Touch Series (Contemporary Romance) Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Lucia Jordan

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Touch Book 1: Passionate Encounter

  Touch Book 2: Dark Temptation

  Touch Book 3: Broken Promise

  Touch Book 4: Forever Bound

  Touch Book 1: Passionate Encounter

  “Done!”

  Kelly Miller took a long breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead before heaving the armful of clothing she held out the window. Jeans and tee shirts fluttered in the wind and a hysterical giggle erupted from her mouth when a colorful pair of boxers caught on the antenna of a car parked at the curb. They fluttered there, gaily, for a moment before an angry looking woman strode out of the nearby pizzeria and yanked them off.

  “Sorry!” Kelly yelled from her second floor apartment, “I was hoping to hit him with them.”

  The woman looked at Greg, Kelly’s ex, and an expression of understanding crossed her face. She tossed the boxers to the pavement and got into her car. Kelly laughed helplessly as the woman’s tires rolled right over the boxer shorts.

  “You bitch!” Greg yelled, “That’s totally stupid! Stop throwing my stuff out the window!”

  “I’m stupid?” Anger exploded into her. “You’re the jerk that was cheating on me and your calling me names?”

  She tossed a bag filled with his video games to the ground, he gave a wounded howl and she slammed the window shut and pulled the blind down behind it. She slumped into a chair, her face in her hands, exhaustion overwriting the anger.

  How could I be so stupid? How could I not have known he was screwing my best friend? Best friend, really?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a pounding on the door. “Go away!” she cried.

  Greg’s voice, pitched to a conciliatory croon, came through the door. “Come on, don’t be like this Kelly. I love you, I made a mistake. I’ll never do it again, I promise, you just have to stop hanging around girls like Candi. It’s not my fault you have such hot friends.” Candi, god how she hated that name.

  She stared bleakly at the wall. Her emotions were swinging too fast in too many directions and she didn’t trust herself to even answer. This wasn’t the first time he had cheated and she knew with a steely certainty it would not be the last.

  “The first time it had happened she had blamed herself. They had never had a really good sex life, after all. There always seemed to be something missing. She could never seem to connect with him in the way she wanted to despite his being a tender and very ardent lover. He often finished and went to sleep while she lay there aching with a need she couldn’t express and frustration knotting her nerves.

  She had faked it for a long time but when she had grown weary of that and tried to talk to him about it he had become angry and the first affair had followed soon after. She no longer believed she was at fault for his cheating and she sure as hell wasn’t in the mood to try to work it out any more either.

  There was something missing between them, point blank period.

  Greg pounded on the door a few more times, his fists growing heavier on the thin wood and she knew he was becoming desperate but she didn’t care. She was over it and he wasn’t getting back in, not into her apartment or her life. Not ever.

  “Come on baby, don’t you remember the time we went down to the beach and made love under the stars? Let’s do that again, what do you say? Wouldn’t you like that?”

  His voice was still pitched in that pleasant tone but she could hear the cajoling whine just below it. Next would be the recriminations and name calling. She closed her eyes, not wanting to deal with it any longer and the memory swam up: the sand was warm from the sun it had absorbed all day, the sky pricked with stars and he had knelt between her legs, his long lean body a dark silhouette.

  He could be a stranger, we could get caught and arrested she had thought and an orgasm ripped from her, soaking his organ and the sand below her ass cheeks with sticky fluids.

  That memory made her feel incredibly ashamed, It had not been Greg who had turned her on, it had been the idea that had entered her head at that moment, that feeling of utter vulnerability and the fear of exposure. The whole thing had felt taboo and slightly terrifying and it had been that excitement that had caused her to come so hard, not the feel of his member inside her.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and listened to his footsteps receding down the hallway, there was a second when she was sure he was going to just leave but then the sound of his footsteps coming back sounded out. She had often wished the landlord would install carpets out there but he never had. Greg pounded on the door so hard the wood shuddered and she stared at it, fully expecting it to shatter below the blows.

  “I’m going to call the cops on you!”

  That would be Mrs. Hagman who lived three doors down. She was a frail old lady with a piercing voice and .

  “Shut up!” Greg yelled but his footsteps receded once more. This time they didn’t return.

  Kelly peeked out of the window, relieved to see him stuffing his things into his car and peeling away from the curb. The silence left behind was intensely quiet. It was too quiet and she huddled down into the chair, willing herself to cry, to let it all out but her eyes stayed dry and her heart lay hard and heavy as stone on her chest.

  “I am never going to date ever again,” she said to her the mountain of fur and attitude that came creeping up next to her. “Do you hear me Princess?”

  Princess, an orange and white Maine Coon cat that weighed nearly twenty pounds and hated anything that moved into his line of vision growled at her before deciding to curl up on the right side of the tiny sofa. Hair scattered everywhere and Kelly sighed, Princess had been a gift from Greg the first few weeks that they had been dating and then he had been cute and cuddly. Three years later he was an oddly named hateful thing that only wanted petting when he wanted extra feeding.

