over her neck, his hands splayed over her silk-covered thighs. ‘So I don’t,’ she agreed tightly. ‘But under the circumstances, I thought I’d make an exception.’

Clutching her bucket, she walked across the office to the cloakroom, horribly and yet skin-tingling, aware that he was watching every step as she passed him, like a clever cat before it leapt onto a helpless little mouse. She reached for the tap. Hadn’t he called her a mouse last night? And wasn’t that an insult?

Salvatore could hear the sound of running water and he screwed his eyes together. He had been expecting—what? That she would have prettied herself up for him this evening? Flirted a little? Undone a few buttons and flaunted a little cleavage? Or acted in that deliberately coy way that women sometimes did, and which men could rarely resist, even when they knew they were being manipulated.

Yet here she was, behaving as if nothing had happened!

But nothing did happen, his aching body reminded him, and his natural sexual arrogance made his fists clench with anger that frustration imposed on him from such an unlikely source. Noiselessly, he rose from his desk and followed her into the cloakroom. ‘You don’t usually run away from me either, do you, Jessica?’

She turned round, her face flushed, heart-thumpingly aware of his proximity and the way that he seemed to dominate the space around them. Suddenly, her bravado seemed to have deserted her. ‘No, I don’t,’ she agreed unsteadily.

‘Just like you don’t usually stare at me all wide-eyed like that, as if I’m the big, bad wolf.’

Jessica attempted to make her face look normal—but how the hell did you do something like that when all you could think of was how utterly irresistible the man was? ‘Don’t I?’

He smiled, but it was a hard edged smile. ‘You know you don’t.’

He seemed to be deliberately misinterpreting the situation. Didn’t he have any inkling how difficult she was finding this? Didn’t he realise that she had feelings for him but was sensible enough to know that such feelings were totally inappropriate? Jessica frowned, but part of her felt a sudden sadness, too.

Usually they had an easy rapport, which sometimes happened when two people of completely different social standing came together. You sometimes heard about very rich men confiding in their driver, or a billionairess divulging all her secrets to the girl who painted her toenails. But it didn’t mean anything—not in the grand scheme of things.

Because such unlikely relationships only worked on the basis that both parties knew their place. That there were strict boundaries which neither should attempt to cross.

And so it had been with her and Salvatore—until last night. Last night they had broken the rules, big time. The taking her to dinner could have been classified as nothing but a minor transgression—but what had happened afterwards could not.

She couldn’t deny what she’d done—or nearly done. And although she had called a halt to that blissful bout of passion she couldn’t deny that her body had been crying out for him.

She looked at him. If she allowed herself to sink further into stupid fantasy, then her body could very easily start crying out for him right now. His black hair was ruffled, the bright blue eyes narrowed and the hard and autocratic line of his jaw was shadowed with new growth. He looked imposing and almost magisterial and a whole universe away from her. Standing here now, it seemed almost impossible to believe that they had briefly been so intimate.

Jessica knew that she had a choice—and the only sane one which lay open to her was not to rise to his teasing remarks or the sensual light which lurked in the depths of his sapphire eyes. He’s only playing with you, she told herself, and she knew she couldn’t afford to join in—neither financially, nor emotionally. That if she wanted to keep her job and carry on as before, then she had to forget the rapport they used to share. Forget everything except doing what she was paid to do, which was to clean his office.

‘I’d better get on with the floor,’ she said awkwardly, turning the hot tap on full and then jumping back as the red-hot water splashed onto her hand, and she gave a little yelp of pain. ‘Ouch!’

‘Sollecita!’ Salvatore made a clicking noise with his tongue as he walked over to her. ‘Here.’ And he calmly turned on the cold tap and held her flaming fingers beneath it.

The water was deliciously cool and soothing but his touch was even more unsettling than the stinging pain. Jessica tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her.

‘Leave it under the running water,’ he ordered. ‘I said, leave it, Jessica.’

She didn’t have the strength or the inclination to disobey him and yet this was just too odd. He was here, in the most inappropriate of settings, administering hasty first aid to her. She felt dizzy with shock and pleasure. Everything was all wrong and yet through all the confusion of her thoughts came the overwhelming sensation that she liked him touching her.

She swallowed. Of course she liked him touching her—who wouldn’t?

After a couple of minutes, he turned the hand over and examined it, tracing a light fingertip over the still-heated flesh. ‘I think you’ll live,’ he said softly.

The surprising gentleness of the contact was completely disarming, as was the sudden deepening of his voice.

‘It’s okay. I mean, I’m okay,’ she amended, trying to pull her hand away.

‘Maybe you are,’ he objected as he drew her towards the warmth of his body. ‘But I’m not.’

Her eyes opened wide, startled by pleasure and shock. ‘What … what are you doing?’

‘This,’ he said, his voice distorting savagely as he stared down into her pale face. ‘I have to do this.’

She knew he was going to kiss her—she could read it in the fractional dilation of his eyes. She could sense it in the sudden tension in his body and in the raw tang of masculine desire which made her forget everything she had vowed last night as she’d listened to the ticking of her bedside clock and waited for the alarm to ring. He was going to kiss her and, although she knew she should stop it, she could no more have stopped it than willed the earth to stop turning.

‘Salvatore …’ she whispered.

The ‘sir’ had gone once more, he thought, with grim satisfaction. ‘ Sì ,’ he agreed arrogantly, her breath warm against his lips. ‘That is my name.’

With a groan, he drove his mouth down on hers. She tasted sweet and minty, as if she had just brushed her teeth. Had she done that specially, hoping that he would kiss her? The thought that she had been anticipating this—wanting this—made him harder still.

He pulled her closer, his hands reaching down to cup her buttocks, and for the first time he appreciated how small she was. Positively tiny. In the car their bodies had been on a level, but now she seemed to slip into his arms and disappear into them, melding into his body like a pocket Venus.

Jessica clutched onto his shirt as his lips beguiled her, the palms of his hands skating with arrogant possession over her bottom. On and on his mouth continued to plunder hers until suddenly her knees threatened to give way—and perhaps he also sensed too that things were getting out of hand because he stopped kissing her, though he didn’t let her go. She gazed up at him uncertainly, in a daze.