The atmosphere between us was fraught to say the least as the limo driver took us back into Boston, heading for the financial district.

Caine obviously wasn’t in the mood to chat and I definitely wasn’t either after the way he’d treated me this entire week. His behavior had gone from being overbearingly bossy to downright insulting.

We made it to the office without uttering a word to each other. I tried to keep up with his long strides, but I was struggling in my heels and long dress.

I drew to a halt outside Caine’s office. The entire floor was empty.

No Arnold.

Nobody.

Caine unlocked his door, flicking on lights as he strode inside his office. I followed him in.

He turned and looked at me blankly. “It appears I missed it. I’ll take you home.”

Uh … what? I held my hand up, palm facing out to stop him. I gestured around the room, my agitation mounting. “Where is Arnold? Where is this conference call?”

He shrugged. “Obviously I missed it and Arnold locked up.”

“Without calling you?” I asked, incredulous.

He shrugged again. “Let me take you home.”

“Did you lie? Did you lie to get me out of that party?”

“I don’t lie,” Caine said, sounding affronted. “I manipulate. It’s how I got rich. Now let me take you home.”

No. We weren’t going anywhere until I got to the bottom of this. It felt like I had fire in my blood, I was that angry with him. Suddenly I didn’t care if he fired me. “You lied to get me out of a party and away from my date. Are you that much of a snob?”

“It wasn’t about that,” he snapped, his eyes sparking with his ire. “I didn’t want you there and I made that clear. When I want something a certain way I get it. I thought I’d also made that clear by now.”

“You son of a bitch!” I shouted, losing all cool. “All week you’ve made me feel like I’m nothing, like I’m worthless. And now this crap!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Monday afternoon. Henry came to your office and you forgot to switch off the speakerphone.”

The air around him crackled dangerously. “You were eavesdropping?”

I flushed. “I was going to tell you, but then I heard … Henry started talking about me and it’s only natural to listen in to a conversation about yourself,” I argued. “And you were beyond insulting.”

His expression cleared. “Is that why you said yes to Henry? To piss me off?”

“I said yes because he was complimentary. And yes, I have to admit to getting some satisfaction out of irritating you since it was so clear you think I’m beneath you.”

His nostrils flared. “Bullshit.”

I blinked rapidly at the denial. “Seriously? You’ve been treating me badly all week. Not to mention how you were tonight? You’re not a stupid man, Caine, so you had to know I was hurt when my grandfather chose to ignore me, and you just dug the knife in deeper. You’re never going to see me for me, are you?” I clenched my hands into fists. “You’re just going to wound me and humiliate me. You’re determined to make me pay for what he did.” At his silence my anger increased. “Aren’t you!” I yelled.

Suddenly my back hit the wall behind me as Caine moved me there, caging me in as he crowded me against it, his hands pressed to the wall above my head. Emotion blazed from his eyes. “I don’t think you’re beneath me,” he hissed.

The surprise of finding myself barricaded in by him had knocked my attitude down a few levels. “Then why were you cruel?” I whispered.

Remorse flickered in his eyes. “I didn’t mean … I just didn’t want you there. With him.”

And the shocks just kept coming.

I sucked in my breath and then slowly exhaled. It isn’t possible … I didn’t think so, but … I took in the aspect of his dark gaze that hinted at another emotion besides anger. “You’re jealous?”

The muscle in Caine’s jaw flexed.

My heart started to slam against my ribs and I couldn’t seem to get control of my rapidly increasing breathing. With our eyes locked, our bodies touching, the heat around us blazing off the charts, I forgot where we were. I forgot everything but him.

“Cai—”

He crushed his mouth over mine, swallowing my gasp of shock and excitement. His cologne, the heat of his skin, and the taste of him, hot and sharp … it all overwhelmed me as he gripped the back of my neck with one hand and slid the other down my stomach … He smoothed it down my hip and under my thigh.

Realizing his intent, I kissed him back harder and clung to him, my fingers digging into his back, as he tugged my thigh up so he could press deeper between my legs. My lips parted on a whimper of lust and triumph. Caine growled. The sound caused a ripple of arousal in my lower belly and I pushed into him.

His hand tightened around my neck and he groaned again, the vibration of it causing more heat to shoot through me, tugging at my nipples, melting through my belly, and exploding between my legs in a burst of needy tingles. His kiss grew more demanding, long, drugging kisses that muddled my head and took me with him to somewhere else entirely. We were panting and pulling at each other’s mouths like we couldn’t get deep enough. Caine crushed me harder against the wall, grinding his erection against me. My belly squeezed again, and it occurred to me I’d never been this turned on from just kissing someone in my life.

It was him.

I slid my hands up his back and over his shoulders, my fingers sinking into his hair as I silently begged for more, for harder, for deeper … for everything.

