IN BED WITH THE BOSS

“Stop it.” Vivian said softly.

“But why,” Scott questioned softly, taking the glass from her unprotesting fingers and placing it on the table next to his, “Why do you say that? When you don’t really want me to stop it?’

“Yes, I do, Mr Mc-”

“Scott…” he corrected again.

“Scott” she whispered, but he must have read the lie in her eyes and on her lips.

“I don’t think so. I know it’s been tough at work-but we’re no longer at work. No one from the office is even here so we are free to do what the hell we want. You want me. We’ve been fighting it and I don’t want to fight it any more. I know what you want, honey, ”

“Stop it,” she whispered again, but he took no notice, just gave a low laugh as he caught her by the waist, drawing her behind the scented seclusion of the thick, scrambling honeysuckle and into his arms.Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

“Say it once more-with feeling,” he whispered.

Say it? She could scarcely breathe, her senses were so full of him and the heady perfume of the flowers. He pulled her closer and bent his head to look down into her face, his dark features leaning over her with a look of desire which she had dreamt of. But the reality far outstripped the dream. Dreams were cold, comfortless illusions while reality pulsed with life and promise. But wasn’t desire on its own wrong? Shouldn’t there be something more than that?

“Don’t-” The protest was blotted out by his kiss, her word drowned by that first sweet, melting contact, and she said his name in a kind of broken assent, and this time, he didn’t stop. “Scott…”

“I know.” His words were a shuddering sigh as he cupped her face between the palms of his hands and plundered more deeply, coaxing her mouth open with the tip of his tongue until she could bear it no more and her lips finally parted to let him dip inside, into a sweet moistness that made him groan.

Vivian felt as if she had strayed unawares into an unknown country where sensation ruled supreme. Every nerve ending was screaming in sensory alert, her body flowering into instant life beneath the urgent possession of his mouth. Her blood growing thick and heated. Her heart pounding, threatening to leap out of her chest.

She gave herself up to it-it simply wasn’t within her power not to as her eyelids fluttered to a close. Somehow her hands had drifted up to grip the broad, hard shoulders, feeling the sinew beneath the thin silk of the shirt he wore.

One hand had moved from her face to cup her buttock, moving her body closer still, so that they were moulded unbearably close together, her skin on fire where it touched his, her mouth making an involuntary moan as she felt the stark, hard power of him where the cradle of his masculinity pressed unashamedly against her.

The kiss went on and on until Scott drew his mouth away, staring down into the huge, haunted dark eyes, at the soft, dark blossom of her lips.

“Maybe we’d better stop this,” he managed unsteadily.

Her breathing was ragged as she gazed up at him in befuddlement, just wanting him to carry on kissing her.

“Come home with me, Vivian,” he urged softly.

It took a moment or two for it to register exactly what it was he was saying and when she did it was powerful enough to annihilate the terrible longing. Just like that! The cold, hard, commitment-phobe Scott McCall thought that one kiss would have her in his bed within minutes! And if she had been drowning under his kiss, then now was the time to come up for air. And fast.

She smoothed her ruffled hair back. “Isn’t it mandatory to at least buy a woman dinner first?” she questioned drily. His eyes glittered. The untouchable look was back, and somehow that turned him on even more.

“You’re hungry?” he asked.

“You really do have the most colossal nerve, don’t you, Mr McCall?” she demanded icily.

“No man has ever kissed you at a party, is that it?”

Not like that, they hadn’t, no. “That’s not the point!” she snapped. “Most women require a little more wooing than one kiss followed by the careless suggestion they might like to share your bed! But I guess you don’t care about that. All you do is kiss someone, never talk about it and act like it never happened. Then do it again and suggest that they go to bed with you.”

“You want me, Vivian,” he said unsteadily. “Deny that and I’ll call you a liar!”

She wasn’t stupid enough to deny what was as plain as the faint outline of the moon which was beginning to appear in the sky. “I might want a diamond necklace-but that doesn’t mean I’m automatically going to rush out and rob the first jeweler I see!”

He began to laugh as she pushed one of the dangling tendrils away from her cheek and began to turn away, afraid that her face would reveal more than he knew.

More than even she knew, because, surely to goodness, a single kiss shouldn’t make her feel like this- as if she had never known what it was to really feel before?

Vivian inhaled a breath and tilted her chin up at a haughty angle, every inch the socialite. “I’m not a whore. And I do admit that I’m attracted to you, but I won’t have sex with you.”

Irritation flashed inside him, and he took a step closer to her before he drew to an abrupt halt. “Look Vivian, I can promise you that when I take a woman to my bed, she wants to be there. I don’t give a damn about love and any other shit like that, because there’s something much more honest-fucking. There are no lies when a woman is coming for me, and I don’t want one in my bed who doesn’t want to be there. If she can’t give me the truth of her pleasure, then I don’t want her under me. And any man who’s satisfied with just getting a woman between the sheets, without giving a damn about her desire to be there, isn’t a man.”

Silence plummeted in the air, and Vivian bit her lower lip. “Goodbye, Mr McCall” she said.

“And where are you going?” he asked.

“Home.”

Back to where she was safe-safe from a man with nothing to offer but his exquisite body. She turned back then, surer of herself.

“And please don’t try following me!”

He didn’t point out that her eyes belied her words. No woman wanted to be made aware of her own weaknesses.

“No, I won’t follow you,” he murmured softly. “Not tonight. I’ve done enough deals in my life to know that you should only act when the moment is right, and that moment isn’t now. I’m good at waiting-I always have been. And I’ll only come when you’re ready for me, Vivian,”

____________

With Scott’s mocking words ringing in her ears, Vivian drove back to her apartment in a highly charged state of arousal and indignation.

So he would come back when she was ready, would he? As if she were some package just waiting for him to open her! As if he could walk into her life and find her waiting there with open arms.

But the memory of his kiss burned on her lips as if he had branded her. As if he had made her his with just that one stamp of possession.

She fought it all the way home, telling herself that she was completely in control. He had coaxed her body into glorious and responsive life, but that didn’t mean that she was going to leap into bed with him. In fact, if he meant what he said and he’d followed her home… When he came-If he came-she would just show him the door.

But he didn’t come.

And somehow, instead of dampening the fire he had ignited, his failure to show only fanned the flames and it was hard to think of anything but him, even though she tried.

She got home and hurriedly took off her clothes and hopped into the shower. She felt hot and had to stay under the cold water for minutes before she felt better. After she put on her nightwear, she got into bed but sleep wouldn’t come no matter how hard she tried.

She was thinking way too much about Scott and she knew sleep wouldn’t come until she found a way to get him out of her head. She turned on the TV and put on an episode of Grey’s anatomy, and after some time, she was dozing off, only to wake up again to the sound of her phone ringing.

She checked the caller ID and groaned when she saw that it was Scott. He wasn’t helping matters by calling her, but she picked the call anyway.

“Hello” she said, trying to mask her feelings, but she wasn’t sure she was doing a good job.