Sapphire Read Online Free

majesty. Servers cleaned up glasses and platters with mundane clanking. The brilliant harbor lights lit every crevice of the boat, bringing a harsh clarity.
    “Can I offer you a ride home?” Kirliss asked.
    “Ah…no, thank you.” Taylor managed to sound smooth and firm. “I have my car here.”
    “Then I’ll walk you to your car.”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “Let Kirliss walk you to your car, Taylor.” Worthington jumped in. “Can’t be too safe. Take care of my new VP—I need her. Good to see you, Adam.”
    With a pleased handshake, he strode off and Taylor wheeled on Kirliss. “Nothing more is going to happen—I mean it!”
    “In a parking lot?” Kirliss raised dubious eyebrows. “What kind of man do you take me for?”
    “I’m not going to answer that,” Taylor muttered.
    Kirliss chuckled and took her elbow, supporting her while she picked her way down the ramp in her high heels. They walked across the planking, Taylor making sure her stilettos didn’t go through the gaps. When they hit pavement, she pulled her elbow out of his grasp, on pretext of adjusting her shawl, and he let her.
    “Your legs look incredible in those heels,” he observed.
    Taylor almost didn’t reply. “Thank you,” she finally offered. She could play the polite game.
    “I’d like to see you naked, in nothing but the heels.”
    Taylor choked. “It’s good to want things.” Her car was close.
    “I’d like to take you to dinner tomorrow night,” Kirliss said.
    “No.”
    “Lunch, then.”
    “No.”
    “Tonight was only the beginning, M. We both know you liked my sample.”
    Taylor had her car keys in hand, ready. “Look, what happened tonight was exciting, I won’t lie. But it was just a fling. I’m a busy woman.”
    She reached her car, unlocked it and opened the door. She tossed her purse on the seat. “So, um—” she put out a hand to shake, “—thanks for a lovely evening, I guess.”
    Kirliss shook her hand, looking amused. Then he tightened his grip, not painful but firm. Taylor’s breath, still not quite normal, burned in her chest. He stepped in, backing her against the car, the metal still warm from the day’s heat. With excruciating slowness, he moved her hand behind her back, changing his grip so his fingers encircled her wrist. Heat jumped through her in panicked bursts, her still-damp sex flooding again.
    Kirliss pressed against her and Taylor put a hand, full of her car keys, against his shoulder to hold him away. Still, her pounding heartbeat shuddered through her and she felt sure he reveled in every thump. He lowered his head so their lips were a breath apart.
    “I want you,” he whispered. “And I know you want me to have you, M. I’m not letting Taylor get in the way of that.”
    “I’m not interested in being any man’s slave.” Taylor’s voice shook but the words were clear.
    Kirliss laughed and pressed a kiss against the corner of her mouth. His breath feathered across her cheek while his muscled thighs pressed into hers. His lips brushed her sensitive earlobe, and Taylor gasped.
    “I’m not interested in having a slave,” he said. And lightly bit her earlobe.
    Taylor convulsed, blood pounding hot through her. From far away, she heard his quiet laugh.
    “Your passion liberates you, M, not the reverse. I’ll send a driver to pick you up at your place, eight o’clock.”
    Dazed, Taylor let him help her into her car. She shook away the blistering fog and clung to some sense. “Absolutely not.”
    He raised an eyebrow, bracing himself on the open car door, caging her in. Taylor put her key in the ignition, reassured by the warm purr of the engine.
    “Clinging to control, Taylor?”
    “How stupid would I be to just get in a man’s car? A man I already know has odd sexual proclivities.”
    “Those are the rules, M. My driver picks you up for dinner. Or…we can have lunch and negotiate terms.”
    “Lunch, then,” Taylor agreed. “We’ll meet at—”
    Kirliss grinned.