Her Gentle Capture (4 page)

His deep voice broke through her mental admonishments. “Thank you everyone. Jim, get me those numbers in time for our afternoon meeting and Linda, can you make sure that the marketing team is ready to go with a demonstration?
I want to see what they’re thinking this time around.”

Everyone stood up and Adriana breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Unfortunately, he heard her and stopped her departure with a firm hand to her arm, looking down at her again with those curious eyes of his.

She smiled weakly, biting her lip. “I apologize, sir. I didn’t take very thorough notes for you. I wasn’t sure what the issues
were.” She looked down at the floor then at her notebook, her pen, anywhere but into his intelligent eyes. She felt like a failure and it was all because she’d had strange, inappropriate thoughts bouncing around in her head about this man.

Everyone swirled around them, people leaving the conference room with mumbled conversations. They all stepped around her and Mitch, courteously nodding
to Mitch as they passed. Mitch didn’t move and Adriana felt like her feet were frozen to the ground while he continued to stare down at her.

When the door closed softly with a slight click, Adriana could feel the shivering start up. She didn’t understand why this man created such a reaction in her but she didn’t like it. First the strange, almost erotic reaction last night when his shoulder
had touched hers, and then that incredible smell! Goodness, the man might be a horrible human being but he smelled…hot! Sexy!

She re-focused and looked up at him, suddenly realizing that her mind had wandered once more. She was staring at his lips!

Looking down, she forced her eyes to examine his chin. Yep, he had a very un-sexy chin. But it was a strong…“Is there anything else?” she prompted
before her mind started to think that his nose hairs were a turn-on. She held the notebook in front of her like a shield, hoping that a physical barrier could help her to avoid finding yet another body part on the man that was attractive. At this rate, she’d be one of his adoring fans by dinner time.

He’d been watching her carefully, noticing that her eyes would look focused one moment, then
a bit fuzzy the next. Her lips would soften, and she’d appear all soft and cute like a kitten wanting to be petted. A moment later, she’d almost jerk backwards and her lips would compress as if she’d tasted something sour. “What was going through your mind during that last meeting?” he asked in a lower voice, leaning one hip on the top of the conference room table.

Adriana mauled her lower
lip, her eyes darting around the room, trying desperately to remember what the others had been discussing. “I heard people talking about a new marketing strategy that will…”

He almost laughed at her attempt to avoid answering the question. She was cute, he thought. And sexy and adorably transparent at the moment. “No. That’s what you heard people discussing around the table. I want to know
what was going through your mind.”

Her lungs didn’t work all of a sudden. Her eyes glanced up at his, then quickly away. There was no way she could tell him what she was thinking! It was embarrassing enough that she was thinking it. Saying it out loud, letting this man know that her mind was playing tricks on her in a very odd, very unacceptable manner was not going to happen.

Her lips
compressed once more and he almost laughed out loud. He refrained, but it was a challenge. “And I know I told you to stop calling me ‘sir’. My name is Mitch. Use it,” he commanded but his voice was deeper, gentler, all of a sudden. “Did you finish the pasta last night?”

Of all the topics he might have brought up at the moment, last night’s dinner was the absolute last thing she would have
guessed he’d care about. Dinner? Had she eaten dinner? “Oh! The pasta last night. That was,” she tried to think of a diplomatic adjective, “kind of you.” He only raised his dark eyebrows in response again, his blue eyes silently telling her that she hadn’t answered his question.

She thought back, trying to remember what she’d done with the delicious pasta he’d bought her. “Um…it was delicious.”

He smiled slightly, reading between the lines. “It’s either in your trash can or in your fridge. Which is it?”

She straightened up, not liking being challenged about her eating habits. Why did he care if she ate the pasta or fed it to the ducks on the way home? “I ate some,” she defended, straightening her shoulders slightly.

His eyes narrowed and he understood instantly what she was not
telling him. “You ate the two bites that I saw you eat, didn’t you?”

