The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss by Diana Palmer Page B

shot.”

50Diana Palmer
    Her unblinking stare was involuntary. “I’ve never seen you in a bathing suit,” she remarked absently.
    He didn’t move, but his eyes darkened, became intent on hers. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in one, now. Not in public, anyway.” His chest rose and fell heavily. “I’d let you look at me, I guess. But no one else.”
    Her body stilled as she looked up at him. “Why me?” she asked softly.
    “Because you wouldn’t make me feel like less of a man,” he said simply. “Some women have a knack for putting a knife in a man’s ego. It makes them feel superior. When a man does the same thing to a woman, they call him a chauvinist. Some double stan-dard.” “All women aren’t like that.”
    He moved a step closer to her. When she didn’t tense or move back, he took another step, and another, until he was close enough to smell the faint scent of violets that clung to her skin. She was wearing a soft gray pantsuit with a heather-colored jacket. Her hair was loose and she looked young and pretty and very vulnerable.
    He caught a handful of her hair a little roughly and pushed up at her nape to lift her face to his narrow, darkening eyes. “Teach me,” he said huskily.
    Her lips parted on a rush of breath as her heartbeat ran wild. “Wh-what?” she whispered.
    His eyes fell to her mouth and he bent toward it, his own mouth parting just as it touched hers. “Teach me how to be gentle….”
    He spoke the words into her mouth. She stiffened at the moist, hot pressure, the smokey warmth of his own mouth so intimately touching hers. She could breathe him, smell the tang of cologne, feel the strength and power of his body almost touching her.
    His eyes were open, and she looked into them just as his lips brushed hers.
    “What do you like, Tess?” he whispered. His teeth opened and closed with exquisite tenderness on her upper lip, while his tongue softly tasted its moist inside. “Tell me.” Her hands were on his chest, under the tweed jacket, against his
     
    The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss51 white shirt. Under the material, she could feel a thick cushion of hair over hard, warm muscle. “Dane, you can’t,” she began shakily. “Why?”
    His mouth was easing her lips apart. The contact was making her knees weak. “You hated…me,” she whispered.
    “I hated my mother,” he corrected, his eyes searching hers while he played with her mouth, that steely hand at her nape still clutching her soft hair, “I hated my ex-wife…I hated half the world. But I never hated you.” His heavy brows drew together in something like pain. “Never, Tess…!”
    She felt him shudder as his mouth came down completely over hers, capturing it in a silence that danced with tension, with impossible desires.
    For an instant, it was like the past again. But his arms weren’t bruising. She could feel the restraint in him, the determination to go slow, to not rush her. Because of it, and because of what she’d learned about him, the panic began to recede. She let him hold her. And for the first time, she allowed herself to feel his mouth, to let herself taste it as he kissed her with exquisite softness. The contact was more pleasurable than she’d ever dreamed. His lips were firm, and he tasted of coffee. She liked the way he tasted.
    As the pleasure grew, she felt a sudden heat in her lower body, a faint trembling in her legs. “Dane…” She heard her voice sobbing against the pleasure of his mouth, but like lightning striking, his hand contracted and he ground her lips apart under his, so that his tongue could ease between her teeth and push softly inside the sweet darkness of her mouth.
    She remembered the one time she’d shared a deep kiss with him and gasped.
    He lifted his head slowly, his heart pounding with a heavy beat. He looked down into her shaken eyes for a long moment, fiercely satisfied with what he saw there. She wasn’t afraid; she was aroused. Amazing, that tenderness could