“You don’t mind?”

“I’ll try to grin and bear it. For the sake of science.”

“That’s what I like-a team player.”

“I’m definitely game.”

Her fingertips skimmed lower to feather over his hips. He gripped his hands tighter together behind his neck as his muscles contracted in rolling spasms of pleasure.

“Ten,” he said.

Brett watched her hands coast over his thighs, down his legs, behind his knees, each time saying “Ten,” each pass of her hands further tightening his body and peeling away another layer of his control. Everywhere she touched him, it felt as if fire raced beneath his skin. And she’d touched him everywhere-except his penis, which strained upward, hard and aching. His breathing turned labored and the effort he expended to remain still had him nearly shaking. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

“Spread your legs,” she said.

His gaze snapped to hers, and without a word, he did as she asked. Her fingers dipped into the crease between his thighs and a low growl escaped him. With his gaze pinned to hers, he said in a rough voice, “Twelve.”

Her warm palm cupped his tight sac and gently squeezed. He sucked in a hard breath. “Fourteen.”

She released him, then trailed a single fingertip down his hard length. His erection jerked at the featherlight contact and he groaned. When he didn’t speak, she asked, “Your rating?”

“Do it again.”

After she obliged, he rasped, “Twenty.”

She raised her brows. “Interesting.” Her gaze rested on his arousal, and he tensed in expectation. When she wrapped her fingers around him, his eyes slammed shut and he pulled in a quick, harsh breath.

“Number?” she asked, gently squeezing him.

“Thirty.” The word came out in a low groan and he opened his eyes. “And just FYI-my powers of speech are rapidly vanishing.”

“Good. Let’s see what this does.” She sat on the edge of the bed, urged him closer, then leaned forward and gave his shaft a long, slow lick, from base to tip.

A tremor ran through him, but before he could recover, she licked him again, this time sweeping her tongue over the sensitive head before looking up at him through glittering green eyes.

“Well?” she asked.

“You’re driving me insane.”

She lazily circled the tip of her tongue around the engorged head and he clenched his teeth against the aching pleasure. “Good insane, or bad insane?”

“Good,” he gasped, as she leaned forward and slowly drew him into her mouth. “So…ahhh…good.”

He watched her draw him in deeper, and he lowered his hands to sift them unsteadily through her soft hair. The erotic sight and incredible feel of her hot, silky mouth moving over him with a slow, mind-destroying rhythm, the sensation of her hands dipping between his legs to cup and caress him, was quickly bringing him to the brink. His vision blurred when she engulfed him deeper and sucked. Hard. He held off coming by sheer will, but when she repeated that tight, control-shredding draw, he knew he was done.

With a feral groan, he eased himself free of her plump lips. She looked up at him with a heated expression that all but incinerated him where he stood.

“I haven’t evened the score yet,” she said.

“Believe me, it’s about to be evened. But when it is, I want you with me.”

He urged her back on the mattress, and grabbed the condom. After quickly rolling on the protection, he settled himself in the warm cradle of her spread thighs. Their eyes met as he slowly sank into her tight, wet heat.

“God…you feel-” he ground out.

“So incredibly good…” she whispered.

“So incredibly good,” he agreed, sinking deeper.

Buried to the hilt, he briefly closed his eyes, absorbing the incredible sensation of her body clamped around him like a hot, silken fist. Then, with his gaze on hers, he eased out nearly all the way, and thrust deep. Her lips parted, emitting a low rumbling sound of approval. He thrust again and again, long, smooth, deep strokes that quickened into driving plunges, each one urging him closer to detonation. Her breathing turned choppy and her fingers bit into his shoulders. When a cry broke from her lips and she arched beneath him, Brett let himself go. His climax roared through his system, shudders racking him with hot jolts of pleasure. When the spasms subsided, he collapsed, burying his face in the warm, fragrant curve of her neck and fought to catch his breath.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he mustered the strength to lift his head. When he did, his heart quickened at the sight of her.

With her skin flushed, hair in wild disarray, moist lips parted and kiss-swollen, Kayla looked completely sated. And utterly beautiful. Propping his weight on his forearms, he brushed a damp auburn strand from her rosy cheek. A low hmmm sounded in her throat and her eyelids fluttered open. Their gazes locked and he stilled, struck by a sensation of…something. Something he couldn’t name because he’d never felt it before. But whatever it was, it was intense and warm and intimate, and while half of him liked it-a lot-its very intensity scared the crap out of the other half of him.

