After divorcing her never-home husband, Lauren Southall plucked up her courage, dusted off her power suits, and returned to corporate life. Two years later, there's just one six-foot three, testosterone-packed problem: her ex-husband's good friend and her current boss, Noah Reeves. Lauren aches for him. No other man will do. But she can’t possibly measure up to the silicone-packed professional cheerleaders he dates. So she hides her desire behind a professional persona and fantasizes.
For ten years, Noah Reeves has waited to make Lauren his. Once her divorce was final, he tracked down and hired the brilliant, dedicated woman.
But when he's with her, it isn't spreadsheets and profit margins on his brain.
Problem is, she's never seen him as anything but her ex-husband’s pal. Now that she's finally a free woman and with him 40+ hours a week, well…he'd love to persuade her to throw in her nights and weekends.
Noah decides to romance her by day. By night, he becomes a mysterious stranger devoted only to her pleasure…and discovers she’s hiding a naughty little secret of her own.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Naughty Little Secret: Awareness prickled along her spine suddenly. Lauren swore she could hear someone exhale. Raggedly. Goosebumps raised on her arms, getting bigger as her heart raced faster.
Or was it possible she wasn’t alone? Maybe Mr. Mysterious was here, waiting to make good on his plan to ravish her body once for each bloom in that awesome bouquet she’d received earlier today.
Lauren reached for the chair. “Hello?”
Nothing. But suddenly, she felt him here. Yes, she was tired, and it was possible her imagination was overactive…but she didn’t think so.
Her heart raced like it was finishing the final laps at the Indy 500. Bracing herself on the chair, she made to walk out of the dining room and into the foyer to flip on a light. She’d told him to leave Friday night. The man coming back…not a good idea. He would only take her body and mess with her head, if she let him.
She wasn’t about to allow that.
A firm hand clamped around her wrist before she got anywhere near the light switch and pulled, jerking her back against the hot width of his male chest.
Electricity shot down her arm, exploded in her body. She gasped in the darkness. Oh, God. He was back. Here. And given the erect cock prodding her backside, Lauren didn’t have to guess twice what he had in mind.
“Hello, Lauren,” he whispered in her ear. “I told you I’d be back.”
Mr. Mysterious. And she knew what he wanted. His sin-infused voice rasped against her senses. Like the devil’s, his voice seemed to say that he’d returned not just to possess her body but to steal her soul. Adrenaline pumped into her and morphed into arousal that snaked through her mercilessly.
His other hand journeyed from her waist up, up—until his palm smoothed over her breast.
“Hard nipples. Nice welcome. For me?”
His touch was like fire. She swallowed against the zip of pleasure slinking up her spine. “Who are you?”
He tsked at her. “We’ve already played that game. Now’s not the time to rehash it again. I’m here to play something far more interesting.”
“But I never got an answer.”
“All in good time.” As if he knew his answer would piss her off, he tempered the words with a seductive caress of his lips over the sensitive crook of her neck. His fingertips skated over her nipples. Her knees buckled.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Her voice shook.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t be here.” He nudged his hard cock against the small of her back. “I should be…”
The hand he’d anchored at her waist dipped south. Lauren’s belly fluttered as his palm glided over her flesh. Heat blossomed inside her as his fingers inched slowly toward the damp, aching spot between her legs.
He covered her mound with his enormous hand. “Here. Right here.”
“No,” she choked past her urge to whimper and beg.
What was it about the man’s touch? Like an electric kaleidoscope of color and sensation. One touch and she could barely remember her own name, much less resist.
“Did you like your roses?” His hushed voice teased, taunted, made her shiver.
“Yes.” She heard the tremble in her voice. “But what you want…it’s not possible.”
His wicked chuckle in her ear sent a shiver through her. He palmed the flat of her belly, bringing her even closer to him. “It’s inevitable.”
Warm, moist lips trailed a path of kisses from her ear down to her shoulder. His hot breath heated her, stirring across her skin. Lauren shivered.
“I love the feel of you trembling for me. I want to feel that tonight as I fuck you.” He nipped on her lobe. “As I make love to you.”
“No,” she protested.
But it was weak. Very weak. Already, his body heat and her memories were combining to crush her resistance. His mouth at her neck drumming up her desires helped to make her self-control look like a tin can freshly crushed for recycling.
“Yes. You’re special. I want to show you that, give you the kind of pleasure you’ve never had.”
“You already have. Friday night was amazing, but—”
“Friday night was just a start. I’m dying to give you more. Everything.”
Lauren exhaled raggedly. Everything? She didn’t doubt he could. If he did, however, she feared her heart and her body wouldn’t be hers anymore by the time he was done.
“I already said no.”
“I respect that word,” he promised. “But not when you’re quivering in my arms and creaming your panties while you say it.”
Damn! He knew she wanted him.
Of course he knew. The man wasn’t an idiot. He was a single-minded, sexually-driven god between the sheets, his hard body was well equipped to drive a woman to repeated orgasms.
And you’re resisting…why? Her sex drive asked.
Her sex drive was not helping her keep her priorities straight.
“That isn’t the point. I’m not ruled by my panties.”
“Ruled? No. But let’s see if your panties and I can persuade you…”
Before Lauren could breathe or form a coherent answer, Mr. Mysterious had reached beneath her suit skirt and grabbed the panties in question. With a good yank, he ripped them away and tossed them to the ground.
“You don’t wear those again this week, day or night. I want to know that pretty pussy is bare and waiting for me all day.”
“At work—”
“No one at work will know.” He froze. “Unless you plan on showing someone you work with.”
Lauren’s mind flooded with images of Noah—smiling, frowning in thought, shooting her a heated stare. Instead of ramping her desire down, the thought of giving Noah a glimpse of her bare, wet sex made her desire spike fiercely.
“Do you?” he demanded.
“N—no,” she stammered. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to show you.”
“Oh?” He slipped his fingers into her wet slit, right over her clit and gave a soft little slide. “You’re this wet and needy but you plan to ease yourself?”
As if she could… Only he made her ache like this. Damn him.
Even now, those fingers of his, just grazing her clit slowly, rhythmically, slowly destroyed her defiance—and sanity. The coil of need wrapped tighter and tighter low in her belly, right between her legs. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
But he knew.
“Don’t hold it in. I want you to tell me how you feel.”
“Stop,” she grated out.
He did. Instantly. His fingers ceased their lush, leisurely stimulation. But his fingers remained on her hard clit, which pulsed under his touch, silently begging. The ache between her legs became a clamp of pleasure/pain at the sudden deprivation of his strokes.
Nothing in the world could stop the whimper that clawed up her throat and out of her mouth.
“I know,” he murmured gruffly. “I feel you throbbing under my fingers. It’s the same way my cock throbs for you. Want me to make it better, sugar?”