“What I’m not confident in is my ability to resist what Cash isn’t even trying to hide.He’s interested in me. And not just as an employee. Maybe very little as an employee, in fact. Every time my eyes meet his, I feel like he’s undressing me. And, God help me, I love it. Those sexy, velvety eyes are like a touch. I can almost feel them, like hands on my body and lips on my mouth.Admittedly, I have a thing for bad boys, but Cash is…I don’t know. He’s different. I daresay he’s even more dangerous than my usual disastrous finds.”

“He’s hard. And he’s huge. I can feel him against my belly. Warmth gushes through me, pooling between my legs. It’s been so long and I know instinctively that any sexual time spent with Cash would be earth-shattering, soul-screaming, body-rocking time.”

“Carter looked awful—I mean even worse than usual. Honestly, the boy had never been in a proper school, and he dressed like a junior professor, with his khaki trousers and a button-down brown shirt and loafers. He’s not bad looking, I suppose. He’s reasonably tall and fit and his hair isn’t hopeless. He’s got Dad’s eyes, and my mates Liz and Emma have even told me from his picture that he’s hot, which I must take with a grain of salt because (a) he’s my brother, and (b) my mates are a bit crazed. When it came to clothes, Carter wouldn’t have known hot if it bit him on the bum.”

“And he leans in, so carefully. Breathingand not breathing and hearts beatingbetween us and he’s so close, he’s so close and I can’t feel my legs anymore. I can’t feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere,filling everything and he whispers“Please.”He says “Please don’t shoot me for this.”And he kisses me.His lips are softer than anything I've ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. It’s sweet, it’sso effortlessly sweet.And then it changes.“Oh God—”He kisses me again, this time stronger,desperate, like he has to have me, like he’s dying to memorize the feel of my lips against his own. The taste of him is making me crazy; he’s all heat and desire and peppermint and I want more. I've just begun reeling him in, pulling him into me when he breaks away.He’s breathing like he’s lost his mind andhe’s looking at me like something has brokeninside of him, like he’s woken up to find thathis nightmares were just that, that they never existed, that it was all just a bad dream that felt far too real but now he’s awake and he’s safe and everything is going to be okay andI’m falling.I’m falling apart and into his heart and I’m a disaster.”

“For a moment, I’m captivated. He’s seducing me with his eyes. A nervous flutter swims through my stomach. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat. Pounding. Constricting. I swallow hard.”

“The light clicks on, right above my head, drawing my eyes to it. The moment I look up, squinting, I know I’m in trouble. There isn’t even a guy leaning against the corner, trying to play bad cop. There isn’t a guy smiling and offering me a cup of coffee. There’s just one man in a suit, with a folder in his arms that he isn’t looking at. He’s looking at me, raising his eyebrows and looking as if I have a note stuck to my forehead that I haven’t noticed yet.”