Forcing a lightness into his voice-one he really had to reach for-he said, “You look…deliciously dazed.”

She stretched beneath him and smiled. “I feel deliciously dazed. And very smug. It would seem I shot your theory all to hell. Indeed, I think the final tally was, Spine-ten. Penis-was it thirty or forty?”

“More like thirty thousand. But you changed the entire hypothesis by using your mouth.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Hell, no. In fact, I can’t wait to run my own experiment on you. See if I find similar results, or if it’s just a guy thing. I vote for a nice, warm shower, then another round of orgasm poker. How does that sound?”

Her lips curved into a beautiful smile that stole his breath. “Deal me in, baby. Deal me in.”

7

WEARING Brett’s Hawaiian shirt, which covered her to midthigh, Kayla stepped onto the small balcony of his hotel room. Echoes of music and an indistinguishable hum of voices floated over the cool night air from the nearby Plaza de Armas which was lined with numerous lively bars and discos. The moon shone in the sky, a luminous pearl against black satin. Stars twinkled like handfuls of scattered diamonds, the perfect backdrop for the grandeur of the Andes visible in their silvery glow. A breeze ruffled her hair, bringing with it the savory scent of food, and her stomach rumbled. They’d polished off the pizza hours ago.

Settling herself on the wrought-iron chair, she rifled through her canvas bag for her cell phone. She wasn’t sure how long Brett would be gone on his errand to hunt up some bottled water and snacks-what kind of hotel didn’t offer room service anyway?-and since it appeared that she was spending the night here, she needed to grab what would probably be her only chance to privately check her messages.

Flipping open her phone, which she’d set on Silent, Kayla noted she had eight voice mails and twenty text messages in her inbox. With a sigh, she opted to get the voice mails over with first. Three of the messages were from Meg regarding the wedding plans-no big surprise there. Two from Cindy, one asking how she liked the name Butterfly for a girl, the other complaining about Meg. Two calls were from her mom, one reiterating she was too young to be a grandmother, the other reporting that her hairdresser’s son’s divorce was final and that he’d be perfect for Kayla and should she set up a date?

The last message was from Nelson, left an hour ago, and she stilled as she heard his voice coming through the phone. “Hope the reason you’re not answering this call is because you’re somewhere with Thornton finding out everything you can about him and that damn formula. Keep me informed.”

She disconnected from voice mail and buried her face in her hands. Guilt weighed heavily on her, along with something else…something she was reluctant to name because she didn’t like it. Didn’t like the way it made her feel about herself and what she was doing. Shame, perhaps? her inner voice archly asked.

She blew out a long sigh. Yes, damn it, she was ashamed. Because she’d searched through his belongings as soon as he’d departed the room. Searched for something, anything that might offer the sort of clue Nelson expected her to find. But instead of feeling as if she were doing her job, she’d felt like a sneak. And she’d been disgusted with herself for invading his privacy. She’d had to force herself to do it, but that did little to assuage her conscience as she’d still done it. Her search had only served to tarnish the thrill and excitement of being with him with the crushing feeling that she no longer deserved to share such intimacies with him.

As soon as she’d discerned that he didn’t carry any folders marked Secret Formula or notebooks with scientific notations, she’d ceased her search, but the damage to her conscience was done. All she’d learned was that he packed light, had an obvious liking for Hawaiian print shirts, and clearly didn’t wear cologne. And that she didn’t like herself very much at that moment.

Since not liking herself felt uncomfortably close to the truth, Kayla shoved the notion aside and concentrated on the only slightly less palatable feeling crushing her-guilt. Guilt which was impossible to ignore as it was bombarding her from two directions.

One direction hinged on the fact that during the six hours she’d spent in Brett’s hotel room, she hadn’t once thought about La Fleur or the formula or Nelson or her reason for being here. The spying. The payback for the embarrassment and anger Brett’s rude departure from the La Fleur party had caused her with the board of directors. The bonus, perks and promotion Nelson had dangled before her like a diamond-encrusted carrot.