Each defection had devastated and demoralized her, the loss of friendships and even her university scholarship only adding to her sense of betrayal. She’d learned not to trust quickly or easily, not with new friends and particularly not with possible boyfriends.
She never allowed strange men to talk her into dinner and drinks.
But Baz wasn’t exactly some random stranger. He was the president of a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. No way did he have a hidden agenda. Randi had nothing the man could want.
However, that didn’t make this date any less bewildering, not to mention disturbing. The more time she spent with him, the more her attraction to him grew. She’d never felt anything as powerful. She wanted him. Seriously, deeply.
His arm around her waist was not helping her sense of self-control, either.
That simple point of contact ratcheting up the unexpected, unfamiliar and yet incredible sensations of desire coursing through her.
“So, um, do you come to Portland often?” She nearly winced at her gauche question. It sounded like she was fishing for the future and she was too smart to think they had one of those.
“This is my first time.”
“Really? It’s an amazing city that prides itself on being weird.” She adored the eccentricity mixed with a good dose of cosmopolitan culture and had grown to love her new home in a very short amount of time.
“So I’ve been told.”
“I just moved here a couple of months ago, but I wouldn’t mind showing you some of the sights, if you like.” Randi waited with cautious hope for Baz’s answer to what was for her a very bold and unprecedented offer.
“I would like that.” Dark eyes glinting with something like satisfaction, he smiled down at her. “Getting a feeling for the area is part of how I make decisions about whether or not to buy.”
“So you are here looking for a property.” She knew it.
But she did her best to ignore the tendril of hope unfurling inside her. If he bought a property, he’d come back. Wouldn’t he?
“Perhaps” was all he said.
She laughed, finding something about his caginess endearing. “I’m not going to blab. Even if I did, who could I tell that would impact you?” she teased. “I’m a social worker, not a real estate mogul.”
His responding laughter sent shivers of sensation through her. “As you say.”
“But you’re still not going to tell me, are you?”
“No.”
“You’re a very cautious man.”
“I would not be where I am if I were not.”
“Walking down the street with a woman you just met hours ago?” She made no effort to hide the laughter in her voice, because really? If she was acting impulsively, so was he.
He stopped and pulled her around to face him, their bodies inches apart, his attention intent and on her only. “You enjoy your own humor, don’t you?”
“Someone should.”
He wasn’t smiling exactly, but humor gleamed in his espresso-brown gaze. “You are not as shy as you appear at first.”
“I feel comfortable with you.” Which was really dangerous, but she also found him super-attractive. Could attraction undermine common sense completely? She’d never thought so, but she was adjusting her thinking on that issue fast.
“That is good to know.”
“I think so, too.” Her words trailed off as his head lowered toward hers. She stared up into his dark gaze; her lips parted of their own accord. “Are you going to kiss me?”
His answer was his mouth pressing to hers.
Sensation exploded inside Randi. Zings of electric current coursed through her body, radiating outward from where their lips touched and sending goose bumps in waves over her skin. Need like she had never known throbbed in her core, making her press her thighs together in instinctive effort to alleviate it. It didn’t work, of course.
She ached for way more than a simple kiss.
Though there was nothing simple about the way Baz’s lips owned hers, giving no quarter, demanding response or submission, with no option for backing off.
At least as far as her body’s response would allow.
Though his hands were on her upper arms, Baz did not actively hold her in place with anything but the press of his lips. Randi responded on a primal, visceral level that would not allow her to hold back, bringing forth sensations she’d read about, but never actually experienced.
Overwhelming passion. Gut-level desire that burned hotter than the California wildfires in the summer. Her nipples beaded with near-painful intensity; her most intimate flesh pulsed with a need for touch; her lips softened and molded to his with hungry ardency.
Randi reveled in every single unfamiliar sensation, responding to the kiss in a way that a public display on the busy sidewalk did not warrant, her own lack of control acting as an irresistible aphrodisiac.
She could no more help giving him kiss for kiss than she could stop breathing.
Breathing might even be less necessary.
Randi curled her fingers around the lapels of Baz’s suit jacket, pulling his body closer to hers. Only then did warm, masculine arms come around her, holding her tight now, his hands pressed tightly to her back and just at the top of her buttocks.
The kiss morphed into something more than possession. It became two people equally intent, equally impassioned, equally lost to their desires.
There could be no doubt, until Baz pulled his head back.
At least his breathing was ragged like hers, his expression pained. “We’ve got to stop. On a public sidewalk is not the place for this.”
Randi didn’t care. This was something new for her. Something craved. Something needed. Refusing to give up the amazing sensations his kiss caused, she rose on her tiptoes, seeking his mouth again, only realizing as his lips cut them off that the needy little sounds she heard were coming from her.
And she did not care. There could be no embarrassment in this level of yearning.
He groaned, the deep, masculine sound traveling through her body, leaving devastation in its wake. Baz invaded her mouth with his tongue. It was not finessed; the demand of his tongue sliding against hers had no lead in, no buildup to the increased intimacy, and again... Randi did not care.
She opened wider for him, melting under the demanding forays. Her tongue tangled with his, taking in his taste, unlike any other taste, pure sex, pure man. Randi kissed him back, letting him feel the unfamiliar and overwhelming passion exploding inside her.
He made a deep sound in his throat, all male want, but then he did the unthinkable. Again.
His hands landing on her shoulders to push her away at the same time as he broke the connection between their mouths for the second time was not only not welcome, it was also torture. Didn’t he understand? She needed his lips, his tongue, his arms tight around her.
She could not suppress the sound of keen disappointment, or control her involuntary move back toward him.
But Baz was made of sterner stuff than she was, apparently, because he held her firmly away. “No, Miranda. Not here. We have put on enough of an entertainment for others.”
She looked around and saw that they did indeed have an audience, several smiles and thumbs-ups directed her way. Only in Portland.