That First Kiss

  Baby steps, he reminded himself. First he had to talk to her. Then he had to get her. After that, it was anyone’s guess.

  Now all he had to do was get her to open the damn door.

  15

  Piper had the best time out with the girls. Rather than a movie, Shelia had talked her into calling up Lynn and Jules—Patti was nursing a cold and couldn’t make it—and hitting one of the new clubs that had just opened on the west end. It was a small, fledgling business, but it worked for what they wanted, which was a nice time out with a couple of drinks, a lot of laughs, and no complications. She had almost completely forgotten about the waking-up-in-bed-with-her-boss situation.

  Unfortunately, that plan was thrown to the curb the moment she stepped foot off the elevator and noticed the mass of angry male leaning against her door jamb, scowling at her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded to know, sliding past his unyielding body to unlock her door. “Do you mind?”

  He moved, but barely. “Why haven’t you answered any of my messages,” he asked, his face inches from hers.

  The hinges protested with a squeal as she pushed open the door and stepped into the living room. Intending on giving him a less than fond farewell, Piper turned to slam the door in his face only to stop when Tate shoved his way inside. “Just what do you think you are doin’?” she hissed, a touch of her accent coming through.

  Tate stood over her, his blue eyes raking over the little black dress and sky-high heels she wore. They snagged briefly on the insane amount of cleavage and she saw the spark of desire register an instant before the anger took over. “What the hell are you wearing? Did you go out on a…were you out on a fucking date?”

  “That’s none of your damn business!” she shouted, slamming the door closed so they wouldn’t disturb the neighbors. But with paper-thin walls, she wouldn’t be surprised if the police showed up any moment for disturbing the peace. “It’s my day off,” she snarled. “I do get one of those, in case you forgot.”

  “How could I possibly forget? I had to make my own coffee!” he roared.

  “Well, call the newspapers! It’s a wonder you’re still alive,” Piper yelled back. She stabbed a finger at him. “I am not your damn servant, Tate. I’m your assistant and that does not give you the right to push me around or show up at my home demanding to know where I’ve been or who I am spending my time with.” They’d only just begun, but already this whole argument was wearing her out.

  Tate looked away, refusing to acknowledge anything she just said. Distracted, his gaze roamed her apartment, taking stock of her meager possessions. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “That’s because I don’t have to!” She couldn’t even recall what question that was. Breathing deeply, Piper worked to affect some sense of calm. “Now, please, leave. I will see you in the morning,” she said tightly, proud that her voice hadn’t shaken, then returned to the door and held it open.

  Completely ignoring her, Tate plopped down on the sofa. “This is a nice place, Piper,” he commented, eerily calm for someone who had just been shouting at her. Reclining back, he folded his hands across his stomach and kicked his feet up on the tabletop.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Now get your shoes off my table.”

  *****

  Tate dropped his feet and passed her a smooth smile that had melted many women’s hearts. Piper cocked an eyebrow, no sign whatsoever that she was even marginally effected by his charms. Yep. He knew she found him attractive, had suspicions that she thought of him as much more than that, but she was hard to read and it was quite possible that for the first time, he might be wrong and she might not want him at all.

  Momentarily dejected, Tate tried to keep the smile on his face and the mood light. Piper’s refusal to let go of her own anger was making that nearly impossible to accomplish, however.

  Resigned, Piper silently closed the door again and slipped out of her shoes—a pair of sexy black heels that he was sad to see go—and placed them neatly by the door. “I need something to drink.”

  Sounded good to him. “I’ll take water, beer, coke, whatever you have.”

  She stopped mid-step and gave him an arch look. “I wasn’t offering.”

  Tate grinned widely and cocked an eyebrow. “I know. Surprise me.” The look on her face could have shriveled his balls had he been a lesser man, but Tate wasn’t a lesser man. Settling into the cushions, he brought his arms up and laced his fingers behind his head, closing his eyes while he listened to Piper moving around quietly a few feet away.