She opened her mouth to lie to him but the words wouldn’t come. “Look,” she finally said, “what I eat is no one’s business but my own.”

He looked at her slender frame and knew that he wanted the right to feed her. He wanted to offer her the most delectable foods, tempt her with decadence and put a bit of color into those
pale cheeks. Unfortunately, he didn’t have that right. Not yet, anyway. Soon, he told himself. Very soon!

“Fair enough,” he came back. “What did you have for breakfast?”

She blinked, trying to remember what she’d eaten. When she realized she’d forgotten to eat breakfast, she took a step backwards. “My eating habits are not a concern here. Can you explain why you needed me to sit in
on this meeting?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just continued to calmly watch her. She felt that growing sense of dizziness, of something twisting inside of her and she didn’t completely understand her reaction. “Come with me,” he abruptly told her and stood up, putting a hand to the small of her back and leading her out of the room. “We’ll discuss the meeting over lunch.”

She almost
groaned out loud at the idea of spending more time in this man’s presence. And what was it about him and food? Okay, so he was a very large man and probably ate two or three times the amount of food she normally ate. But really, why was he so worried about what she did or didn’t eat?

She needed to get back to her small, safe office where this man’s presence wasn’t driving her crazy with weird
thoughts. Lunch wasn’t a good idea. At least, not in her opinion. “But why?” she asked, only resisting slightly when she felt his hand on the small of her back. His touch sent thrills through her body, giving her momentum that sharpened her breathing and caused her to want…something. She wasn’t sure what, but she was fairly certain she didn’t like wanting it.

He pressed the button to call
the elevator. “Because I’m hungry. And I want to discuss the issue over lunch.”

Stepping into the crowded elevator, Adriana looked up at Mitch, her eyes instantly wary. She held her breath as the others around her pressed closer. She felt Mitch’s body, felt her face heat up and knew that she was reacting in a crazy way to a man she didn’t like.

So why was she reacting like this? Why couldn’t
she just pretend he wasn’t there?

Probably because her back was pressed against his hard chest, and she felt the heat sizzling her skin from her shoulders all the way to the backs of her legs. She couldn’t believe how crazy his touch felt and was embarrassed to be acting like such a ninny.

When the elevator doors opened up, she almost burst out of the elevator, taking deep breaths as inconspicuously
as possible.

“Let’s go,” he said, bending low so he was speaking into her ear. “We can just walk to the restaurant from here.” She looked back at him, surprised by the way her heart was racing. It almost felt like it wanted to pound right out of her chest.

“This way,” he told her and that dratted hand came right back, touching her and causing shivers to race throughout her whole body!

She gritted her teeth, trying to pretend like nothing was wrong, like his hand wasn’t burning a hole through her clothes. Even walking faster didn’t help because he was so much taller and his legs were easily able to keep up with her pace. In fact, she suspected that he was slowing down for her, which was just….oh who cares what it was!

She was sick and tired of trying to figure out his…strange
behavior. Could the man be trying to torment her? Just for his own perverse pleasure? Deciding that she’d had enough of trying to decipher his motives, she spun around, stopping in the middle of the wide sidewalk. “I don’t understand why I am here.”

Mitch looked down into her gorgeous, brown eyes, fascinated and completely aware of her pert breasts only inches away from his chest. He resisted
the urge to crush her slender figure against him, to take those full, pink lips with his and show her how much he wanted her, to convince her to release herself to the attraction he knew she was feeling towards him. “You really want to get into this right now?” he asked her softly.

Adriana thought about it for a split second, wondering if he was warning her that she wouldn’t like what he was
going to say, but then nodded her head emphatically. “Yes. You’re confusing me and I don’t understand what is happening or why I’m in meetings with you.”

“First of all, you’re in meetings with me because you have a brain and are useful.” He took her arm and pulled her off to the side of the building, out of the main flow of pedestrian traffic. They were now basically hidden by the granite
columns of the building unless someone was trying to find the two of them. “Secondly, you’ve been in the two meetings with me this morning because you just wrote up the reports on the exact same subject matter. Since you have an in-depth knowledge of those two issues, I wanted you to be there. I also thought you might want to see what you’re reporting on at a higher level. Those meetings took
your data out of the theoretical and gave you a real world idea of what’s going on within the company.”