From him.

Caine released his hold on my neck only to trail his fingers along my collarbone. As he skimmed his fingertips slowly over the silk of my dress, shivers cascaded down my spine, giving me goose bumps and causing my nipples to peak against the fabric of my dress. His thumb brushed lightly over my breast and stilled at the evidence of my arousal.

He broke the kiss, pulling back only an inch to gaze into my eyes. His lashes were low-lidded with lust as he studied me. I held his heated gaze, my lips swollen and stinging, my whole body taut with need.

Caine slowly lowered my leg and for a few awful seconds I wondered if that was it.

“Take off the dress.”

His voice was thick with need, but still there was authority in it—bossiness.

Turned out in the right situation, Caine being bossy was less annoying and actually very, very hot.

Slowly, I let go of him, and still holding his gaze, I reached behind my neck for the crystal clasp on the halter.

Caine took a few steps back, allowing cool air to rush in around me.

I’d undressed for boyfriends before. It wasn’t something I’d ever been shy about, because unlike most of my friends I didn’t really have any body hang-ups. But it was different standing in front of Caine, preparing to bare myself to him. For some reason it didn’t just feel like I was taking off a dress. It felt like I was letting him see me naked.

And there was a difference.

I hesitated, my fingers fumbling on the clasp.

Caine saw it. His answer was to tug at the bow tie around his neck. I watched him as he removed it and then he began to shrug out of his jacket. As he started unbuttoning his shirt, he said in a low, deep voice that made me pop the clasp, “I fantasize about fucking you in this office a hundred times a day.”

His confession made me breathless.

I’d wondered if he was attracted to me, but I never thought he’d admit it or act on it.

But to know he was as attracted to me as I was to him … well, that made me brave again.

I pulled the halter of the dress down and watched Caine’s eyes grow impossibly black with heat as I bared my breasts to him. My nipples pebbled under the kiss of the cool air, and gaining my confidence, I tugged down the dress and shimmied out of it. I lifted it up off the floor and draped it across the back of the sofa. Caine’s gaze devoured every inch of me.

I was left in only my jewelry, my underwear and my heels.

I curled my fingers into my panties.

“Stop.” Caine took a step toward me and I let my own gaze eat him up. His shirt was completely unbuttoned, revealing a sliver of his tan skin and hard abs. “Leave them on. Sit on my desk.” He moved aside of it, leaving me a clear path.

He could hear how breathless I was when I asked, “Are you this bossy with all your women?”

Caine grinned, a wicked full-on smile that made my heart palpitate. “No, you just bring it out in me.”

I smiled back. “You’re saying you have a thing for bossing me around?”

“Just like you have a thing for being a smart-ass. Now sit on my desk and spread your legs.”

My whole body zinged with anticipation and I released a hitched breath.

Caine’s eyes gleamed at my response.

Straightening my shoulders, I walked toward his desk and him, my breasts bouncing with the movement, and I was more than smug about the fact that Caine’s arousal was straining to break free of his zipper. I slipped past him and lowered my ass to his desk. I shivered at the coolness of it against my skin as I settled my weight on it and spread my legs.

The air in the room fairly crackled as Caine approached me. His fingertips trailed over the tops of my thighs as he moved in between my legs and bent to brush his lips over mine. I clung to his waist and captured his mouth again before he could pull back.

Soon the kiss was out of control, wild and hurried, as I pushed his shirt out of the way and smoothed my hands over every ripple and hard muscle on his torso, and he touched me everywhere.

Abruptly Caine pulled back, panting. “No, you don’t,” he murmured against my mouth.

“No, I don’t what?” I said, confused by being suddenly wrenched from his lips. God, the man could kiss like no one could. “I want your tongue back.”

“And you’ll get it.” He pulled away only to tug his shirt off impatiently.

I grew hotter at the sight of him half-naked and turned on. His strong shoulders, muscled biceps, and hard, sculpted six-pack … All he needed was a trickle of sweat running down those washboard abs and he would be a diet soda ad. I licked my lips and Caine groaned.

“Do you know how sexy you are?”

A burn, the exact opposite of the burn that had been stinging in my chest all week, flared out near my heart. “I do now,” I replied softly.

Because I did.

I had never felt more so in my life than in that moment under Caine Carraway’s needy, heated gaze. I’d never felt more wanted.

And from a man I thought would never want me.

Tonight was blowing my mind in more ways than one.

Caine lowered himself to the floor and curled his hands behind my knees, tugging me gently until my ass was practically hanging off the desk.

My head fell back in a groan as he began pressing soft, teasing kisses along my inner right thigh. I jerked at the touch of his mouth against my sex. He blew the lace of my panties against me and I shuddered.

