KISS AND MAKE-UP Read online

  She simply stared, her yes wide and assessing, as if she was trying to peer into his mind, to read his thoughts.

  If she knew exactly what he was thinking—that he’d very much like to know what she had on under that silky, sleeveless blouse of hers—he’d be in deep, deep trouble. And she’d probably slap his face. Or take off her blouse.

  He’d be better off being slapped.

  “You want me…”

  He waited, figuring she wasn’t finished her sentence. But she didn’t say another word. She just kept watching, waiting. Her mouth curved into a tiny smile and she took another step closer, until her bare arm lightly touched his. He wished he hadn’t rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt because the delicate brush of her warm skin against his took the tension and awareness and thrust it up exponentially.

  Then he realized that there was no more to her sentence. She’d said all she was going to say, accusing him of wanting her. That he did want her didn’t make the accusation any easier to deal with. Because he knew, he’d known for years, that he couldn’t have her. Their short-lived marriage had proved that.

  They were opposites, from completely different backgrounds, going in completely different directions. The media stories he’d seen about her over the years had hammered that reality into his brain. Sure, she laughed about her wild, exotic lifestyle, but she still lived it. She hadn’t made any effort to change it.

  She was still the rich golden girl and he was, deep down, still the simple, hardworking blue-collar guy he’d always been.

  What it came down to was that they’d only ever hurt each other. Going down that road again with Cassie would be not only self-destructive but damn near suicidal.

  Wyatt was a strong man and he wasn’t afraid of much. But letting himself love her again, only to have his heart skewered when she returned to her flamboyant, jet-setting lifestyle among the rich and jaded…well, he wasn’t strong enough for that.

  “You can’t even deny it, can you?” she said, that sultry half smile still playing about her lips.

  He stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Liar.” She moved until her bare legs, gloriously emphasized by her short skirt, brushed against his pants.

  “You’re trying to get rid of me to keep yourself from doing what you really want to do.”

  What he really wanted to do was grab her, spin her around, lift her onto the conference table and devour every inch of her. But he didn’t figure her imagination had taken things quite that far. “What I really want to do?”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe what I want to do is get you out of my hair so I can get back to work without you underfoot,” he said, straightening up so she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.

  “Double liar.” She raised up on tiptoe, lifting her face to his until he felt her slow exhalations on his chin. Their breaths mingled. “What you really want to do is kiss me again.”

  Kissing was definitely part of the devouring-her-on-the-table thing. So he didn’t try to deny it.

  “But you won’t do it,” she whispered. “You have this invisible wall around yourself and you’re not going to let it drop.” She stretched up just a bit more and placed her hand flat on his chest, right above the heart she’d once mangled and left in tiny chunks. “So,” she added, “maybe I’ll just have to climb over it again, just like I did yesterday in your car.”

  She moved another centimeter, another breath closer, until there was nothing but a sliver of air separating their lips.

  And Wyatt gave up all resistance.

  With a helpless groan, he lowered his mouth to hers, tasting the sweetness of her lips. That same immediate sense of pulse-pounding pleasure and rightness rushed through him. It was a feeling he’d forced himself to forget until yesterday when she’d shocked him with her “thank-you” kiss. Just like then, he was overwhelmed with the memory of all the kisses, the passion, the desire, the emotion they’d shared from the day they’d met.

  Hearing her moan of pleasure, he gave up any last hint of doubt, deepening the kiss into a hungry mating. She parted her lips and their tongues met and tangled, wet and hot and carnal.

  Cassie slid her arms around his neck, pulling him tighter against her body. Almost shaking with want for her, he wrapped his arm around her waist, one hand pressed possessively on the small of her back. He teased the gentle indentation above her sexy backside with his fingertips. With his other hand, he cupped her head, letting his fingers slip into her soft, curly hair.

  The kiss went on and on, lethargic, then frenzied. Sweet, then sultry. A dance of give and take that soon had them both breathing hard, with pulses pounding.

