She did not mix business with pleasure, but he blurred all the lines.
He wanted the tough woman who had stepped into his office—which she still was—and yet Felicia was also aware that she liked him more than she should for such a relationship to work.
He didn’t need to know that.
More than anyone, Felicia knew how to hold onto her heart.
‘How long did he say?’ the driver asked now. ‘Apparently they’re furious at the palace that he’s so late. The captain’s trying to sort out a flight path to make up the time...’
‘He shouldn’t be too long,’ Felicia replied. ‘I’ll just go and see.’
She should text him, really.
It would be far safer.
Instead, just a few moments later, she stood at the door of his hotel suite.
She had the access card—of course she did—but usually if he was in there she’d knock first.
This morning she didn’t.
She stepped into the entrance hall and saw Kedah was emptying his safe.
‘You forgot my diamond.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Attention to detail, Felicia,’ he said, and wagged his finger in a small scold.
‘I told you on the first day that I would not make a good PA.’
‘You did.’
He closed the safe and pocketed the stone, but made no move to walk towards her.
‘You need to hurry up.’
His eyes met hers. ‘Says who?’
‘Word from the palace is that the King is concerned you haven’t left yet. The pilot is going to try to make up the time...’ All this was said as he walked towards her, and her voice was breathless.
‘Oh, well.’ He shrugged.
And now he stood right in front of her, and Felicia looked at his mouth and wondered what the rest of her life would feel like should she never taste it.
‘Did you think about it?’
‘Yes.’
It was pointless to lie, and the fact that she stood there rather than stepped back, that she met his beautiful gaze, spoke of the decision she had come to.
‘We have to continue to work together,’ he warned her.
‘I know that. So there are things we need to discuss...’ Felicia attempted, because she would be laying a few ground rules.
‘There’s no time for that now,’ that beautiful mouth said. ‘We can speak on the plane.’
But that was a full twenty-six minutes away, at best. And she looked at the dark pink of his lips and then the black roughness of his jaw. It would be cruel to look back on this moment and regret walking away.
And so she did not turn to go.
Instead she stood as his hand moved to her shoulder and he peeled away the strap of her bag. He placed the bag on an occasional table, and that gesture alone told her of the thoroughness of the kiss to come.
She was shaking—not outwardly, but there was a low tremble that seemed to start at midthigh and inch with every heartbeat nearer to her throat.
‘Kedah,’ Felicia warned again, ‘we have to speak.’
‘First we taste.’
There was no time for this. Kedah knew that. His father’s mood would not be improved by his late arrival, and things were already tense.
And yet he too could not resist.
White-hot, Felicia turned him on. There had been a slow burn as he’d walked towards her. Now he was hard and ready, and he hadn’t even tasted her mouth.
Now he did.
Their flesh, their tongues, finally met, and both were wet and wanting, and both moaned in mutual bliss as eight weeks of want found an outlet.
Their mouths moved slowly and appreciatively at first, relishing the heady taste that they made.
‘That,’ said Kedah, peeling his lips back just a little, ‘was how I wanted to greet you on the first day.’
And there was something terribly freeing about it being a work deal, for she could be as provocative as all hell without being accused of being a tease.
‘This,’ she said, ‘is how I wanted to greet you.’
She kissed him harder still, and Kedah loved it that she did not hold back from revealing her pleasure.
Her body was lithe, and it pressed into his as their tongues met. Provocatively, he ran a hand down her spine until it came to rest on one heart-shaped buttock while the other hand went to the back of her head so that he could kiss her more thoroughly.
It was more of a kiss than she had ever known.
She had a brief wish that their clothes would evaporate, because she knew herself that in that space of time when he removed her clothes common sense would kick in.
And she knew Kedah and where a kiss would lead.
She pulled her face away, and her mouth was wet and swollen, her skin pink and inflamed from the roughness of his jaw.
He was hard against her, and her breasts were aching for his touch, for his mouth, for any contact he cared to bestow.
He kissed her again, but this time his fingers tightened in her hair, and it was the roughest, most thorough kissing of her life.
He held her hips and rubbed her against himself.
She peeled her mouth away and still he held her. He could feel her body trembling as she fought the writhing want within. Her eyes were green and her mouth was open, dragging in air, and he held her hair taut in his hand and fought not to tug it—hard. He fought not to pull back her head and lower his mouth again.
He stroked her where his hand cupped her bottom, and then he pulled her further in so she could feel every generous inch of his hard length against her stomach.
And it was too late to worry about the time, for her fingers had moved to the row of small buttons on his shirt and she’d exposed his muscular chest.
Kedah loved the way her hands were not shy—how, as her mouth still merged with his, she toyed with his flat nipples and then, bored with them, let her hand creep down to the soft snake of silken hair that had entranced her from that first glimpse.
From her bag on the table her phone bleeped with a text message, just as the head of his erection nudged her palm.
‘That will be the driver, telling me to hurry you up.’
‘Hurry me up, then.’
And he felt her smile, for her lips stretched beneath his as he took her hand and ran it the length of his long, hard shaft.
His other hand pressed at her head, and she knew—because this was the kind of man she was choosing to get involved with—that from the direction of the pressure Kedah exerted she should be dropping to her knees—oh, right about now.
But he was in for that shock. For she had needs of her own and it would never be all about him.
‘Kedah,’ she said, and removed her hand as she lifted her head. ‘We really don’t have time for foreplay.’
She watched his eyes flare as she stepped back from his embrace and reached for her bag.
‘Foreplay?’ he checked.
‘It’s when—’
‘I do know what it is, thank