Page 37 of A Nanny for the Reclusive Billionaire

“Like what?”

“Like closing your eyes.”

She bit her lip and stared down at the smorgasbord. “How can I be sure you won’t put together some terrible flavor combination, like grapefruit and Gorgonzola?”

“You can’t.” His mouth curved higher. “You’ll have to trust me.”

She hesitated, then lowered her eyelids.

“Good. No peeking.”

He studied the assortment on the cutting board. He had no clue what went with what, or which was the Comté and which was the Camembert. He went by raw instinct, slicing off a piece of warm, soft cheese and topping it with an apple slice.

“Open.”

She obeyed, and he lifted his culinary masterpiece to her lips. She took a small, tentative bite, then another, bigger one.

“What’s the verdict?”

“Granny Smith apple and Brie. A perfect pairing.” She licked her lips, and his brain short-circuited. “You’re a natural. Are you sure you don’t have experience in the kitchen?”

“Not the kind of experience you’re talking about.” He dragged his gaze from her way-too-tempting mouth, only to have it land on her chest, the soft swell of her breasts peeking from the V-neck of her pajama top. Not. Helping.

She laughed, the husky, sexy sound making his nerve endings sizzle. “Forget I asked.”

He grabbed the knife from the cutting board. “Ready for something else?”

“Why not?” Her lips parted slightly in anticipation.

He hesitated, the knife hovering over a stick of what looked like some sort of salami. “Any suggestions?”

“You did pretty well on your own last time.” She tucked her legs underneath her and sank deeper into the couch cushions. “Trust your instincts.”

His instinct was to toss her over his shoulder like a caveman and carry her off to his bedroom, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t on the menu. He settled for cutting off a slice of the mystery meat and stacking it on a cracker. He held it up to her mouth, doing his best to avoid contact as she took her first nibble.

“How’s that?” he asked, his voice strangled, choked with desire. He shouldn’t want her. It was wrong on every level. He was her employer. He should slam on the brakes, walk—no, run—away, at least until they had a chance to talk about whatever was happening between them. But none of that logic topped the tsunami of sexual energy flooding his body.

“Soppressata on a classic Club cracker. Simple, but delicious.” She opened her mouth for another taste, letting out a little moan when he fed her the rest.

“Still hungry?” he asked when she finished.

“Starving.”

She licked her lips again. Christ, he wished she would stop doing that. It wasn’t fair to expect a man to control himself faced with that kind of invitation.

He cleared his throat. “What else would you like to try?”

She opened her eyes, and he was struck by the heat he saw in their depths. One hand crept out to rest on his thigh, like she was afraid to scare him off. It stopped just short of the now obvious bulge in his sweats, her eyes never leaving his.

“You.”

…

Mallory had clearly lost hermind.

Or maybe it was crouching on a cliff in the middle of a near hurricane while two people she cared about battled death and the elements on a narrow ledge a few feet below that had her throwing caution to the wind and propositioning her boss. Either way, there was no turning back now. Not that she wanted to, not with the evidence of her effect on him inches from her hand.

He pried her fingers off his thigh, and a wave of mortification threatened to drown her. His body might be saying yes, but it looked like his brain was screamingnot in this lifetime. What had she been thinking? Taking a job hundreds of miles from home, in a place she’d never been, working for a man she’d never met, doing a job she was hugely overqualified for was one kind of crazy. Hitting on her billionaire boss was another.