  Behind his closed lids, he imagined all the different ways this thing could play out: Piper returning with a cold beer in one hand, her bra in the other and wearing a sinful smile that made promises he would make sure she kept. Piper wearing nothing but her heels, striding toward him, her full breasts bouncing and swaying with each step in a hypnotizing rhythm. Tate’s fantasy took him deeper to Piper lying beneath him, her lids heavy and her lips moist and parted—both sets—waiting for him to plunge inside with his tongue, his fingers, his cock.

  “Tired?” The soft, feminine voice ripped him from his fantasies and Tate straightened as a cream soda was thrust in his face. “I ran out of bottled water and I don’t drink.”

  “It’s fine,” he said, surprised to find his voice deeper than normal and filled with gravel. He cleared his throat. “I like cream soda.”

  “Glad to know you approve,” Piper replied tersely, clearly not over her anger. She settled on a cushion at the opposite end of the couch with her body turned toward him, and twisted the cap off her own bottle with a small shhhnick.

  Tate twisted his own cap off and took a long pull. The pop fizzed in his mouth, burning the inside of his nose and causing his eyes to water. He coughed, blinked several times.

  Piper’s musical laugh touched his ears, but the wicked look in her eyes reminded him that she was laughing at him, not with him.

  “What’s so funny?” he inquired, his head canting to one side.

  “Nothing.” She sipped her drink. “Actually,” she amended, “I was just thinking how I wished you would choke on it…and then you did.”

  Tate’s eyes narrowed. “I see.” So she was laughing at him. How lovely of her.

  Piper rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be such a baby. The first drink is always the worst. After that, it all goes down smooth.”

  He’d bet a lot more than the soda would go down smooth.

  Leaning forward, Tate placed the glass bottle on a small table positioned in front of the couch. “It’s been a while since I had one of these. I forgot how volatile they are.” He gave her a meaningful look, but she wisely looked away, choosing not to answer. Well, he knew how to pick his battles, too. For instance, he was choosing to be the bigger person here by letting whatever anger had sparked between them moments before, go. He hadn’t come here to fight. His motives were much more debauched.

  Piper just sat there, looking anywhere but at him and sipping at her drink as silence invaded the room. For the first time in his life, Tate was at a loss. He wanted to sleep with her, to ravage her body until they burned through whatever craziness this was between them. He’d already decided to go for it. But now that he had Piper right where he wanted her, he didn’t know what to do with her.

  Piper wasn’t a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of girl, his instincts told him that much, so he couldn’t just ask her where the bedroom was. Could he? No. She would hate him for that, and even though he wanted to lay her out and crawl inside her, he couldn’t use her that way. This left him with only one option: the reason they came here.

  He needed her to be on the same page before he moved this thing ahead. He needed her to understand that he was interested in exploring this thing, letting the chips fall where they may, and when the fire they shared burned out—because it would, he had no doubt—they would be done. The question was would she go for it?

  *****

  I need to get him out of here, Pipe
r thought frantically. She’d been hoping, praying, that after refusing to answer any of his calls he would let it go, but she should have known better. It was bad enough that she had already been having trouble keeping her nerves in check even thinking about having to face him Monday morning—Tate had that kind of effect on her. He made her blood boil and her insides quiver until her legs turned to jelly and her stomach twisted up in knots.

  She was kind of hoping he’d forgotten about what happened earlier, that way she wouldn’t have to explain, but she’d never been so lucky and now he was sitting there staring at her; one corner of his mouth curved up in that sly smile that flooded her body with heat and made her pussy clench with need.

  Right now she was kind of wishing that she had a bigger apartment. One that was cramped with furniture, instead of the teeny tiny square that could barely hold a couch and recliner, let alone a television or the matching love seat she’d had to pass on. Now she was uncomfortably close to the man who made her wild with need, and he was looking at her in a way that made her want to reveal her innermost desires—not that she would ever tell him any of that. Still, it made her jittery, because she would so love to put some distance between them right now.

