One Night Standards Read Online Free Page A

end?”
    She peeked through the peephole…and saw a figure that still managed to look good despite the distortion of the fish-eye lens.
    Don’t do it. You’re tired. You’re slap happy. You haven’t had sex in two years, she admonished herself. He works for the enemy. Do. Not. Open. That. Door.
    She saw her hand grab the doorknob, twist it and swing the door open.
    â€œForget something?” she inquired.
    His answering smile made her toes curl.
    â€œYou know,” he said, “sometimes, regret is healthy for you. Besides, it’s been a long time since I’ve done something somebody’s regretted.”
    Without another word, she grabbed him by the shirt and shut the door behind him. His lips were on her before the dead bolt even shot the lock.
    â€œWe must be crazy,” Sophie muttered breathlessly against Mark’s neck, even as her fingers flew to the buttons on his shirt, undoing them slowly. She wasn’t going slowly out of any inherent sexiness…. Passion and exhaustion had made her fingers clumsy.
    She knew her brain was too tired to be thinking rationally. Otherwise, she’d acknowledge just how universally stupid this course of action was. She’d driven six hours to get here, after a full day of traveling, and now she had a complete stranger in her hotel room after midnight when she had one of the biggest meetings of her career at, what, nine o’clock the next morning….
    She suddenly pulled back to stare at him. Good God, what was she thinking? Was she a complete and utter moron?
    â€œMark…”
    He smiled, his eyes aglow. Then he leaned down and devoured her mouth. Her fingers twined into the hair at the nape of his neck. She felt his fingertips dig into her hips, pulling her forward, molding her against what felt like a sizable hardness. She opened her mouth, tasting him, cuddling him at the juncture of her thighs as she pressed her breasts against his chest.
    Oh, yeah. A complete and utter moron, indeed, was her last coherent thought.
    But a happy moron.
    He tugged at her until the two of them tumbled onto the queen-size hotel-room bed. For a second, they lay there, kissing softly. It wasn’t clawing, or rushed, or even a mad grappling. It was more like coming home. Yes, that was a cliché, but since she’d never really felt it before, even when she was coming home to someone…
    She wasn’t going to think about that now.
    He moved from her mouth to her jawline, insistent kisses against her neck. She gasped a little, and her hands went back to his shirt, finally succeeding in getting the last of the buttons undone. She pushed the shirt away from his chest, letting her palms slide over the taut muscles of his torso. He felt hot, and smooth, and perfect. He was kissing her collarbone, and for a second, she forgot how to breathe.
    He reached for the hem of her short-sleeved blouse, and pulled away enough for her to wiggle out of it as he pulled it up over her head. He shrugged out of his shirt, and the lace of her bra was the only thing between the heat of their skin. She sighed against him, rolling him onto his back and straddling him. He reached for her belt buckle as she kissed him, over and over.
    This was madness. Utter, fantastic madness.
    He had her buckle undone and the top button on her linen pants open, unzipping slowly, and she laughed with sheer abandon. “I never do this,” she murmured, wondering if he’d think she was easy. Wondering if it was too late to be wondering about that kind of thing.
    Wondering, halfheartedly, if she really cared.
    â€œI never do this, either,” he said instead, and he smiled at her, a sugary kind of smile that had her smiling right back before he started kissing her again, deeply, and moving her over on her back. “You are exceptional in all kinds of ways, Sophie Jones.”
    â€œAnd you’re wonderful,” she said, and meant it. She barely registered