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Cas hadn’t planned this next step, but she’d been treated unfairly. She’d given TBR her energy, her creativity, her attention to detail and her loyalty, and they’d served up the same “Beatriz doesn’t mind” crap as her selfish sisters. The longer he’d reflected on the problem yesterday, the more indignant he’d become.

“It’s your idea. Why don’t you?”

Was the very professional, unavailable Beatriz Gomez daring him?

“Fair point.”

He tugged her hand, gently drawing her closer to him, leaned forward and brushed a kiss across her lips. Soft, but he’d expected the texture, so took more. Lush, and that had been his fear. That he’d start kissing her and be unable to stop.

Her nose nudged his, and he closed his eyes, so he could focus on the sensation of her, and found himself drowning in her unique scent. Her lips were warm, inviting him to surrender himself to the heat he’d find. If she opened her lips even a fraction, he’d find sumptuous.

Please open your lips.

She drew back from the precipice, and despite them being in a public place, he missed the connection. Her eyes were closed, so he couldn’t read her reaction, whereas his heart was racing.

I’m in serious trouble.

“Muddy waters,” she murmured, her voice soaked in coffee and shock.

Looking around, Cas saw glances hurriedly averted, but his interest in Beatriz Gomez, one of TBR’s senior account managers had been noted. “Unfortunately, I have to go. I hope your day improves.”

“I’m guessing Jackson Smithers’s promotion won’t be the first question people ask me for the rest of the day.” She looked smug.

“Mission accomplished.” He stood, stroked a finger down her nose, before swooping to whisper in her ear, “I’ll make dinner.”

Her sensuous laugh hit his ears then his cock.

Casildo had to force himself to leave the café. Or to leave the café without her. In his head, he’d got halfway to an invitation to spend the rest of the day kissing her, touching her, unwrapping her from her lovely clothes. The little hum of pleasure she’d emitted, her closed eyes when she’d drawn back had sliced through him. That staring customer at the next table had startled him back to awareness of where they were, and his great plan for focusing Beatriz’s work colleagues’ attention on her. She wouldn’t thank him for ravishing her in a public place. Maybe any place?

He knew in his gut passion was private to Beatriz.

I want to be the focus of her private passion.

I said I wouldn’t go there.

With my current plans, it’s not fair to go there.

––––––––

Back at his officedesk, Cas pulled a notebook toward him. Curves, with some sharp angles—nothing conventional. He didn’t know enough to design bed linen for Beatriz, so he doodled. Geometric shapes—she wore those, also blocks of colour, then spirals. His mind swirled with designs his jaddatee had shown him.

Drawing helped him think. With a pattern taking shape, Cas figured out it was the fabrics as much as the designs that drew Beatriz. Touch was her medium. Fascinating. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t get the soft texture of her lips out his head. Soft, yet firm, seeking, yet giving. She tasted like every fantasy he’d ever had. His chinos tightened across his groin.

He groaned, setting aside his notebook to focus on the project brief in front of him.

***

Had that been his missionin invading Bea’s work domain? To shift her colleagues’ focus from her failed promotion to what she and the friendly-to-all Casildo Hariri were doing sipping coffee, holding hands and locking lips in a public place. She searched her conscience and couldn’t find a scrap of guilt. A gurgle of laughter built within her. She swallowed it, not wanting to tamper with the scene Casildo had created.

Hers wasn’t the only gaze to follow him out the door. He was gorgeous. Not in terms of his looks, although he was drool-worthy, but in his desire to make her day easier. A lot of her colleagues would rate a kiss—with a promise of more—from Casildo above a work promotion any day. That’s what his hooded eyelids and brooding expression had told everyone in the place. The sigh of envy when he left the café was audible.

She and Casildo weren’t lovers, and weren’t likely to be lovers.

The propinquity effect might be real, but the fact her best friend was married to his best friend/brother made any kind of casual fling a disaster waiting to happen.

“More importantly, I don’t have the time,” she whispered into the dregs of her coffee. “I have to find another way to make more money.”

Why then did I kiss a colleague in what’s essentially a workplace café?