Read Online Her Perfect Stranger by Jill Shalvis - Free Book Online

Corrine. We need to get this over with." "Maybe you'd rather try to beat me at my morning run again." He scowled. "So I underestimated you." "You thought me nothing more than a fragile doll." "This isn't what I wanted to talk about." "I bet. Look, Mike, this is never going to work. Surely you can see that. You have a problem with me being the commander of this mission." "What I have a problem with is you pretendingyou don't know me. You pretending we didn't sleep together, that we didn't make love—" She slapped his hand over his mouth and whipped her head to the right, then to the left, making sure no one could hear them. "Damn it,"she breathed. "Could you stop talking about it? Why do we have to keep talking about it?" Grabbing her hands away from his mouth, he held them at her sides, slowly backing her up against the wall until she had the cool plaster at her back and his hot, hot body at her front. She hadn't given much thought to her pajamas—men's flannel shorts and a loose tank top. As they were her favorites, they'd been washed to a thin softness. Thin enough to feel every inchof him, and her body seemed to recognize how much she'd enjoyed those inches, because she closed her eyes in order to better concentrate on the sensations. "Corrine," he whispered, his voice low and rough now, as if he, too, couldn't help himself. "I don't understand you. Help me understand. Why can't we just...be? Why do we have to ignore this?" Why? He had to ask why? There were a milionreasons, starting with the fact that they had to work together professionally, with no personal hangups between them. The mission depended on it. NASA counted on it. Bilions of tax dolars were at stake. There could be nothing dragging them down emotionally. "There is no 'this,'" she said with a finality she didn't feel. He ran a finger over her jaw, down her throat to the base of her neck, where her pulse had taken off. "Liar," he chided softly as her nipples beaded and thrust against the material of her shirt. "Mike." "Yeah." She let out a disparaging sound. Oh, Mike. Why couldn't she forget? What was it about what they'd shared in the dark, dark of the night with no music and no candles, no romantic devices, nothing but the two of them turning to each other? They'd needed nothing but each other, and that scared her. Hell, it terrified her. "There can't be a this," she whispered. "Oh, there's a this." His finger continued its path over her collarbone to her shoulder, nudging the edge of the tank off it. Stepping even closer, he clipped his head and nipped at the skin he'd exposed, while his fingers continued their seductive assault on her senses. Thunk. The back of her head hit the wall as she lost the ability to hold it up. "Mike—" "How can you ignore me?" He dipped his head so that she could feel his breath on her skin. "After what we shared?" "It was.. .just... sex," she panted as he dragged that clever mouth back up her throat now, feasting as he went, his fingers toying with the edging of her top, and the curve of her breast. "Yeah. Sex. Great sex." He waited until she cleared her glassy gaze and looked at him. "I made you come, remember?" His hips slid to hers. "Over and over, until you were screaming." She was going to scream now. "Stop." Since she wanted to mean it, she put a hand to his chest. "I want you to forget all that. If we're going to make this work, you have to forget." "Corrine—" "Forget, Mike." And while she still had the strength, she wrenched away. But instead of going back to bed, she went into the bathroom and cranked on the shower. Cold. As she stripped and stepped beneath the icy spray, she could swear she heard Mike's soft, mocking laughter. 6 THE MEETING WAS NOT going well. Corrine knew this, and she tried to get a handle on things— things being mostly her own emotions. But with Mike sitting there so calm and put together at the conference table, it was all but impossible. She could feel his eyes on