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She could sense they were about to cross a line that would smash any protective barriers around her heart where Lachlan Mackay was concerned.
His expression shuttered. He dropped his arms.
“No.” She grabbed his suit coat, holding him to her before he could pull away. “Don’t stop, please.” Did that husky, wanton voice belong to her? She grabbed his hand and guided it back to her breast.
His answering growl was low and deep. He crushed her in his embrace and devoured her with the unleashed passion she’d remembered from their first kiss. His hand returned to caress one breast, then the other, before skimming over her dress to cup her bottom. He tilted his hips, and the evidence of his desire tore a gasp from her lips that ended on a moan.
She released the hand that had wound its way into his hair and brushed her fingers over the hard ridge.
He jerked at her touch and nipped her lower lip. “Careful Sophia, you’re playing with fire.”
Her hand lifted to cup his jaw so he was forced to see the truth in her eyes. “Maybe I want to get burned.”
Lachlan’s eyes blazed, melting away the last of his restraint. He captured her straying hand and joined it with her other one behind his neck. His fingers swept beneath the hem of her dress and blazed a trail up her inner thigh to the silken barrier between her legs. His foot nudged her shoe to widen her stance.
“You’re already wet.” The harsh rasp of his voice made her even wetter. His finger slid beneath the silk, sliding through her drenched sex to circle her most sensitive spot.
She jerked, crying out in shocked pleasure as her pelvic muscles spasmed, destroying any inhibitions she might have had left.
“More.” She whispered the plea into his mouth as she tried to consume him. The world fell away until it was only the two of them and her desperate need for him to fill the hollow ache clawing at her insides.
His finger worked her clit, massaging slowly, then faster. “Do you want to come?”
She nipped at his lips and felt them curl.
He plunged one finger, then two, deep, and she exploded, spots dancing beneath her closed lids like fireworks, her body spasming around his thrusting fingers. His mouth swallowed her breathless scream until the delicious tension ebbed, leaving her boneless in his arms.
“Christ, you’re beautiful.” Lachlan kissed her forehead, his ragged breaths ruffling her hair. This close, she could feel his struggle to regain control.
Reason returned and brought with it a hefty dose of mortification. “Oh my God,” she moaned into Lachlan’s broad chest. “I can’t believe we just did that. In myoffice.“ What if someone had walked in, or gotten a peek through the sidelight? “I’ve never done anything that…public before.”
Lachlan’s finger lifted her chin. His expression sobered. “Do you regret it?”
Regret it? The shadows were missing from his eyes. His normally guarded posture had relaxed. He’d pleasured her without asking the same in return. A wild, untamed hope filled her before she could rein it in. Maybe, for Lachlan, she could be enough.
“No regrets.”
His lips quirked into a satisfied smile before brushing hers in a gentle caress. “I’m already looking forward to my return from Kabul.”
As silently as he’d arrived, he slipped away, leaving her alone.
Chapter Twenty
Sophiacouldn’tstopthinkingabout Lachlan and how she’d felt coming apart in his arms, even as she handed her keys to a waiting valet later that evening and stepped into Congressman Kellerman’s Great Falls mansion.
The crystal chandelier above her gave off rainbow prisms of sparkling light from its two-story perch above the entrance foyer. She admired it as she passed her wrap to the waiting attendant and accepted a glass of white wine from a roving server.
She and Emily had managed to get in an early dinner at the new Indian restaurant they’d wanted to try, and now Emily was off to a DC United match with some of her colleagues at the State Department. She’d taken one look at Sophia’s face and grilled her over dinner to spill until Sophia had given a sanitized accounting of what had taken place in her office.
Emily had burst out laughing and raised her glass of wine to salute Sophia for “getting her freak on,” as Emily put it, in the workplace with the Hot Scot.
What Sophia hadn’t admitted to her best friend was how hard she’d fallen for Lachlan or that he was caught up in an arms trafficking nightmare from which he might not escape unscathed. And Emily still didn’t know about her agreement to spy on Lachlan for Admiral Dane.
Jared must be here by now.Her gaze meandered over the crowd of about thirty people. She spied him in the parlor to her right, conversing with Kellerman’s chief of staff. When he glanced in her direction, she gave a brief wave to snag his attention.
His chin lifted in acknowledgment before he shook the other man’s hand and worked his way through the room to where she waited. He’d changed into a tailored black suit, white dress shirt, and a silver paisley tie with a matching pocket square. She had to admit, he looked sharp.
“Breathtaking as always.” His gaze lingered on her midnight blue silk sheath dress before coming to rest on her hair, which Emily had styled into a sleek chignon.