Transgressions by Carolyn Faulkner (the reading list txt) 📕

almost like she was fifteen or so and trying to convince her parents of her innocence. "It was Mary Southgate and Theresa Palumbo! They took cigarettes. I didn't steal so much as a bottle of nail polish."

"They were both bad influences, and if I recall correctly, all of this happened while you were out past your curfew," he supplied smoothly.

She was always out past her curfew, because the bastard was right; her parents never enforced any of the rules they set down for her, and she knew it. But Ally was amazed that he remembered so much detail about her, and she said as much.

He blushed again, as if he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, himself, saying, "You were all your father could talk about most of the time. It's a wonder he ever got any business done." That was true, but she had always been a point of interest to him. She was such an untouchable, unfathomable entity—having grown up on the right side of the tracks—that, at first, he'd been surprised to find that he actually liked her. She was indulged to the extreme, but somehow had missed becoming a nasty person because of it, and she was an inveterate animal lover, especially her damned horses. Despite the grief she caused her parents occasionally, although none of her antics were hurtful or violent, she obviously loved her parents and that earned her a lot of points in his book, spoiled or not.

Besides, although he knew better than most that she was out of his league and distinctly off limits, he basked in the adoration for him that he could see she was doing her best to hide from him—and everyone else—and failing completely. But he'd never teased her about it or rubbed her nose in it. Until she grew up and came back from college, he'd felt more like a protective older brother to her than a potential suitor.

And by the time she'd come home with her degree, he was in the middle of the schism with her father when he left to begin his own operation, and he didn't see much of her.

Although he did still keep as close tabs on her as he could, especially when he finally got a good look at how she'd grown up from across the room of a chamber of commerce event that they had both attended. She looked amazing, and he had immediately become more thoroughly jealous of every man who approached her than he had a right to be. Not that that stopped him.

But he didn't act on his feelings. She was making her own move to take over her father's concerns, and, if she succeeded—and that looked quite likely—they would become rivals.

So as much as he didn't want to, he'd distanced himself from her, reduced to gazing longingly at her when he got the very occasional opportunity, and then only when he knew no one was looking, of course.

"Oh," Ally replied, somewhat deflated. She'd thought, in a brief moment of weakness, that he might confess that he'd had a crush on her, too, but that was entirely too much to hope for.

He could see that she was let down and couldn't bear to see that look on her face. So, he caught her eye and then rather boldly bent down to kiss her, taking her lips as if he had every right, as if it was something he had come to expect, something he did every day because it was his right.

Ally knew she should have been protesting—loudly—but was surprised to realize that the impulse just wasn't there. What was there was the sharp need to kiss him back, to try to assuage the insistent throb between her legs. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to press her body against his, to feel his plains and angles against her softness. Her nipples blossomed as he deepened the kiss, his tongue delving past her lips, the fingers of one big hand in her hair and a thick arm around her waist, lifting her even closer to him, pressing her against the unmistakable evidence of his desire for her.

That hard length pressing into her tummy was like a jolt that made a beeline for that hidden area between her legs that had been weeping for him since she'd laid eyes on him, making her wetter than she had already gotten from that horrible spanking he'd dealt her. She didn't know why, because they certainly hurt like a mother while they were happening, but in the aftermath of the occasional spankings she'd been given by eager—if novice-boyfriends—they had her practically ripping their clothes off so that she could mount them where they sat.

Of course, she knew she couldn't do that to him and, besides, the spankings she'd had before didn't compare to what he'd just done to her. The previous ones were given by men who just wanted to get into her pants, not by someone who was so obviously quite expert at it. The thought of how he might have acquired all of that experience didn't set well with her at all, so she pushed it to the back of her mind.

That spanking of his was the worst she'd ever received, leaving her so sore she didn't want to move a muscle, and so horny she had to clench her fists against the impulse to grab his hand and place it on her crotch. She'd very nearly thrown herself at him in the back of his limo. Only the surprising depth of her exhaustion had saved her from that ignominious end.

Not long into the kiss, Ally gave up all pretense of trying to remain unmoved and neutral. She just couldn't do it—her body wouldn't let her. It was most definitely in league with him, innately recognizing and responding to his very natural dominance.

But just as she was beginning to kiss him back, he took a step away from her and took her hand, leading