“These are soaked.” Caine curled a finger around them, brushing my labia. “Let’s get rid of them.”

“Uh-huh.” I was barely coherent.

Suddenly the panties were gone and Caine was pressing my thighs apart again. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said reverently, his breath puffing against me.

“Please.” I slid my fingers in his hair, staring down at him in torment. “Please.”

His eyes blazed up at me. “You want me?”

He even had to ask?

“From the moment I saw you,” I admitted.

Those eyes flared with triumph and then his mouth was finally on me.

“Oh God,” I whimpered, leaning back on my hands as he licked at me, his tongue flicking and tormenting my clit. “Caine, please.”

I could it feel it building, the muscles in my thighs trembling and tightening.

And then two fingers pushed inside me.

He sucked and licked at me and slid his fingers in and out of me. I was heading for the cliff edge. I stiffened and then fell over, crying out his name as my inner muscles clamped around his fingers in a hard climax.

Caine stood up, only to lean down into me, wrapping his arms around my waist so he could gather me against him. I lifted my legs around his hips and clung to him as he kissed me, his tongue moving against mine in hard, quick strokes—the kiss was so desperate it was almost punishing.

I loved it.

I loved the taste of him and me on his tongue.

Caine broke the kiss, his hot lips trailing down my neck. I arched my back, anticipating his needs, and thrust my breasts up for his claim.

Claim he did.

Quickly the gloriously languid aftermath of my climax was decimated by the heat he fanned in me again. He cupped and stroked and kissed my breasts, learning every inch of them. And then he wrapped his mouth around my nipple and tugged, sucked, and licked it until it was so swollen it was tender. He moved on to the other until my legs were climbing his hips, and I was writhing against his erection, desperate for him to take me.

“Caine,” I pleaded. “Come inside me.”

He kissed me, one hand under my ass urging me up against his erection as he rubbed it between my legs, the friction of the material of his trousers against my sex building me toward climax again. I gasped against his kiss as his other hand moved into my hair, his fingers plucking at the pins that held it in place. A few seconds later it came tumbling down around my shoulders and Caine’s hand was gone.

I heard a zipper go down and then he was hot and throbbing and hard against me.

Caine reluctantly tore his lips from mine and panted against my mouth. “You’re on the pill, right?”

The question was almost pleading.

I nodded and looked down, feeling a sudden roar of fire lick up from my heels, shooting through my whole body, at the sight of him. It was big. It was thick.

I licked my lips.

“Fuck, Lexie,” Caine breathed against my mouth.

I kissed him, my tongue flicking against his lips. I took the silken heat of him in my hands and squeezed and Caine kissed me harder, gasping and panting, as I stroked him with one hand and dug my fingers into his ass with the other, urging him to me.

I guided his tip to my entrance and smoothed my hand up his rigid stomach.

With our lips still touching, our eyes met and held.

Caine gripped my hips and pushed inside.

My eyes fluttered closed at the satisfying burn that quickly evaporated under the relief of being completely filled.

“Lexie, open your eyes,” Caine demanded hoarsely.

I opened my eyes and held his fierce gaze.

“Keep your eyes open.” He thrust in deeper. “Fuck,” he whispered, “keep your eyes open.”

He tilted my hips up farther as he slid in and out of me slowly. I trembled against him as he took pleasure in taking his time, and like earlier, I couldn’t remember ever feeling more naked. It was holding his gaze, him demanding that I held it as he moved inside me. It intensified whatever this connection was between us. There was no denying this was us—him inside me.

“You feel amazing,” he grunted against my lips.

I moved against his thrusts, my heart racing out of all control. “So do you.”

“Lexie.” His grip tightened, his eyes blazing into mine. “Lexie.”

“Caine,” I whimpered back as he thrust at just the right angle to brush my clit with his movements.

“Fuck.” He started pumping harder, faster.

It began to build again and I was shuddering against him in little jerks as it did so.

“Come for me, Lexie,” Caine commanded, his voice gruff with need. “Come around me.”

That soft, hard demand was a trigger.

I cried out his name again, my fingers digging into his skin as I clenched around his driving cock, and I lost his gaze as my eyes practically rolled into the back of my head.

As I melted around him, Caine held me to him as his rhythm increased. A few seconds later, his face pressed against my neck, he stiffened and groaned my name. His hips jerked against mine and I felt the release of his climax inside me.

I held on to him as we tried to catch our breath. My skin was slick against his, my breasts crushed against his chest, and we were as close to each other as we could get. I squeezed my thighs around his hips, glorying in this delicious aftermath.

Then … his muscles grew taut beneath my hands.

Uneasiness crept over me.

Call it intuition, call it whatever you want, I just knew I wasn’t going to like what happened next.