Read Online Can't Buy Me Love by Maggie Marr - Free Book Online Page A

fingertips brushed along her collarbone and traced up her neck. He paused at the spot that felt cold, now that he’d removed his lips. His expression never changed. His finger stopped on her lips and pressed ever so gently as if asking permission for her kiss. Meg parted her mouth, her tongue slipped to her lips brushing his fingertip as he gently traced her mouth.
    She wanted him.
    She wanted Cole more than her promotion, more than safety, more than security, even more than all the compatibility requirements on her list.
    “We…we…can’t—” she breathed out heavily. He was too much. More than she could handle, more than she could take—
    “Oh, yes we can.” His arms circled her and pulled her forward. His lips were on hers with a fierceness, a need…a possession of her.
     
    *
     
    Cole’s mind exploded with heat when his lips pressed to Meg’s. They parted readily for him. This place taunted him. Made him remember the ache, the loneliness, the emptiness of being a lost little boy. He wouldn’t remember the ache. Not in this moment. Not with Meg in his arms.
    His hands slid over her tiny waist, grasping at the roundness of her, pulling her closer to him, pressing her into him. Her tongue slipped across his, tasting and tempting and seeking a response.
    Fire raced through him. His tongue explored her mouth. A deep need filled him. A need more intense than desire. She gasped and let out a moan as he pulled at her bottom lip. Her hands twined around his neck, one trailed upward through his hair.
    His mouth worked hers and he pressed her against the wooden trellis. He couldn’t get close enough. Her breath caught as his hand cradled her breast. He lifted her and her thighs clasped around him. So warm. So tight. To take her. To fill her. To make her his, right now, this very moment was all his mind buzzed with. Cole had known the jagged tip of desire for a woman, but this was different.
    Oh, so very different.
    Cole wrenched his mouth away from Meg’s lips. Not here. Not now. Not in this place. Her eyes filled with confusion as he pressed her against him, his desire so hard, so obvious. He fought the urge to push his mouth to hers again, to lose himself in the lusciousness of her lips. He gently set her down. Each fiber of his being screamed no as he forced his body to comply with his mind.
    “Meg, not now, not—”
    A veil quickly descended over Meg’s eyes. The want, the desire, the vulnerability vanished.
    “No worries,” Meg said. She pulled at her shirt and flipped her hair over her shoulder. Her head tilted and her jaw jutted forward. She was no longer the wanton sexpot but his serious assistant once again.
    “I completely understand.” In one swift motion Meg turned to walk away.
    “I don’t think you do,” Cole said, and gripped her arm.
     
    *
     
    Meg bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. Composure. Composure and professionalism would get her through this moment and on to the next and the one after that and after that. Like an action list she would regroup one moment at a time until that…that…kiss…was erased from her memory.
    But that kiss could never be erased.
    Meg had been kissed before, but this kiss was so much more. Her lips still tingled. She vibrated with electricity. Colors seemed brighter, sounds louder, and Cole… He stood beside her and an intoxicating chemistry sizzled between them. She pushed her desire as far down as possible. She forced her hand to remain steady and glanced at her watch.
    “We need to get back,” Meg said, her eyes belying no emotion.
    “Meggy, you can’t just walk away from a kiss like that.”
    He felt it, too. A connection as if their lips together completed a circuit. There was no other kiss like that in the entire world, the universe. A kiss that rocked her to her core.
    “Kisses like that”—Cole stepped forward, close…too close…—“they don’t come about very often.”
    Often? So earth-shattering, firework-making,