‘I’m afraid I don’t see. Perhaps you should be more explicit, hmm?’
‘Closing the door. Staying here to talk to me alone,’ Keira got out tensely.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘People might.
‘Will think?’ he prompted.
‘That… Oh, don’t be obtuse. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You must realise what they’re thinking. It was written all over Denver Clarkson’s face.’
Eden raised dark brows, infuriating Keira even more.
She turned, took a couple of paces away from him, her fingers agitatedly twisting the dress ring on her right hand. ‘You know they’re thinking I landed this job via the casting couch.’
‘And you know you didn’t,’ he remarked easily.
Keira swung back to face him, her grey eyes flashing angrily. ‘Yes, well, that’s the only good thing about this- this fiasco.’
‘It’s going to be rather difficult to tell everyone you turned me down,’ he said, the flash of humour in his eyes belying the seriousness of his expression. ‘But if you’d like I can give it a try. However, it may seem like a smokescreen, a case of protesting too much, methinks.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! You may find this hilarious but I can assure you it isn’t a joke to me, Mr Cassidy.’ Keira lifted her chin. ‘I’m a private person and I rather value my reputation, both personally and professionally. Now if that’s something someone like you finds it difficult to understand, then I’m sorry, but I have to work with these people.’
‘I think you’re over-reacting,’ he said calmly. ‘Those who know you won’t believe it and, as I said before, you know the truth. And so do I,’ he added with a casual shrug.
‘Unfortunately that doesn’t do much in the eyes of the gossips. Especially when you act as perfunctorily, as irresponsibly, as you just did.’
A frown furrowed his brow as he straightened and she sensed he had tensed imperceptibly. ‘I really can’t see how closing an office door compromises your reputation.’
‘Closing it the way you did in front of Denver Clarkson was hardly prudent under the circumstances,’ she stated with a wave of her hand.
‘Good lord, this isn’t the Victorian era. We’re both single and adults.’ Eden faced her, hands aggressively on his hips now. ‘And I hardly think Denver Clarkson gives a damn what we do behind closed doors.’
‘Well, I do give a damn.’
‘Look, Keira,’ he appealed, reaching out to clasp her arm, and Keira started away from him.
His head went up then, his eyes darkening as his own anger surged to equal hers. In one fluid stride he’d followed her, his fingers finding and encircling her wrist, and she found herself propelled against the solid wall of his chest.
Her eyes widened in astonished alarm for short seconds, and then a far more potent emotion surged from deep within her. Suddenly every erotic response in her body found life, stood at full alert, the shock of the intensity of her awareness rendering her completely paralysed.
Part of her mind urgently told her to thrust him away from her, put a steadying distance between them. Yet most of her, those horrifyingly unprecedented feelings of sensual desire, craved for her surrender. Electrifying emotions seared through her to explode at every sensitised nerve ending, clamouring for her to match anything he cared to offer.
His own anger had diminished too. She recognised that same incendiary hunger in his darkened eyes, for it was like looking into the mirror of her own soul. And she knew without reservation that he wanted her just as much as she wanted him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A THICKLY sensual sound broke from his throat and his head descended with a slowness that for Keira was very nearly an agony of waiting. His eyes never wavered from hers, each torturous moment holding a so temptingly seductive promise.
Her mouth was suddenly aflame, awaiting the touch of his, and her throat constricted achingly as her heartbeats reverberated in her breast.
Keira’s chin lifted of its own accord and when their lips finally met she heard a thunderous rushing in her ears and felt as though she were drowning, swirling downwards in a vortex of pleasure and pain.
They kissed for minutes, or hours, both oblivious to the passing of time, tongue-tips touching, plundering, exciting each other in a torrent of delirious intensity.
Somehow Eden had turned them around, his hips now resting against her desk. One taut thigh insinuated itself tantalisingly between hers and his hand slid slowly down her back to hold her firmly against him.
Keira’s bones seemed to melt and the fire in the pit of her stomach exploded into an inferno. She moaned softly, moving sensually against him and he pulled her impossibly closer, his lips sliding feverishly along the line of her jaw, the curve of her throat, to settle in the V where the neckline of her blouse skimmed the swell of her breasts.
He drew her blouse from her skirt, his hand slipping over her smooth midriff to cup her breast through the lace of her bra, and when his fingers found her straining nipple her knees gave way beneath her. Keira let herself collapse against him, and she knew she was just as aroused as he so obviously was. She rained light, passionate kisses over his face, the tip of her tongue teasing his earlobe as his fingers on her breast drove her to the brink of ecstatic desire.
And that she was almost past the point of no return some small far-off part of her realised, tried to warn her, and she groaned at the intrusive thought. She didn’t want to think. Or to rationalise her revealing response.
With eyes closed she threw her head back invitingly and his lips trailed smouldering fire over her throat. Then she opened her eyes, her smoky gaze locking with his, and somehow the earth shifted slightly off its axis before righting itself and bringing them just marginally back into kilter.
For long soul-searching moments they gazed at each other, both hovering on the high of their arousal, and it was Eden who broke the heady, electrified silence.
‘Perhaps we’d better lock that damn door,’ he said huskily, his blue eyes still dark liquid pools of molten desire.
Keira blinked languidly, only slowly beginning to take in the picture they made.
Somehow her fingers had fumblingly undone his waistcoat, slid between the buttons of his shirt to settle in the mat of fine hair on his chest. The skirt of her suit was high on her thighs, displaying her nylon-clad legs, and his hand still rested on her swollen breast beneath her blouse.
If anyone walked in and saw them now…
Keira drew back as though she had been stung. Or attempted to. For at her withdrawal Eden’s arm about her had tightened and she struggled, her hands pushing against the hard wall of his chest.
‘Let me go!’ she demanded, her voice catching in her throat. ‘Eden, please! This is madness-’
‘Divine madness,’ he said softly, and held her fast for long moments before he finally slowly released her.
Keira agitatedly pulled down her skirt and began to straighten her blouse, her fingers shaking as she tucked it into her belt. ‘For God’s sake, fix your shirt. Anyone could come in and…’
‘And they’d be suitably shocked, I’m sure,’ he finished drily as he pushed himself to his feet and buttoned his waistcoat, ‘Very short-sighted of us. It would seem our emotions got the better of us, hmm?’
Keira ran a hand over her eyes. ‘I can’t believe…’ She shook her head, completely mortified by her behaviour. ‘This can’t be happening…’
Realising she was babbling, she took a steadying breath. ‘How could you-?’ She heard what she was saying and stopped.
No. In all fairness she couldn’t totally blame Eden. She was just as culpable as he was for their disgusting display of abandonment.
Keira fought to regain her composure. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that this-’ she swallowed painfully ‘-