  She had thrown Greg out of the apartment after he had cheated the first time and Princess had stayed with her out of convenience. Greg had never moved back in and, to be fair, Princess hated him more than he disliked her so he had stayed. Kelly would never have spoken it out loud but she had come to love the irascible creature.

  “I should have you never had you neutered. It might have done you some good to have gotten your evil little heart broken,” Kelly said but Princess didn’t take the bait, he just rolled over on the sofa to show her his fluffy belly before going to sleep. Loud rusty snores filled the apartment and she laughed, grateful to have something to laugh about in an otherwise dark day.

  **

  The next morning Kelly stood in front of her bathroom mirror carefully surveying her reflection. She had chosen to pin her dark auburn hair up in a low and very tight twist, her dark brown eyes had a smudging of russet colored shadow around them and her high cheekbones had a slight shading of blush. A thin layer of sheer lip gloss and a single coat of mascara completed the look.

  She wore a very severely cut suit and sensible shoes. Her only jewelry was a thin watch on her right wrist and a pair of tiny freshwater pearl earrings. “You’ll do,” she said.

  Kelly knew why she was nervous. Today was the day the new pres
ident of her department started work and she wasn’t looking forward to it. Michael Adams had a reputation for being a perfectionist who was not about to let anyone or anything get in the way of his climb up the corporate ladder.

  Michael was the youngest person to have ever reached a corner office in the billion dollar corporation, he was clearly on the fast track to CEO status and, some whispered, to the multimillion dollar salary that went along with that.

  Princess mewled and tried to twine around her legs, likely in an attempt to trip her, but she avoided him neatly. “Not today,” she admonished. “I can’t afford to go in looking like a hairy mess. I could get fired and you would be out in an alley begging for scraps.”

  Princess shot her a filthy look and sulked all the way over to the sofa. Kelly took a deep breath, grabbed her briefcase and headed out the door.

  **

  Michael Adams saw the gorgeous young woman darting for the front door of the building and paused for a millisecond to hold it open for her. Courtesy had never been a large topic of conversation in the Adam’s household while he was growing up but he had learned quickly that courtesy, as opposed to ass kissing, could take him up a few notches higher in the eyes of his superiors and it was a hard habit to break.

  “Thank you,” her voice was a breathless gasp. He deliberately lengthened his stride, her legs were long and slim and she matched his steps perfectly, both of them heading for the elevator without any further chit chat.

  Kelly checked her watch, she was twenty minutes early which meant she would be fifteen minutes early when the elevator disgorged her on the twenty third floor, where her office was housed. She knew that Michael was always early and always left late. On one hand she wasn’t looking forward to that because she already worked long hours but on the other hand she was hoping to keep thoughts of Greg and his cheating ways at bay by burying herself in work.

  The elevator filled and emptied. Michael found himself covertly studying her, the long creamy arch of her neck, delicate lines of her face and the soft curve of her lip kept drawing his attention. He didn’t have to look to know that her breasts curved out gently under the white blouse and her hips swelled softly from below the taut lines of her waist.

  Small daydreams were too much of a distraction so he fixed his gaze firmly forward and forced himself to think about the long day ahead. The former president of the department that he was taking over had let everything go to hell. The whole department was in chaos due to the mismanagement that had gone on.

  He didn’t want to fire anybody, he already had a reputation as being the executioner of careers due to his history and he would fire anyone who had simply not done the work but he was not going to reward loyalty and hard work with a pink slip if he could help it.

  Kelly was incredibly aware of the devastatingly handsome man in the elevator next to her. He wore a very subtle cologne and his charcoal suit was cut perfectly and showed his powerful body off even while covering it with an elegant flair. He had black hair that waved back from a small widow’s peak and a set of eyes that were deeply and almost impossibly blue. She would have had to be utterly blind to not have seen how attractive he was.

  “The last thing I need is a man,” she told herself sternly.

  The elevator dinged, announcing her stop and she exited. To her surprise the dark haired man fell in step beside her. Neither of them spoke, Michael was suddenly aware that she was likely an employee and Kelly was too worried about the new boss to try to make conversation.

  She opened the door to her tiny and cluttered office and stepped inside, breathing a sigh of relief as she stepped inside and turned on the light. Her computer monitor sat dark and silent and she went to it and cut it on, bringing up the page she had been working on the day before.

  She tossed her purse in the bottom drawer, pulled out files and bent her head to her work, not looking up for several hours, when a knock sounded at her door.

  “Come in,” she called, the small irritation she felt at being interrupted bleeding through the words slightly but her irritation died instantly when Michael opened the door and stepped inside.

