Page 3 of Stripping Bare

“Tessa, go home. Please.” If she stayed much longer, he might spill more about his life. About how he felt. About what hewanted.

Her.

“Not while you’redrinking.”

He could play that game. His mouth quirked up and he tossed back the liquid in his glass. “Alldone.”

“Then why don’t I take you todinner?”

He shook his head because what he was hungry for he wouldn’t find on a menu at a downtown Seattlerestaurant.

Tessa reached out—slowly—and touched his face. Just a whisper of her fingers against the three-day stubble on his jaw. But it rushed through him like the scotch, leaving a scorched trail in itswake.

Before he could stop himself, he turned his head and brushed his lips across her palm. Her indrawn breath made it clear he’d surprised her, but she didn’t pullaway.

In fact, she stepped closer and skimmed her thumb across his cheekbone. Her gaze was warm and soft, and her lips were parted. This was a woman who wanted to be kissed. Byhim.

God, he wanted that,too.

“Tessa—”

“Don’t.” Her touch shifted so that her fingers pressed against his lips, and he couldn’t resist rubbing them against her soft skin. “I have a feeling I won’t like what you’re about to say. If you’re worried this is inappropriate, you shouldn’t. After all, you’re the one person in this company who’s refused to talk tome.”

Yeah, he’d been dancing around that. Would keep dancing aroundit.

“I’ve beendrinking.”

“That’s an excuse,” she said mildly. “You’re notdrunk.”

“I could be if you’d leave mealone.”

“Nice try, McSurly. Something else is going on here. I can see your pulse beating in your throat. Am I making you uncomfortable? Ornervous?”

“Crazy,” hesaid.

Her mouth tipped up in a smile that was a combination of sweetness and pure seduction. She moved into him so that the buttons on her jacket brushed the front of his T-shirt. Her scent wound around him, making him drunk in a way the single malt nevercould.

Without thinking it through, he spread his legs so she could step between them. He cradled her hips between his thighs, and her skirt rubbed against the fly of hisjeans.

Her eyes filled with heat. “Then kissme.”

He set his glass on the desk with a definitive clink. Then his hands were in her hair and he was pulling her up to meet his mouth. God, if he thought she smelled like pure temptation, then her taste was the direct path to sin. A hint of cinnamon overlaid with the smokiness of thescotch.

She smelled cool and untouchable, but she was burning him with the heat of her kiss. She opened her mouth to him and angled to get closer until air couldn’t squeeze its way between their bodies. Her tongue was slick and avid against his, invading his mouth like he’d dreamed of sliding into her body since the day she’d walked in here wearing her sexy suit and serioussmile.

His brain did a wild loop in his head at the sensation of her mouth against his. At the reality of a kiss so long desired. So longdenied.

Over the past eighteen months, he hadn’t slept with a woman. Hadn’t wantedto.

And it didn’t take a PhD in psychology to figure out why. Tessa was the one woman his body craved, no matter how much his brain told him heshouldn’t.

Without breaking their kiss, Tessa reached between them to work the buttons on her jacket. It slipped off her shoulders and swooshed to the ground. It killed him to release her mouth, but he needed tosee.

One glimpse and he squeezed his eyes closed, his breathing ragged. “I’m glad I didn’tknow.”

“Knowwhat?”

“What you wear under there.” She’d revealed a skimpy black camisole, all lace and silk with fragile straps that he could snap with a twist of his fingers. The urge to do so, just yank and rip, pounded through him. He wanted to bare her beautiful skin. Her tight, hardnipples.