Sandra Marton - The Bedroom Business

“More ridiculous than you’d have felt if you’d left your number on that answering machine?”

Emily bit her lip. “Even if something came of it…For one thing, I don’t know how to make small talk. ”

“There’s nothing to it. I’ll teach you.”

“Yes, but…” She waved a hand. “It’s more than that. I don’t dress right. My sisters used to tell me I had no idea of style.”

Jake took a step back, looked her over slowly from head to toe. “We can take care of that with ease.”

“I don’t even know how to—” she blushed “—how to handle the, uh, the end of the evening thing.”

“The…?” He colored. “Oh.”

“Exactly. I mean, it was simple enough, last night. When your friend—”

“Archer’s no friend of mine,” Jake said grimly.

“The point is, when he, uh, when he tried to, you know, kiss me, I just put my hands up, the way you do in karate—”

Jake began to laugh. “I’d have given anything to have seen that.”

“But—but if a man tried to kiss me and I wanted him to, I’d just mess it up. I’d—”

He felt his body tighten. “You mean you’ve never…” He cleared his throat, did a mental ten-count, reminded himself that Emily was a sparrow, not a thrush, and his lifelong preference was for songbirds. “Well,” he said briskly, “never mind. I’ll teach you everything you need to know. How to talk with a man. How to dress for him. How to make him want you, and only you.”

“I don’t know. It all seems to—so—”

“I’ll teach you all you need to know, Emily.” Jake’s voice roughened. “Including how to conduct yourself at the end of the evening.”

Color swept into her face. “I can’t believe I told you that,” she whispered. “I feel so foolish!”

“I’ll teach you,” Jake said gently. He reached down, clasped her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. “You’ll see. I’m an excellent teacher.”

So saying, he bent his head, took Emily’s face in his hands, and covered her mouth with his.

HIS mouth fit hers, perfectly.

His lips were warm, and dry, and pleasant. No tongue, Emily thought dazedly. None of that disgusting swapping spit stuff that the insufferable Pete Archer had tried last night.

Still, why was McBride kissing her? And why was she letting him? That was a better question.

Because he’d caught her by surprise. Why else? she told herself, and she put her hands against his chest and pulled back from his kiss.

“Mr. McBride,” she said, a little breathlessly, “I really don’t think—”

“Call me Jake,” he said hoarsely but before she could call him anything, he put his arms around her, drew her against him and kissed her again.

The kiss wasn’t the same.

She might have known it wouldn’t be. His lips nudged hers, tugged at hers, moved against hers. And, when she tried to protest, to tell him there was no reason for them to kiss and certainly no reason to kiss like this, he used the moment against her and parted her lips with his.

Emily’s hands came up, flattened against Jake’s chest again.

No, she thought, no, please. No tongue, no spit, no awful wet kiss…

He didn’t take the hint. He went right on with what he was doing, changing the rules, changing the kiss. What he was doing now—angling his mouth differently so that she had to tilt her head back as he slipped the tip of his tongue between her lips—what he was doing was—it was—

Oh, it was wonderful.

The feel of his arms around her. The hardness of his body against hers. The taste of his mouth. His hot mouth. His tongue. The glorious, mind-bending, mind-blowing heat and, yes, the wetness of his kiss…

Emily moaned. She curled her fingers into Jake’s shirt, rose on her toes and pressed herself against him.

Was this what a kiss, a real kiss, was like? Was a man supposed to be able to turn a woman into a mindless, breathless, boneless creature with a kiss? Or did Jake know something other men didn’t?

Not that Emily cared about any of the answers. She only knew that she wanted this feeling to go on forever.

Jake did, too.

It was crazy, to get so turned on by a kiss. But turned on, turned up, turned inside out was what he was, all right, and he was aching for more.

Emily wasn’t just kissing him back, she was making the soft little noises a woman made when she wanted more. Her sweet body was pressing against his—grinding against his. Yes, indeed; there were curves under that boxy tweed jacket and bulky skirt, curves and warm, eager flesh.

And then she moved, and moaned, and Jake gave up thinking. He slid one hand down her spine, cupped her bottom, lifted her into the hardness of his arousal, knotted his hand in her skirt, pushed it up, stroked his hand along her thigh, her hot, silken thigh…

Told you, Archer’s voice whispered smugly, way, way in the back of Jake’s mind. Didn’t I say still waters run deep?

Jake shoved Emily’s skirt down, clasped her arms, tore his mouth from hers and stepped back. She swayed unsteadily, her eyes still shut, her lips rosy and parted.

Desire burned hot in his blood.

She wanted him, desired him, as much as he wanted her. And he wanted to assuage that desire. He wanted to reach out for her again, drag her back into his arms, carry her into his office, kick the door shut and rip away the tweed that hid her from his mouth and from his eyes…

But sanity prevailed. The last thing he wanted was an affair with his P.A. Uh, with his E.A. Hell, the last thing, absolutely the last thing, he wanted was an affair with a little brown sparrow who’d undoubtedly confuse sex with love.

Jake tried to speak, cleared his throat and tried again.

“You see?”

Emily blinked and opened her eyes. They were dark with passion and he felt himself teeter on the brink of that upside-down, inside-out feeling all over again.

He took another step back, shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and knotted them so he wouldn’t be an idiot and reach for her.

“See what?” she croaked.

Jake tried for a nonchalant shrug. “I was just showing you that you don’t have anything to worry about. I can teach you everything you need to know. It’s not a problem.”

Emily touched her fingers to her mouth. The simple action almost brought him to his knees.

“Not a problem at all,” he said, and before she could respond, he went back into his office, fixed his tie and shirt, put on his jacket and coat, strode past her and headed out into the snowstorm for his lunch at the Oak Room…

And tried not to think about the kiss, or the fact that she’d been busy at her desk, fingers flying industriously over the keyboard as if the whole thing had never happened, as he went out the door.

Emily paused in her typing when Jake got back.

She looked up, greeted him politely and told him he’d find some faxes on his desk.

“Thank you,” he said, and went straight into his office.

The door swung shut, and she almost collapsed with relief.

He wasn’t going to mention what had happened. Thank God for that.

She’d worried that the kiss would affect their relationship. Foolish her. She should have known that it wouldn’t. The kiss had meant nothing. Jake had, as he’d explained, been establishing his credentials, that was all.

Evidently, that was the way he always kissed a woman.

No wonder the twit wanted to keep him.

Any woman would. Well, not any woman. She wouldn’t. Jake McBride wasn’t her type at all, no more than she was his, and a kiss wouldn’t change that. Not that he’d kissed her for that reason. To change her mind. To get her interested in him. No, it wasn’t like that and a good thing, too, because she wasn’t interested.