Anna Cleary - Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

She snatched it up, whipping it behind her back just as Connor strode in. When he saw her, he stopped short, an initial flare of astonishment in his dark eyes changing nearly at once to cynicism. Almost as if catching her there was no real surprise.

Without a word he stepped past her, seized a pen from the desk, and turned back to the outer room, where he signed something on a clipboard presented to him by one of the delivery men.

With no time to return the passport to his jacket, and nowhere to hide it, she popped it down the front of her shirt, just as Connor turned to stroll slowly and purposefully back into his office.

If he saw her surreptitious movement, he didn’t show it. He shut the door gently behind him, then paused to examine her, his black eyebrows raised.

He looked taller, grimmer and more authoritative when he was annoyed. It was harder to imagine him plunging through the pond.

No. No, it wasn’t.

Her mouth became uncomfortably dry, and she smoothed her skirt with moistening palms.

He didn’t appear to be imagining her in as favourable a light. His speculative gaze swept over her while she waited in an anguish of suspense, realising from the hard glint in his eyes he wasn’t about to let her off lightly.

‘Did you want something?’ His deep voice was polite, with just a tinge of incredulity lapping at its edges.

As if he didn’t know. The sheer duplicity of the man.

She tried to assume a cool, poised demeanour. ‘Oh, look, er, I should apologise. I probably shouldn’t have walked in. I came to—speak to you. The door was open, so I just—’ she made a breezy gesture ‘—wandered in.’ Her voice wobbled a little, but she kept her head high and forced herself to keep meeting his eyes, all the time conscious of her pulse ticking like a time bomb.

His eyes flicked to his desk, over the once rigidly neat pile of stationery, now listing dangerously to one side, and on—to her conscious eyes at least—to the neon-flashing space where she’d rested the briefcase.

In a brilliant move inspired by adrenaline, she did the only possible thing, and sat on the desk in the telltale space, stretching a hand back so she could lean, and once again knocking over the wonky pile.

‘Oh, damn,’ she said, trying to sound careless, ‘that’s the second time I’ve done that.’

Connor O’Brien didn’t look fooled. His acute dark eyes slid over her in sardonic appreciation. She grew uncomfortably conscious of her breasts and legs, accentuated by her posture, and hoped the red passport didn’t blaze through her shirt.

‘What can I help you with, Sophy?’

She smiled, but her sexual sensors, to say nothing of the others, were all madly oscillating on panic alert. Somehow, though, the danger she was in gave her a reckless sort of courage. She hadn’t spent lonely years of her life watching old black-and-white movie reels into the small hours for nothing. She knew how Lana Turner would have played this scene.

‘Ah, so you’ve found out my name,’ she said throatily, crossing her legs.

His glinting gaze flicked to them. ‘I described you to the Security guy. He had no trouble recognising you.’

Something in his voice told her the conversation he’d had with the man had been a loaded one. She could just imagine the sort of things they’d said about her. If his passport hadn’t been burning a hole in her midriff, she might have been incensed. As it was, her major concern for the moment, apart from escaping unscathed, was how she was to return it to its pocket. It was one thing to be suspected of snooping, another to leave behind glaring evidence.

What if he accused her of stealing? He could have her up before the courts. Her boss would be forced to sack her. Perhaps, though, if she owned up and produced the passport at once…

She examined Connor’s face for signs of softening, but his eyebrows were heavy and forbidding, his mouth and jaw stern.

Lana would have known what to do. If ever there was a man who needed beguiling, here was the man. Her skirt had ridden up a little on her thigh, and she discreetly tugged it down.

Connor O’Brien didn’t miss the movement. He prowled closer and stood looking down at her with his harsh, uncompromising gaze. ‘Breaking and entering is a criminal offence.’ She noticed his glance flick to her mouth. ‘What were you hoping to steal?’

Her heart made a scared lurch at the ‘s’ word. Somehow, owning up lost its attractiveness as an option.

‘Steal? That’s ridiculous.’ She fluttered her lashes in denial. ‘It was hardly breaking and entering… You left your door wide-open, and I came in to talk to you. Simple as that.’

He looked unconvinced. ‘I should hand you over to that Security guy and make his day.’

‘Oh, why? For coming in for a chat?’

‘A chat .’ His lip curled in disbelief. ‘About what?’

She wished he wouldn’t use that sceptical tone. It was rich, this distrust he had of her, when he was the one who stole people’s confidential DNA reports.

‘The weather,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘What else?’

She slid off the desk so she could bring more height to the exchange, but standing before Connor only seemed to illustrate how slight and insubstantial five feet seven of guilty woman was in comparison with six feet three of hard, cynical man. Still, after the way he’d behaved, his outraged morality act was too much to swallow.

‘I felt a bit sorry about not being so friendly this morning.’ She stretched languidly, then sashayed towards the door, casting him a long Lana-esque glance over her shoulder. ‘But I see now that my first instincts about you were correct.’

She had just grasped the door knob when she felt a big powerful bulk stride up behind her. A lean hand closed firmly over hers.

‘No, you don’t, sweetheart. Not yet.’

She could feel his hot breath on her neck. As his raw masculine proximity washed over her, accelerating her pulse into a mad racing turmoil, it homed in on her that, while she might have been playing Lana Turner, he was no two-dimensional Hollywood hero on the silver screen. He was a big, dangerous, flesh-and-blood man, and he wasn’t confined to a script.

Heat emanated from his body. She turned to face him, her back against the door, barely able to keep her rapid breathing under control, panting like a marathon runner. Her blood throbbed with a tense excitement. Still, as sexy as he looked with his black brows bristling, his intelligent dark eyes scouring her face, she reminded herself that he was the man who’d stolen her letter. It was imperative that she keep her wits about her.

She made an attempt to ignore the major chemical reaction effervescing inside her, and stiffened her spine.

He stepped back a little to study her, frowning, his dark eyes burning with a curious intensity. ‘Empty your pockets.’

In spite of her bravado, she felt her cheeks flame with the insult. ‘I don’t have any.’

A dark gleam lit his eyes. ‘Ah. Well, then, I’ll have no choice but to search you.’

Her stomach lurched. The silkiness of his deep voice couldn’t disguise the determination in the set of his chiselled jaw.

It was a seminal moment. If she allowed him to make the attempt, she was lost. His stern, masculine mouth, not so far away from hers, relaxed its unforgiving lines, as though Connor was enjoying his mastery of the situation. His mastery of her .

Suspense coiled her insides.

On a rush of adrenaline, she leaned back against the door, her breasts rising and falling, and breathed huskily, ‘But…would you feel honourable about violating my person? A woman who’s never been kissed?’

His eyes flickered over her face and throat. She could sense his hesitation, his struggle against temptation. It gave her such an exhilarating feeling to see that she could tempt him from his intent. And he would succumb, she realised with a thrilled, almost incredulous certainty, her heart thundering.