“Wonderful.” She slid closer. “I quit,” he heard her murmur, and then her mouth was on his with a moan. The world fell away as liquid heat and the taste of her roared through him. Her fingers gripped in his hair, as she demanded, insisted on more, and he gave, and he took, his heart thundering in his chest. So effortlessly he tumbled off the cliff of his ironclad rules. And it was worth every second he would spend in hell to be caressed by the scent of her, to luxuriate in the plump softness of her lips. Drowning in sensation as the erotic slick of her tongue danced with his. Another soft moan, he wasn’t sure if it was his or hers, so drunk on the taste of her. Then her fists released their grip on his hair. Her palms gently traversed his face, her fingers trailing in their wake until they came between his mouth and hers. “One. I said one. Oh God, I want more.” She leaned her forehead against his, their breath intermingling, harsh and ragged as if having completed a fifty-meter dash. “I never should have promised just one,” she moaned as her hands traveled down his neck to rest over his beating heart. Then she raised her head, and he saw such longing in her eyes before her eyelids fluttered to half-mast, shielding the naked beauty of her thoughts from him.

“Sarah . . .” He reached for her, but she was already gone. Had rounded the table and was back in her original seat, her face flushed, her lips rosy and swollen. He shut his eyes momentarily, every cell in his body throbbing. Trying to permanently imprint that mind-blowing kiss into his memory bank so he would have it for this lifetime and into the next.

30

“You’re certain the reservation was for two separate rooms, Mr. Talford?” The stout desk clerk stroked his Vandyke beard worriedly. He tapped something else on his keyboard, his head jutted forward as he studied the screen with a pale unblinking gaze.

“Absolutely.” There wasn’t an ounce of give in Mick’s voice. Sarah saw a muscle jump in his jaw.

The desk clerk dragged his glance away from the computer. A slight sheen of sweat had appeared on the man’s forehead and around his nose. “I’m so very sorry, but there appears to have been a miscommunication. Perhaps your secretary made a mis—” The steely, uncompromising look in Mick’s eyes had the desk clerk’s voice petering out. The man flinched, blinked, and then swallowed hard, as if he’d realized he had mistakenly tugged the tail of a tiger.

“I. Made. The reservation.”

“Oh dear.”

“Two rooms.”