Read Seduction by Design for Free Online

to me.”
    “Oh!” she ground out through clenched teeth. “You’re … I’m … I never—”
    “You never thought for a moment that this was sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is an employer using an employee’s job to blackmail him—or her. Your job is secure. Even if you weren’t my employee, if we’d met under entirely different circumstances, I’d be just as determined to have you.”
    “But it doesn’t hurt your depraved campaign that I happen to owe you a certain allegiance.”
    “You’re a valuable employee. I wouldn’t risk losing you to gratify a sudden explosion of lust. If I were the kind of man to do that, most likely, I would have already forced you into submission with threats against disclosure. And I wouldn’t have wasted the past half hour talking, either.
    “I was driven by panic yesterday. If any other guest had acted like that during an emergency, I would have expected my Director of Guest Relations to respond efficiently and expediently, just as you did. Your top priority was to take care of the distressed guest—in this case, Faith. You did exactly what you should have done.”
    She was momentarily disarmed by this flattery. “Thank you,” she said stiffly.
    “But,”
he stressed as he pushed himself away from the desk and started toward her, “your being a competent employee has nothing to do with this.”
    He was within inches of her now, forcing her to tilt her head back to look at him. Her instinct for self-preservation screamed at her to run, but the fervor in his eyes compelled her to stay. His hands came up to settle on her shoulders. His mouth was perilously close to hers as he bent over her and whispered, “I want you in my life and I want you in my bed, Hailey.”
    She would have expected his mouth to be firm, hard, greedy, even brutal. But it was none of those. The lips that captured hers were soft and suppliant. He sipped at her lips, moving over them with infinite care, as though he feared she might disintegrate before he could drink his fill.
    Hailey neither responded nor resisted. Shock had rendered her immobile. Yet with each heartbeat she felt her rigid control relaxing. Her lips parted as she felt his tongue gliding along them, slipping between them teasingly, but not breaching them completely. From far away she heard a small whimper and didn’t even realize she had made the sound until her hands found their way to his waist where she sought support.
    She swayed slightly and he caught her to him with a gentleness that was nonetheless ruthless. His arms wrapped around her like bands of steel—no, like velvet ribbons. In any event, she was powerless to escape them.
    She made no conscious decision to open her lips to the persistent, tender probing of his tongue, but she did. Then he was inside her mouth, molding his lips with hers in a kiss that splintered her with pleasure.
    She knew she should stop this. It was insane for her to stand there kissing this man, and it was also completely out of character. Yet only last night, in a moment of loneliness and depression, she had convinced herself she should do something wildly spontaneous, if for no other reason than for the sake of experience. Why not indulge that fantasy? She could stop it anytime. This was a harmless kiss. Nothing more.
    Expertly and thoroughly, Tyler tasted, explored, and enjoyed her mouth. He drew from it secrets she hadn’t known were harbored there. She moved closer to him, instinctively responding to the pressure of his tongue against hers.
    A deep growl of desire went through the chest pressed so intimately against her breasts. Brazenly, she was thrilled that she—steady, dependable Hailey Ashton—could provoke such a reaction from this virile man.
    At long last, breathless, he lifted his head and raked his scorching eyes over each feature of her face. His hands were sure and confident as he separated the lapels of her blazer. His gaze burned across her breasts. As though responding to