He had admitted to himself more than once that Emma was a very attractive woman—and sure, he had admired her often in a more than professional capacity. But their battle of wills had always kept things from getting out of hand. He might be looking at her ass one minute and then wanting to choke her the next. It had always been all about checks and balances with them. Her attitude usually checked his desire and kept their relationship in some kind of twisted balance. Today, everything had worked just the opposite. He had completely lost control and there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do about it. As soon as he had touched her creamy skin, kissed and licked the rosy peaks of her breasts, it had been all over for him. Nothing short of her telling him to stop would have worked—and that hadn’t happened. They had both been completely swept up in the moment. It wasn’t until she was lying on top of him and some of the haze had cleared that he had started to panic. Immediately he had wanted to grab his clothes and run, something he never did. He wasn’t that kind of guy. It wasn’t even that he wanted to get away from Emma; it was exactly the opposite.
The question now was where to go from here. Was he capable of acting as if it had never happened? Did he even want to? He knew how it felt to be inside of her now; it was seared on his brain and would be hard to ignore. Damn, it had been the hottest experience he could ever remember having. Why did it have to be with someone he worked with? Hell, he could maybe handle that, but not with his assistant. It just felt so wrong to him. He had been half afraid that Emma would chop his cock off this morning when reality set in. Feeling no closer to an answer, he decided he would take his cues from her. If she didn’t mention what had happened, then he would follow her lead and not bring it up. Somehow, he would keep his hands off her, if that was truly what she wanted. If only they were heading back to the office today, things would be easier, but instead he was going to be pushed into even closer quarters with her and with her family. He could only hope that he didn’t look guilty and that her dad wasn’t a big man.
Chapter Seven
Emma gave a quiet sigh of relief as she followed Brant through the airport in Pensacola. After their awful airport experience in Miami, she was grateful there were no dogs in the vicinity. “Emma!” a familiar voice called out. Uh-oh, maybe her relief had come too soon. Her mother, dressed in formfitting jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt, was bearing down on them. Shit, she had told her that they would take a taxi. She should have known she couldn’t count on her mother to listen to anything she said.
Brant gave her a questioning look. She rolled her eyes. “You might want to go ahead and brace yourself; that’s my mom.” She barely had time to finish speaking before her mother launched herself into his arms. Emma couldn’t contain her chuckle at his deer-in-the-headlights look.
“Well, hello there, handsome!” Her mother finally peeled herself off of him long enough to say, “I’m Kat Davis; what’s your name, hon?”
Brant gave her a nervous smile. “Great to meet you, Kat. I’m Brant Stone.”
Her mother’s mouth seemed to drop to the floor before she blurted, “You’re the asshole that Em works with?”
Oh my God! Why hadn’t she thought of that? Of course she would have mentioned Brant by name to her mother when she was raging about him. The thought had never occurred to her that her mother would make the connection. On the plane ride into Pensacola, she and Brant had decided to say that they had been introduced by a mutual friend. That wasn’t technically a lie. The lady from Human Resources had introduced them when Emma was hired. Now that whole story was useless. As they stood there gaping at each other, her mother suddenly pulled Brant back into her arms, slapping him on the back while laughing hysterically. “I love it! I should have known all of that arguing was just some kind of foreplay between you two.”
“Mom,” she groaned. This was just getting worse and worse. She needed to shut her mother up before this escalated further. “It’s all kind of new between us, so we haven’t really told anyone yet.”
Her mother finally released Brant again and gave them both a wink. “Ahhh, gotcha. Well, come on, you two, let’s grab your bags and head home. Your father is firing up the grill tonight.”
“I think we both need to shower before dinner. Could you drop us at our hotel first? They’re supposed to have our rental car there.”
Her mother gave a shake of her head. “No hotels, honey. You know that’s not how we roll. The house has plenty of room. I have your room already made up for you two. Your father and I are hip to how things are now. Robyn and Boston can’t wait to see you.”
She was scrambling to come up with an argument to get them out of the hell that her mother was proposing when Brant did something that completely floored her. He put an arm around her mother, saying, “That sounds wonderful, Kat. I can’t wait to meet the rest of the family.”
Emma shot him a look that would have felled a lesser man. He only smiled at her in return. “Right, honey? I know you want to spend as much time as possible with your family while we’re here.”
That was it. He had officially lost his freaking mind. Was he just trying to get to her for some reason or had he not thought this through? She had to wonder if he even understood that her mom was planning to put them both in a room together for several days. Her room was a good size, but it had a queen-size bed and that was it. Giving him an evil smile, she decided that if he could live with sleeping on the floor all weekend, then who was she to argue?
That’s right, honey. Game on.
She was more than a little pissed at him anyway. When he picked her up at the hotel, he had made no mention of what had happened between them that morning. She kept waiting for him to broach the topic, but nada, nothing. It wasn’t as if she’d thought he would come back and declare his love, but come on, shouldn’t they at least talk about it? Was such an earth-shattering experience that easily dismissed for him? Not wanting him to see how much his actions were bothering her, she reverted to what she knew best: sarcasm. If he could act like nothing ever happened, then so could she. Just because he had given her the best orgasm of her life didn’t mean she had to lose her head. She could do casual one-nighters, right?
A few steps ahead of her, Brant continued to talk to her mother like they were old friends.
“Mom, we need to at least stop and pick up our rental car.”