  Tate, always the picture of ease, sat with his long legs spread wide and his arms spanning the back of the couch. His shirt stretched over his chest, fitting him like a second skin and hinting at the ropes of trim muscle underneath. Letting her eyes flick over him in a quick assessment, she couldn’t help but notice the impressive bulge behind his fly, and she blushed when he moved to adjust himself, realizing that she must have stared for a lot longer than just a quick glance.

  “Keep staring like that, honey, and I’ll make sure to satisfy your curiosity real quick.”

  Piper felt instant heat flood her cheeks and looked away so fast it was a wonder her head didn’t spin. She knew Tate was a very forward kind of guy, and he didn’t mince words often, but it was always a bit of a shock when he directed sexually charged words at her, maybe because it didn’t happen that often. At this point, she should be used to it. She shrugged it off.

  What she needed to do now was get her head on straight and focus on getting him the hell out of her apartment. Nothing good could come of this, and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and forget that any of this had happened. Forget that she had woken up in Tate’s bed. Forget that she had slept with her boss. Forget the way his hands felt when he touched her flesh. Would it be too much to ask for a blow to the head with a blunt object? She could use a bout of amnesia right about now.

  Unfortunately, that idea was shot to hell when Tate inched closer and placed his hand on her thigh.

  16

  “That night we met,” Tate began as he slid closer to her, boldly skimming his hand up her thigh. He watched her face, monitoring her reception. “I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”

  Piper snorted. “Right. I’m sure you say that to all the girls. Right before you haul them into the bathroom and screw their brains out.”

  Tate smirked. “If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly a talkative person.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured that one out all on my own, thanks.”

  Tate sighed. “Look, could we scrap the attitude for a minute?”

  “Could you get your hand off my leg?” she retorted. Piper slapped at his hand, but he squeezed it harder, determined to keep it right where it was. He’d come this far. He wasn’t about to lose any ground now.

  “Not going to happen, doll,” he said sternly. “Now, I am going to speak, and you are going to listen.” His voice rose to drown out her protest. “I knew when I laid eyes on you that you were something special. I watched you talking with your friends for a while, gauging your mood, studying your mannerisms. Did you know that when you laugh, your whole face lights up?” He continued, not willing to let her speak and derail his thoughts. “Then you looked at me, and I swear, my heart stopped beating. For just a moment, it was like we were connected by some invisible string and I knew then that I was going to talk to you before the night was through. I just had to wait for you to break away from all those women.” He chuckled, recalling how hungry those women looked that night. They were on the hunt and men were on their menu. Piper was the only one who didn’t have that primal look in her eye that night. Everything about her said that she was there to enjoy herself, and he had been drawn to her because of that.

  “When you left the table with your friends to dance, I saw my chance and I took it.” His finger stroked the inside of her thigh, seeking higher ground as his thoughts rolled forward. Piper’s eyes trained on his face, hanging on his every word. “I didn’t intend for things to get as heated as they did, but as soon as I touched you, I needed more. I couldn’t help myself. You possessed me.”

  The glazed look in her eye told him that she was remembering that night as vividly as he was. Placing both hands on the cushions on either side of her body, he hemmed her in, bringing their faces so close that when he spoke, his lips grazed hers. “The way you danced that night, pushing that sweet little ass of yours against me. It’s haunted me, Piper,” he whispered. “You need to understand, I tried to resist you, just like I have been trying to resist you, but you drive me crazy. When I’m with you, it takes everything in me to stay away. All I think about, all I dream about is burying myself inside you.”

  Piper licked her lips and Tate zeroed in on the tiny movement. “I want to suck those plump lips into my mouth,” he murmured. Shifting, he brought his knee up so it rested on the couch alongside hers and hovered over her. Her face was flushed and her chest rose and fell heavily. She wasn’t unaffected.