  Cassie writhed in his arms, pressing against him. The pebbled tips of her breasts scraped with agonizing delight against his shirt and Wyatt hungered to taste them, remembering how sensitive her pretty pink nipples were.

  When she tilted her hips closer and rubbed against the erection barely contained in his trousers, they both groaned at the delicious torment. Because they knew how good it could be, how good it had always been. There was no wondering. They knew.

  Never taking his mouth from hers, Wyatt leaned down until he was again half sitting on the table. And it was so easy, so damn easy, to lower his hands to her hips and lift her higher, until he bore all her weight. She whimpered and tightened her hold around his neck, even as she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips, sitting completely on his lap.

  The position was incredibly intimate. Incredibly intense. Even through his clothes, he could feel her heat, feel the welcoming, hot place where he’d once found ultimate satisfaction. More than anything, Wyatt wanted to tear away whatever sexy little panties she wore beneath her skirt—which had risen to pulse-pounding heights—and plunge into her. He’d thought of almost nothing else since they’d gotten out of his car yesterday.

  “Please, Wyatt, take me,” she whimpered against his lips. “I’m dying for you.”

  Unable to resist, he reached for one long, smooth, silky thigh and ran his palm over it. Caressing the delicate skin, he moved higher and higher, under her skirt, until his fingertips brushed the elastic edge of her panties. She jerked in reaction. Needing, wanting, silently pleading for more.

  And oh, how he wanted to give it to her. Even while somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was utterly crazy. The two of them had no business doing this at all, and they absolutely shouldn’t be doing it here. His office door wasn’t locked and his secretary was right outside.

  Somehow, though, Wyatt couldn’t bring himself to care. He had to touch her, drench himself in her. She’d been so soft and wet against his fingers yesterday. Now he wanted to feel all that silky warmth wrapped tightly around his cock.

  Moving his mouth from her lips, he kissed his way down her neck. Cassie dropped her head back, throatily whispering, “Yes.”

  With another quick movement of his hand, he pushed her silky panties aside and explored the warm, wet folds between her thighs. When Cassie reached down to unzip his pants, he sighed deeply, knowing this had been inevitable. Making love to Cassie again was something that had been destined to happen, ever since last week when he’d first walked into his office and found her here.

  She began to shake, arching toward his touch, visibly and audibly aroused. As was he. So he gave her what she needed, let his thumb drop to that sweet, sensitive spot, and ever so delicately stroked her.

  “Wyatt!” She grabbed his hair and tugged his mouth to hers for another mind-numbing kiss as he continued to caress her clit, bringing her higher and higher with every flick of his thumb.

  She was gasping against his mouth, and he recognized the signs. Close. She was very, very close. He pulled away a little, wanting to see her reach that peak of pleasure, to see the way her eyes would close and her face grow flushed. Whenever he’d closed his eyes to try to sleep the night before, he’d seen this—Cassie’s pleasure, Cassie’s delight.

  Instead, to his
shock, he saw something else.

  The door to the office…slowly opening.

  One second, Cassandra was feeling the waves of her climax rolling through her body and was preparing to ride them to full fruition. The next, Wyatt was hoisting her off his lap and hopping down to stand beside her, shifting in his pants, quickly zipping them back up, wincing in pain because he was so hard and aroused.

  When she saw his secretary standing in the doorway, with a dark-haired man looking over her shoulder, Cassandra understood why.

  “Brazen it out,” she muttered, knowing that to act guilty would make the situation worse. Without knowing just how much had been seen, there was no use acting all penitent about it.

  Wishing her panties had snapped back into place more comfortably, she patted her hair. “Hi, Sylvia.”

  The older woman’s eyes were wide, but her lips quivered with suppressed laughter. “Hi Cassie. Sorry to interrupt.” Everyone was apparently following Wyatt’s lead and calling her by the nickname only he had ever used. Somehow, Cassandra—Cassie—couldn’t bring herself to mind so much. “Wyatt, Mr. Katowa was hoping for a quick word.”

