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Needing air, he moved his mouth to her jaw, to her sweet neck. God, she tasted like cupcakes with butter icing—sweet and decadent all at once. He slid a hand up the curve of her hip, then beneath her top to her waist. Her mouth opened on an intake of breath as he found skin. Such warmth, such satisfying softness.
When he circled his thumb beneath her ribs she writhed beneath his touch. Hell, the woman was all response. She made his blood pump too fast through his body, until kissing didn’t seem like nearly enough—
He heard the phone ring in the outer office and remembered where he was: the company he owned was humming uncompromisingly on the other side of an unlocked door.
He pulled away with less haste than he’d intended. His hands took their time to leave her body. His mouth trailed back to hers for one last taste.
Then, using every ounce of self-control he was able to muster, he leaned back on the chair, as far away from this strangely compelling creature as possible.
Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at the ceiling, her legs twisted, her clothes askew. “Well,” she said. “I’m sure glad we got that sorted.”
He laughed. Then laughed some more. And thanked his lucky stars he’d found Saskia Bloom.
She pulled herself up to sit, ran a hand through her hair and only managed to make it look more rumpled. Provocative little thing, she was. He wondered if she had a clue.
“We done for today?” he asked.
“And then some,” she said, shooting him a smile still lazy with lust.
While Saskia heaved herself from the couch Nate glanced at his watch, saw it wasn’t even four. He had hours of work left to do, but knew without a doubt he’d be lucky if his concentration strayed above fifty percent capacity.
“I’ll walk you to the lift,” said Nate, picking up the dossiers.
“Keep them,” she said, grabbing her hat, her cardigan, her huge bag. She was soon lost inside them again. “Some light reading for you. And if you feel like I’ve missed out any important details in your file feel free to jot down notes.”
Nate pressed his thumb into his temple.
“You do that a lot,” Saskia said. “Rub your temples. Or run a hand up the back of your hair. I wonder if you keep your hair so short so you don’t tear it out.”
She sat to retie her shoes, crossing the straps over her small ankles. When Nate found himself staring, imagining himself dropping to his knees and undoing them all over again, he distracted himself with his dossier, opening it to a page labelled “Identifying Marks.”
Hello!
“You have a tattoo?” His eyes drifted over her lean form, landing on spots that might sport a tattoo of some breadth. “I should probably know what it is. And where.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Then she set her feet on the floor, walked around the table. She turned away from him and lifted the loose top to reveal a small tattoo at the top of her shoulderblade.
A swathe of her hair was in the way, giving him no choice but to move it to one side. Her skin contracted under his touch. His gut tightened at her reaction. And the urge to kiss her, right there, came with a powerful push.
“A rose?” he said.
“My mother’s name. Rosetta, actually. She was holidaying from Spain when she met Dad.”
Her mother—who had died giving birth to her.
Losing his father had been horrific. Life-altering. Every dynamic in his life had shifted overnight. Even while Nate’s mother drove him crazy he couldn’t imagine not having her in his life. And yet Saskia Bloom, was, for all intents and purposes, an orphan of the world.
She lifted her shoulder away from his touch and let her hair fall back to her shoulder. “Not what you expected?”
“I was all prepared for a Chinese symbol for...something.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Unless I know a language intimately I’m not letting some biker with a needle write it on my skin.”
A biker? Who was this woman?
Whoever she was, she was smiling at his shock. And in a flash he saw fearlessness behind that smile. A girl without a mother. A woman without a father. Alone in the world. And yet she was bright with effervescence, drive, gumption, humour and fearlessness. Looking into her lovely brown eyes for a moment, he could feel wind in his hair, the sun on his face as he left the world behind.
“Do you have any tattoos?”
He blinked, came back to the real world. “I do not.”
“Want one?” She leaned forward, grabbed her bag and a grape, popping it into her mouth, where she rolled it around with her tongue before her teeth sank into it with an audible pop.
“I’m sorry?”
“A tattoo,” she said, licking grape juice from the corner of her lip. “I know a guy who’d just love to get a hold of all that nice clean skin of yours.”