  “You need to leave,” she said weakly.

  Tate chose that moment to drop his head into the crook of her neck, nuzzling her. She smelled faintly of roses, and his cock jumped at her soft, feminine scent. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked softly.

  He could feel her softening beneath him, her breath coming out in shudders as he skimmed his lips lightly up her neck to her ear, where he licked the pulse beating rapidly beneath her sensitive skin. “Yes.”

  The single word left her on a stilted breath, only solidifying his need to get inside her. “I don’t think you do,” he murmured. With sure hands, Tate grabbed the backs of her thighs and yanked her toward him, seating her firmly beneath him on her back with her legs spread wide. He dropped his hips, moaning when his hardened cock pressed against the heat radiating from her core. “Fuck, I like you like this. Under me. Around me.” He hadn’t fucked a woman face-to-face in over a year, and what better way to start than with this woman.

  Piper’s eyes squeezed shut and her hips bucked once, instinctively drawing him closer, seeking release. Tate moved slowly, pushing into her through their clothes as his hands found her breasts. “You want this. You want me. Tell me you do, Piper.”

  “No.” She shook her head, her hands coming up to push against his chest.

  “You do,” Tate insisted. He suckled her neck, running his tongue up and down the soft column of flesh. She gasped, and the hands that had pushed him away were now gripping his shirt, pulling him closer. This was the response he was searching for. He knew she wanted him, her body practically cried out for him to take her, but her head kept interfering. “Don’t over think it. You want this,” he told her again. “Remember what it felt like the first time? Do you remember how it felt to have me inside you? I do,” he grunted in her ear as he ground his hips against her. “You were so wet, baby. So fucking tight. You made me come so hard. Let me inside, baby. Say yes and I will make you feel so good.”

  Her answering moan was all he needed to hear. Tate wasted no time. Reaching between them, he found her wet heat and nearly lost it. “God, you’re panties are soaked, baby.” Moving the delicate, lacy material to the side, he slid two fingers over her slick opening.

  “Tate,” she gasped, her eyes flying open.

  “Are you still bleeding?” he questioned as he kissed a
path to her breasts.

  “My cycles are short,” she panted. “It ended this afternoon.” Her hands clutched his shoulders as he pushed two fingers inside, meeting no resistance, and worked them in and out.

  “Do you like that?” he asked, though he knew she did. With their eyes locked, he crooked his fingers inside her, and she nearly shot off the couch. “You do,” he crooned, repeating the motion. “Mmm, just think, if my fingers feel this good, how good my cock will feel. Do you want that? Do you want me inside you, Piper?”

  She nodded, and he was happy to see that he already had her panting for her release. “Tate, I need…I need…”

  Well, he aimed to please. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll take care of you.” Leaning back, Tate slipped his fingers free of her eliciting a small whimper. Hooking her panties with his thumbs, Tate drew them down her legs and tossed them aside. “God, look at you,” he told her. “You’re so beautiful.” Laying there, her face flushed, her lips swollen from her biting them, she looked good enough to eat.

  Gripping her knees, Tate pushed her legs open wider, letting his eyes drift down between them. “Fuck.” Her pussy was swollen and pink, glistening with her juices. “I want to kiss you here.” He glanced up at her to make sure it was okay. She nodded slightly, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as he shifted, getting down onto his knees on the floor. He pulled her closer, angling her body until her ass met the edge of the cushion.

  “I bet you taste incredible.” Lifting her legs to rest on his shoulders, he bent his head and swiped his tongue up her slit. Piper cried out. He nearly came in his pants. “Fuck, I was right. You taste like heaven dipped in chocolate.” All talking ceased as Tate dipped his tongue into her slick channel, lapping up her cream like he was starving. He swirled the tip of his tongue around her swollen clit, his thumbs parting her lips for him to feast. Piper panted and squirmed as he teased her. When he sucked her clit between his lips, she fisted his hair, lifting her hips to his mouth.