  His eyes took in the office without ever seeming to wander: she was obviously deeply involved in her work, there were stacks of papers on one side of the desk and a large memo board on one wall with tasks ticked off in neat lines. The nameplate on the desk said Kelly Miller, the fact that it was on the nameplate and not the door said this was a job that had been vacated and taken over a multitude of times. Her employee records showed she had been in the department for seven months, she had begun work as a receptionist and worked her way up to assistant then she moved again once she got her degrees in financial management.

  He admired that, her willingness to work her way through college showed determination, her willingness to stay with the company showed she was loyal. If there was anything he valued, it was loyalty.

  “I’m Michael Adams,” he said without preliminaries. “I’m here to talk with you about the project you are working on.”

  Kelly braced herself. The project had been handed to her as a collection of memos and untidy documents. It had been through five people’s hands before it had hit hers and she had worked it into something that resembled order but it was nowhere near ready and would not be for at least another few weeks.

  “What would you like to discuss?” Her voice sounded calm, a surprise in itself.

  “There seems to be a holdup.”

  “There are some legal issues at play as well as financial ones. I’m not a lawyer so I had to pass those concerns on to the legal department. I’m working on the financial aspects unaffected by those issues at present and hope to have it all finished as soon as I can get the other ones seen to.”

  He had already known that. Her unwillingness to lay blame or make excuses and her calm statement of the facts was heartening. Some would have given hasty excuses as to why the work wasn’t down, would have told him the name of the person in the legal department and claimed that they were holding the project up. She had not done that at all.

  “I’ll see what I can do to expedite that.” He said smoothly and saw her shoulders relax slightly.

  “Thank you. I will have it in to you in less than two weeks.”

  “Good.”

  He opened her file and she stared at the neatly manicured nails on his large strong hands. “You seem to be determined to do well in this company.”

  “I am.”

  She didn’t say anything else. He stood there, his eyes locked onto hers for a few seconds then he nodded, once, a curt little nod and said, “”I’m sure you will do just that. If you’ll excuse me?”

  “Certainly.”

  The door closed softly and she slumped down into her chair. Her legs trembled and she had to take a long breath. For a moment she had had the oddest sensation; that he had known exactly who she was.

  Her fingers trembled as she tapped on the computer’s keys. Growing up had been a nightmare for her, she had spent much of her childhood being shuffled between foster homes, relatives and her parents. When her parents had come around it was when they were out of rehab or needed her to collect some income for themselves, she had been the reason they had been able to get the food stamps they traded for beer and the check they used to buy heroin or pills or anything else that they were into that week or day or year.

  She had been carted around the country as they fled from cops and drug charges, left in motel rooms while they robbed stores and had been taught to shoplift and used as a carrier for stolen items because they had known that stores would rarely stop a small child.

  She had never known stability and she craved it. Deep down she knew that was why she had clung to Greg for so long, she was terrified of changes. Change had never been a good thing for her growing up.

  **

  Michael looked up as she knocked on his open door. He had been watching her closely, too closely over the last two weeks. She always arrived before everyone else and left after
everyone else, except for him. He had seen her skip meals and leave the office with dark circles under her eyes and a drag to her feet, he knew that look and walk, it was often his own as well.

  He wondered what drove her, what fueled her ambitions and those thoughts often intruded upon him while he was working himself, no matter how hard he tried to block them out.

  Kelly had been just as distracted by him, though she had never given an outward sign of it. She’d had a distinctly sexy fantasy or two about her boss but she was unwilling to deal with anything outside of a fantasy, though those fantasies had helped shove Greg out of her mind on several nights, which had been a welcome relief.

  “I’m finished with this project.”

  He nodded toward a corner of his desk, “Set it there please.”

  She did and though she did not intend to spy she could not help but notice the department’s financial reports for the last few years were also there and that there were some folders with stickers affixed to them.

  Before she could stop herself she blurted out, “Some of the financials are out of sync. I worked on that set myself when I first came in and two months later, they were altered. I told my department head who said they would pass it on but he got fired a few weeks later and now…’

  “Now I’m here.”

  Her face went scarlet. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to…”

  Michael waved a hand at the chair in front of his desk, “Close the door and sit down please.”

  She was about to get fired. Her heart sank and her breath threatened to cut off completely. She walked, woodenly, to the door and closed it and then went to the chair and sat in it. Her back was ramrod straight and her hands were clutched in her lap so tightly her knuckles were white, none of which went unnoticed by Michael.

  “Would you say there were misappropriations of funds here?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was steady despite the dryness of her mouth. “But I could not say by whom.”

  “Thank you.” His sooty head nodded at the pile, “It’s obvious there has been embezzling going on for many years but that it’s been covered up time and again. I need some answers here and since you haven’t been here very long I doubt you can help me there, what you can do however, is tell me about this file.”