  The man standing silently behind Sylvia was a conservatively dressed man of Japanese descent. Cassie realized she and Wyatt had been caught doing some serious making out by an important potential client. Damage control was definitely in order. “Oh, you caught us trying things out,” she said with a breezy smile.

  Sylvia backed out of the office, mouthing, I’m so sorry to Wyatt, and the businessman stepped in. “Trying things out?” he said, his voice frosty.

  Wyatt strode across the room. “Mr. Katowa, how nice to see you again. I wasn’t expecting you until later this afternoon.”

  “If you’d prefer, I will come back later….”

  “Oh, no, don’t be silly,” Cassie said, taking the man by the arm and putting on her best charming, nobody-says-no-to-me pout. “We were just talking about the revised campaign for your company. I was being naughty and insisting on demonstrating my idea to Wyatt.” Then, figuring Wyatt couldn’t kill her until after the automobile executive had left, she added, “I’m Cassie, by the way. Wyatt’s…wife.”

  Wyatt coughed into his fist, but with a quick kick at his ankle, he quickly backed her up. “Right. Yes. Cassie, this is Mr. Katowa, one of our clients.”

  The man bowed slightly, and Cassie responded with a bow of her own.

  “I didn’t realize you had a wife,” the man said, thawing slightly.

  “Cassie’s the only wife I’ve ever had,” Wyatt replied, not lying. Of course, Cassie hadn’t lied either…but Wyatt didn’t know that.

  Quickly recalling the little bit of Japanese she’d grasped during a business trip to that country last year, she greeted the businessman in his own language.

  He offered her a smile. “I am most pleased to meet you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, not sure herself how she could sound so calm and normal when she felt anything but. Her lips had to look thoroughly kissed and her throat probably had a few reddish marks.

  She was still a little light-headed, lost in a cloud of lust because of what had almost happened between them. But for the interruption, she might be making love with her husband right this minute. And she had no doubt she’d be loving it.

  That hadn’t been her intent when she’d arrived. Having gotten Sylvia’s message this morning, she’d figured they would be talking business, and she hadn’t come here to initiate anything physical. She just wanted to be near him, to spend time with him. She needed to understand why he’d been her first thought every morning and her last dream every night since their paths had collided again.

  Coming to Boston was supposed to be about closure, putting an end to her feelings for Wyatt and saying the things she never got to say before, and getting him to sign off on the divorce. Again.

  After her phone call with Grandmother the other night, and some serious self-evaluation, however, she knew she no longer wanted closure and that her feelings were far from over.

  They still needed to talk about what happened—how they went so wrong—and she still needed to let him know he had probably been right about what had driven her to make the choices she’d made. But she also wanted…needed…to find out what was in his heart. Maybe even what had been in those letters Jackie had mentioned the other night.

  And yeah, telling him she was still his wife was pretty high on the to-do list.

  Mr. Katowa cleared his throat. “So you were saying you were, uh, conducting a demonstration of an idea for my commercial?”

  Wyatt opened his mouth, but Cassie spoke first. “Yes, absolutely.” This account was important to Wyatt and she knew it. Too important to have it slip away because Cassie had laid a kiss on the man right in his office where anyone could—and did—wander in. So she had to do something to salvage the situation. “The idea of showing men at varying stages of their lives stopped at an intersection in different cars—trying to choose which way to turn—was clever. But it was missing that one thing, that little spark that would make it truly stand out.”

  She was babbling, pulling ideas out of the air. Beside her, Wyatt watched, one brow up, laughter dancing in his eyes as he probably wondered how she was going to talk her way out of this.

  “Cars are very important to Americans, and a lot of life’s most important moments take place around them. Private moments. Joyful moments.” Giving Wyatt a wickedly suggestive smile, she said, “Sometimes very intimate moments.”

