Meredith's Awakening (Corporate Affairs, Book Two)

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An Excerpt From: MEREDITH’S AWAKENING

Copyright © SIERRA & VJ SUMMERS, 2011

All Rights Reserved, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

Her eyes were like wide, silver pools, yearning and vulnerable. Tony could all but feel her conflict, and while he understood it, he couldn’t allow it to continue. To control her. To control them.

He slanted her a smile he knew was a little bit dark and a lot wicked. “Oh I know your name, Ms. Worthington. I also know how badly it suits you. You’re all big eyes and trembling lips. You’re like a fawn, everything’s all new and scary and you want to experience it all so bad. You’re just waiting for the one who can make it happen for you. You know I can do it, don’t you, princess?”

With each word he’d moved a bit closer until he could hear the faint rasp of her breath and catch her scent. She smelled…expensive. Doubtless like some French perfume that cost more per ounce than his car payment. She smelled like Heaven. Flowers and the spice of warm, aroused woman. She smelled…edible. And he was more than ready to take a bite.

“No.” She had to force each word out. Something had broken in her at the construction site this morning. Some crucial bond that had kept her separate and safe. Now she felt as if all her defenses were crumbling around her, as if she was spinning out of control. It felt far too much like when she’d waited for a crumb of her father’s attention or when she’d hidden from the media frenzy after Marcus’ divorce. It terrified her and yet she couldn’t stop it.

“I don’t have the luxury of experiencing everything. I have a business. I have responsibilities. There is no room for anything else. There is nothing else.”

“Princess, your lips say one thing but your eyes and body say another.” He prowled closer still and Meredith finally broke and ran.

As she swiftly moved from her desk to stand behind the low leather couch that backed up to the wall across from the window, Tony kept pace with her, slowly gaining ground.

“Don’t do this.” She could hear the panic growing in her voice. Growing at the same rate as the heat in her belly at the look in his melting-brown eyes. To her dismay she realized her panic had less to do with him than it did with her own reactions. Deep down she knew if she gave in to him, to her own desires, she would never find her control again and she would lose her grip on everything that defined her.

It was clear to Tony that unless he did something drastic, Meredith would shut down completely. He wouldn’t, couldn’t let her do so.

With a quick, totally unexpected move, he rounded the couch and pressed her against the wall, catching the hands she raised to push him away in one of his. With a gentleness that belied his abrupt capture, he rested his forehead against hers.

“Don’t be so scared,” he murmured. The desperation in her eyes haunted him and he knew the only way to erase it was to free her from her self-imposed prison. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

She didn’t look reassured but she did stop her frantic squirming.

“Trust me, princess.”

She shook her head.

“Just a little.” He was whispering against her lips now and they were soft as satin.

She shook her head but the motion slowed until it was a dreamy drag of mouth over mouth. He couldn’t contain his low purr of approval.

“Trust me with this.” And his lips finally took hers.

Meredith was awash in sensation. The wall pressed cool against her back while Tony’s body blanketed her in heat. His scent, musk and man, filled her head, leaving her dizzy and confused. His voice was a low rumble vibrating from his chest to hers. And his mouth. God, his mouth. It was like silk and velvet, warm and slow. With brief licks and tiny bites, his mouth gentled hers, seducing a response, and she was helpless to resist.

“Mmm. You taste so good.” His words buzzed against her, sending sparkles of sensation over her skin. With a last nip at her lower lip he moved on, feathering kisses over her jaw before sliding down to breathe warm caresses against the sensitive skin of her neck. “You taste like fresh water in the desert and warm, spicy nights.” His hot words and hotter lips wove a spell around her. And in spite of herself, she didn’t want to escape.

Caught up in his light touches and soft words, Meredith didn’t immediately notice what his free hand was up to. It was only when a cool draft wafted over her abdomen that she realized he’d been methodically plucking her buttons open, one by one.

Before she could do more than tense in protest, his lips surrounded hers again, sucking them into his mouth before focusing on first the top and then the bottom. The sensations streaking through her were electric and totally distracted her from the hand now stroking down her thigh to begin inching her skirt upward in a slow, inevitable slide.

Tony hooked her thigh lightly around his, freeing up his hand while still keeping her skirt at crotch level. Once again free to move, he stroked a heated path up her tummy before tracing the outline of her bra. This time Meredith didn’t protest. She was too caught up in the sensations he was causing to riot along her nerve endings. His fingers were rough, a working man’s hands, but gentle at the same time, taming her like the wild fawn he’d named her for.

God, she is delicious. For all her bristles and denials, her skin was like satin and her mouth like hot, wet silk. Meredith Worthington was a cauldron waiting to boil over. All she needed was the right man to break her formidable control. The right man to show her the pleasure that could only be found by giving over completely. And Tony intended to be that man.

She was so closed, so hard to read. He couldn’t imagine she didn’t recognize him, not when he’d spent five long years planning for the day he’d claim her for his own. But if she did remember him, she wasn’t letting on. Not by word or deed. Suddenly, he had to know for sure.

“Let me touch you, Ariel.”

Hearing that name, Meredith froze from the inside out. Oh no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. She’d walked away from this sort of adventure five years ago, and if there’d been moments of regret, all she had to do was look at the yellowed newspaper clipping in her dresser drawer to remember why.

But if that were true, then why didn’t she pull away from the man who held her so forcefully? Held her as if she was as necessary to him as the air he breathed. In spite of her confusion, her senses were swimming. Her hormones crying.

She tried to stay strong but her wall of ice wasn’t proof against the fire of his touch.

Moving with slow intent, Tony slid his hand along her rib cage to stroke up her spine under her cotton blouse. With one practiced motion, he undid the clip of her bra and made a low sound of enjoyment when her breasts fell loose against his chest.

When he pushed the bra up, baring her breasts, he had to fight for breath. Her breasts were creamy white and smooth, pale as the rest of her skin. Her nipples were long and tight, a rosy pink that went well with her ivory skin but seemed at odds with her black, black hair. She was like strawberries and cream, and she was just waiting to be savored and enjoyed. Unable to resist for one moment more, Tony leaned down and stroked his tongue lightly against her beaded nipple, smiling darkly as she arched into the caress.

His tongue was like velvet. She’d known that from his kisses, had almost remembered it, but the sensation of it on her skin was a revelation. Meredith knew later she would be embarrassed, even enraged with him and with herself. But now? Now all she knew was the press of his hips against hers, the cool slickness of the wall supporting her, his hand cupping her breast like an offering and his mouth tormenting her inflamed flesh.