She was ashamed of herself after his explanation. Primarily because he’d been trying to help her, to mentor her and she’d been too flustered to understand his very kind intent. “That’s very considerate of you,” she finally muttered. But then she stiffened. “Why didn’t you tell me all of
this before the meetings?” she asked. “I would have appreciated the information so much more.”

He looked down at her strangely, something in his eyes that kicked all of her senses into high alert. “There’s more to it than just my altruistic nature,” he finally said.

Adriana didn’t like the look that came back into his eyes. She’d just about dismissed her qualms and the confusion she’d felt
earlier today but with the heat back in his eyes, she wasn’t so sure she’d been completely off track. “What else is there?” she asked, her chin jutting out as if she were bracing herself. “I still don’t understand.”

Mitch moved closer, more turned on by her assertiveness than he’d like to admit to himself. He leaned in, looking down at her, and those scary eyes clashed with her own confused
ones. “Don’t you?” he asked softly.

Adriana felt like she should understand that question, like she should have grasped what was going on but she was honestly clueless and confused. No man had ever made her feel so bewildered. She shook her head. “No. I know there are unspoken issues here. I just don’t understand them. You’re a very confusing man.”

He moved even closer. So close that
she could once again feel the heat of his body through her clothes. “It’s very simple, Adriana. I want you. And I’m getting the impression that you feel the same way about me.”

She was already shaking her head, not wanting to acknowledge that in any way. At least not to him. Good grief, not really even to herself! “I don’t. I don’t even really like you.”

He laughed softly. “What have I
done to make you dislike me?” he asked, his hand came up, his finger running a trail of fire down her cheek and along her neck. Shivers raced all over, her body shaking from reaction. She gasped as she felt that heat all the way down to her toes.

“You’re rude,” she said but gasped when he pressed her back further. “And you demand things instead of requesting.”

“That’s the same thing as rude.”
His fingers were moving lower, his arms wrapping around her waist.

She thought about pushing him away, of demanding that he not touch her in this way. Unfortunately, she couldn’t seem to form the words. The demand was lodged in her throat. The fear was there, definitely. But there was something more. Something strange and deeper. Something she didn’t really want to acknowledge.

“You’re
too big.”

“Not really. You’re just too small.”

She didn’t like that at all. “I’m not too small!” she gasped, her head snapping up so he could see her glare.

“Okay, so you’re perfect.”

The flutters in her stomach started flipping over with those words as well as his husky tone.

“There’s also…”

“Adriana,” he said slowly, his hand moving ever so slightly but she was just so sensitized to
him at that moment, she felt it.

She blinked, recognizing that his head was coming closer. Her eyes looked at those firm lips, wondering once again if they would be soft and persuasive or firm and demanding. “What?” she whispered back to him.

“Shut up,” he told her and a fraction of a second later, his mouth covered hers, enforcing his words.

Wow!

Her breath rushed out of her with a whoosh
and her mind couldn’t define his kissing style. Her mind couldn’t even work. It was fully occupied with this kiss, the way his tongue invaded her mouth and his hands deftly unbuttoned her elegant suit jacket so that his skilful hands could slide around her waist, glide against the delicate silk of her blouse.

Adriana felt her hands lift higher, her fingers touching his shoulders lightly as
if she were afraid of too much stimulation. She wanted to melt into him, but she was frozen, all of her mind occupied with enjoying this kiss. She was just about to….

“Mr. Powell!” a man called out, startling Adriana so much that she jumped out of Mitch’s arms. She looked around, trying to figure out who might have seen the two of them kissing. How could she have let the man kiss her? And
so close to the office! What was she thinking?!

Thankfully, they were out of the line of people moving to their lunch destinations, hidden by the tall, granite columns.