My hottest Billionaire a Boss

Eleven

And then, when he’d finished, she would wipe her mouth with the back of

her hand, smile at him and say quite coolly and calmly, You see, that’s why

I’m engaged to Ricky. Because there is no other man for me.

And so she stood there, still and in control. She forced her legs to stay

put and not back away towards the door, away from him. He would only

come after her if she did that. She could end up against the wall with his

hard, powerful body pressed against her, trapping her.

The shiver that ran through every nerve at just the thought should have

warned her. But she was determined not to let anything that might

weaken her resolve into her mind and so she pushed it away, forcing

herself to concentrate instead on how she would show the Angel

just how little this all meant. Planning her revenge distracted her.

She might even manage an extra retort, an extra dig at him. She could

get her personal revenge for the callous slight he had tossed at her all

those years ago. Don’t delude yourself, Edward…she would say. I don’t

play with older men…

But then Edward’s warm mouth touched hers and immediately the words

she planned, the voice in which she would say them, the hauteur she

would assume, all evaporated in a whirling haze as her rational mind stopped working and the purely sensual, purely feminine part of her brain

took over.

His gentleness was unexpected, as was the slow, soft way he touched her

mouth. She had anticipated that he would use this kiss to stamp his

possession on her, to show her how a ‘real man’ might kiss—the sort of

man she would get in him and did not have, apparently, in Ricky. But this

was a man who wastaking nothing. Instead, he was giving, teasing,

enticing. He was drawing her out, awakening her senses, creating a need

in her that she had never known she possessed.

Liza…’

Her name was just a murmur against her mouth, with his accent

thickening and his distinctive pronunciation that turned it almost into the

drawn-out sound Liza as his lips covered hers.

The last time she had kissed Edward, when she had almost thrown

herself at him, into his arms, demanding his attention, wanting him to

hold her so desperately, she had been only a teenager, barely a stage or

two away from a child. She had known few kisses, very few men—and

none of them intimately. She had behaved like a child, kissed like a child,

snatching awkwardly at his mouth, trying to press her lips against his.

This time it was so very different. This time his caress was slow and

seductive, his mouth smoothing over hers, his tongue sliding over her lips,

teasing its way into the cleft between them, enticing her to open to him.

He tasted of the coffee he had drunk and the deeply personal flavour of

his own skin that held an essence she couldn’t get enough of. One taste

and she was addicted. And this time she felt herself respond in a deeply physical way. This time

she responded to his kiss as a woman. A fully grown, sexually mature

adult woman. It was the only thing she could do because of the way that

his mature male sexuality called to her.

Her heart was thudding heavily, the sound of her pulse throbbing inside

her head like thunder in her ears and deep inside her something was

flowering, something she had never known before. It was hot and it was

hungry and it was so powerfully needy that there was no way she could

hold it back.

As she sighed his name she took an instinctive step forward, moving

blindly because her eyes had drifted closed at the first touch of his

mouth on hers and she kept them shut, the better to enjoy the heated

sensations swirling through her. She had to move closer to experience

more of them, to know the heat of his body against hers, to feel his arms

close around her as they had never done on that other long ago night,

when she had been the one kissing him. Then he had held her for a

moment, stiffly, as if wanting to restrain rather than encourage. And

when his hands had closed about her arms it had been to move her back,

away from him, rather than to draw her close.

There was no such hesitation or restraint this time. This time, as she

stepped forward, powerful muscular arms came round her, enfolding her

and hauling her up against him. Her breasts were crushed against the

hard wall of his chest, her hips against his pelvis so that she could feel

the heat and hardness of his erection pressing against the softness of

her stomach. Last time that had petrified as much as it had thrilled her.

She had known then that he had been lying when he had said that he

didn’t play with little girls, but in the same moment, naïve and innocent of

what it really meant to be wanted by a mature, predatory male, she had had to struggle not to panic and pull away. This time, she pressed closer,

enjoying the heated sensations that seared through her.

Edward…’

His hands were on her back, smoothing downwards from her shoulders to

her waist, splaying out over the curve of her hips and buttocks, drawing

her even tighter into his hold. And at the same time he deepened the

intimacy of the kiss, plundering the soft, moist interior of her mouth,

tongues tangling, breath blending. But the hunger that he’d woken in her,

the heated throbbing low down in her body, demanded more. So much

more.

Her arms snaked up around his neck, pulling his head down even closer to

her, and her fingers threaded through the black silk of his hair, twisting

and tugging, a smile growing under the pressure of his lips as she heard

the raw moan that escaped him, felt the hot pressure of his hands grow

stronger.

But still she wanted more, needed more. She wanted…

Any train of thought was shattered, splintering into tiny pieces as the

sound of the doorbell rang out into the silence of the morning.

Her heart jerked hard, her mind jolting into shocked awareness, and just

for a moment she knew from Edward’s indrawn breath, his sudden total

stillness, that he too was aware of the sound and the way that it had

abruptly changed his mood.

But only for a moment. A second later he had shrugged the brief distraction away, dismissing the unwanted interruption with a flick of his

head. Carefully, deliberately, he pressed his mouth to hers again, cajoling

a willing response from her.

‘Ignore it,’ he muttered against her lips. ‘We have more important things

to consider…’

And he kissed her again, harder than ever this time.

Liza wanted to do as he said. She wanted to kiss him and keep him

kissing her. She longed to follow him back into the heated oblivion that

made her blind and deaf and heedless of anything else, wanting only his

mouth on her, his hands caressing her body, his strength enveloping her.

But, having been dragged back to reality even for a split second,

something was nagging at her thoughts—a tiny warning voice that

something was wrong. There was something she should be thinking about

—something important.

But when Edward’s tongue teased at her lips again and his hand traced

burning erotic patterns over her body, she couldn’t remember what. The

truth was that she didn’t want to remember, she only wanted to…

But then the doorbell rang again, more insistently this time, and cold

reality sliced into the sensual haze that clouded her thoughts.

Stiffening in Edward’s embrace, she pulled away from him, pushing hard

at his chest when he didn’t release her but tightened his grip on her

punishingly.

‘Let me go. I said let me go—I have to… ‘Leave it…’ he commanded but already her frantic struggle was having an

effect and his grip on her was loosening a little.

‘I can’t…I have…Edward—no!’

One last push and she was free, stumbling a little in the sudden shock of

her release. Blundering into a chair, she almost fell but righted herself

awkwardly, grabbing at the back of the seat for support.

‘Leave it!’ He flung the order at her, rough-voiced, dark-toned, but she

couldn’t listen to him.

‘I have to answer it…I have to!’

Not daring to look into his face, fearful of the anger and outrage she

would see there, she whirled around, heading for the door. She could

have sworn that a cynically mocking, ‘Coward…’ floated after her as she

fled into the hall.

The heavy wooden door resisted her efforts and it was only as she

struggled with it that it suddenly dawned on her that she might need to

sort out her appearance. Edward’s urgent hands had tugged at her shirt,

pulling it from the waistband of her trousers, and his fingers had tangled

in her hair, twisting it into ruffled knots.

With hurried movements she made a few frantic attempts to improve

matters, smoothing down her hair. She was still tucking back her shirt

when the stiff bolt on the door finally gave way and she was able to yank it open, blinking in the sudden light as she stared into the paved

courtyard.

A man stood there, his hand already raised to press the bell again. A

middle-sized, middle height, fair-haired man who looked at her in some

surprise, a faint frown drawing his brows together. Her brain seemed to

have slipped out of focus and she could barely see him, let alone

recognise him, though she had the dreadful feeling that she really

should.