Under His Spell (The Miami Tycoon) Read Online Free Page B

at her face, deadly serious. “You’re the one that found the loophole in the Sunwillow contract. If it wasn’t for you this sale would’ve dragged on another couple weeks, easy. Couldn’t have done it without you.” It seemed as though his voice had dropped another register; Erica was sure she could feel it resonating in her chest, vibrating her inner ear and making her tingle.
    “Well, I couldn’t have done it with you.” Her voice was barely at a whisper. Their faces were inches away.
    “Well, I couldn’t have done it without you.” A hint of a smile returned to his face.
    “Me neither.” Erica looked up at him. It was all she could do not to touch him.
    “What were we talking about again?”
    “No idea.” As soon as she said it, she put her hands on his waist and pulled him to her. Once she’d made the first move, it was as if a dam broke in him. He picked her up as though she weighed no more than a cat and set her on the edge of the desk, kissing her all the while. Holding his face, she could feel the slightest scratch of stubble under her fingertips—his lips and tongue the textural opposite, slick velvet in her mouth. She fell into the kiss like she was falling into a well; fell into it like you fall asleep—without effort or a conscious choice but still a sudden, intense change of physical and mental state of being.
    He pulled away from her mouth, but put his cheek to hers. She could feel his warm breath on her ear. “Erica,” he said, voice hoarse. She felt lightheaded; couldn’t remember if she’d been breathing or not. She reached for his tie and made to unbutton his shirt.
    Then came the sound of a door opening and a surprised gasp; Nick and Erica sprang apart as a woman hastily closed the door to the hallway.
    “The cleaning crew. I should’ve remembered they were coming.” Nick was only a few feet from her, but Erica felt bereft now that their physical contact was broken. It took her a long moment to come back down to the reality of the situation: she’d just been kissing her new boss, at the dream job for which she’d relocated cities. How many glaring mistakes could a woman make in one day? Apparently a lot, if you were Erica Moore.
    She snatched her bag from under her desk and started to run out of the place. “I’m sorry, Mr. Maxwell. I don’t know what I was thinking. Please let’s forget about it. I didn’t mean to...I didn’t mean to.”
    “Erica, wait! I’m sorry! Can we talk about this?” Erica was already at the door. She paused, part of her wanting desperately to go back and resume whatever it was that had been happening between them. It required a great deal of her strength to walk through the door and let it shut behind her.
    Driving back to Emily’s, Erica went over the night’s events in her mind. He’d kissed her. He liked her. She knew it by the way he kissed, by the way he said her name. He was her boss, though.
    Would Erica look down on somebody else who had nearly slept with their boss after their second day of work? Probably. It smacked of trying to sleep your way to the top. Would she do it, given the chance? Probably.
    Erica had never begrudged anyone their sexual pleasure or freedoms, but casual sex always seemed like something other people did. She considered her sex drive about average; she enjoyed sex with people she knew and trusted. She neither knew nor trusted her boss, even though he seemed knowable and trustworthy so far. So why was her sex drive spiraling out of control for him?
    When Erica walked in the house, Emily was on the couch, watching a show about brides throwing tantrums.
    “Come watch this, it’s a trainwreck!” Emily sounded gleeful. She switched gears immediately when she saw Erica’s face. “Aw, Pandy, what happened?”
    The old nickname made Erica smile just a little. Emily used to call Erica a panda bear after a night of debauchery; hangovers gave her terrible dark under-eye circles, even as a fresh-faced nineteen-year