  Thinking of the teasing suggestion she’d made the other night when they were driving to his place, about women having various things happen to them while in, or near their cars, she continued. “It isn’t enough just to have the men sitting there at an intersection trying to choose a direction. What about showing the same street corner, with different cars, a succession of men in various scenes, a continuing series of commercial spots that would be like snapshots of important moments in the men’s lives, and where they go takes them to those important moments.”

  Mr. Katowa had his head back, and was looking at the ceiling. With his hands clasped behind his back, he appeared to be deep in thought.

  Cassie didn’t wait for him to disagree, quickly adding, “They’d convey the same message, but there could be more chance for variety. More opportunities to hammer home the message that your automobiles can take a man through his whole life.”

  “Interesting,” Wyatt murmured, his amused expression fading as he narrowed his eyes in thought.

  Though it had started as a joke, she was warming up to the idea. She could see it. “There’d be a young man who opened the door to one of your less expensive models for his date, and when he turns it’s to go toward a drive-in movie theater. A bride and groom smiling out the window as they drive off in a midsize sedan, heading toward the airport for their honeymoon.”

  She gave Wyatt a quick glance and saw him watching her with interest and speculation. He was catching the vision. “A happily-expectant couple turning into a hospital,” he said. “Parents buckling their kids into the seats of the SUV and turning toward the elementary school.”

  “Exactly.”

  “All at the same corner, but at different times, alternating seasons, varying points in people’s lives, and they end up different places. So the intersection itself is not real, it’s figurative—a representation of the turns in the road. Where you are in your life determines where you end up when you make the turn.”

  “Right!” she said. “The connection is the place and the brand of car.”

  Wyatt was bent over the table, sketching on a large art pad, muttering as the vision came to life in his mind. “The vehicle gives the viewer an immediate hint of what moment in someone’s life they’re going to see, and the street corner is the window through which they watch it.”

  Moments in people’s lives. For some reason, Cassie suddenly began to think in terms of more than cars. Much more.

  Relationships were just as changeable at diffe
rent moments, weren’t they? Who didn’t dream of going back to an important point in their life to see if things might have turned out differently? To determine if they could make it work out better the second time around?

  She and Wyatt were embarking on just such a risky endeavor. Only there was a lot more on the line than the sale of an expensive automobile. Cassandra’s future happiness was at stake, and she knew it.

  Forcing the worrisome thoughts out of her mind, she focused on the task at hand. Mr. Katowa was stroking his chin with the tips of his fingers. He said nothing for a long moment. Cassie almost held her breath, wondering if Wyatt always felt this sense of anticipation and excitement when pitching a new concept. It was intense. Dramatic. No wonder the man got off on it. For someone as creative yet grounded as Wyatt, it was the perfect career.

  Finally, when she thought for sure they’d blown it, Mr. Katowa spoke. “It couldn’t be a very busy corner. Not too many people around.”

  She didn’t follow, but wasn’t about to argue with the man.

  “Because,” he continued, “a couple having a passionate moment on the hood of our 340L convertible would need a little privacy.” He straightened and looked at them both, his eyes twinkling. “The consumer wouldn’t want to think just anyone could walk up and interrupt them.”

  Cassie sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, realizing the man had seen more than they’d hoped. But the amused smile on his face told her it was okay.

  His words confirmed it. “I like this idea. Now, let’s get to work.”

  Chapter 6

  Wyatt spent the rest of the afternoon with Mr. Katowa. After two hours, he had Sylvia order some takeout, and got the rest of his staff in on the creative meeting. It was high-energy, high-voltage and intensely creative. And the client loved it.

  He felt positively high with the thrill of it all by the time they wrapped up the session and bid Mr. Katowa good-night. As he drove away from the office that evening at eight o’clock, he realized there was someone he wanted to share that dizzying excitement with. Cassie.