“Which is what?”

“You stay with me.” I lower my mouth a breath from hers. “Stay.”

“Yes,” she says, sounding breathless. I knew I was right in that coffee shop when I met her. I damn sure like her breathless and I plan to keep her that way for the rest of the weekend.

I brush my lips over hers, a caress and a tease that I follow with a deep, drugging kiss, the sweet, honey taste of her biting at my self-control. But it’s her control I want. It’s her command of her secrets. I want to tear away her reserve, and that starts now, with me taking her pleasure and leaving room for nothing else. Driven by that intent, I lower myself to my knees, warm water splaying over my back, while I plan to make her warm all over.

My lips find her belly, and her fingers tunnel into my hair, and this time I don’t stop her. This time, I am not driving away her demons, and leaving no room for them. I’m tearing down her walls, and sliding into their place, and I waste no time finding her clit and licking it. And licking again, sucking her deeply, using my fingers and tongue to tease and please until she is arching her hips and making soft, sexy sounds of pleasure I feel in the pulse of my own body. I explore, lick, touch, and it is only minutes before she is tugging at my hair, a rough burn that tells me she is on edge where I want her. With only a few more caresses of my tongue, her sex is clenching around my fingers. I ease her into release and back down. When she calms, I stand, cupping her face and kissing her. That sweet honey taste of all of her is on my tongue and I want more.

EMILY

An hour after we exit the shower, Shane and I collapse on the bed flat on our backs, one of his legs draped over mine, both of us breathing heavily. “I don’t think I need my morning jog today,” I pant out.

“At some point in the near future we’ll have to eat,” he murmurs, the muffled sound of his phone ringing in the bathroom.

“Don’t you need to get that?” I ask, rolling to rest on his chest.

His hand flattens at the base of my spine. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s Jessica, and I’m not getting out of bed to race over and see that apartment. Not when I have you naked and to myself.”

“That apartment’s gorgeous. Don’t lose it.”

“Money talks and so does power. If I want it, I won’t lose it.”

“And you want Brandon Enterprises.”

“Yes. I do.”

“But you worked so hard for your law career and were at the top of the food chain.”

“I resisted,” he says, scooting back to prop himself on the gray cloth headboard, and taking me with him. “But I think you know that’s why I’m still in this apartment.”

“What changed your mind?”

“The company’s going in the wrong direction, and I am certain this will be its demise.”

“But it’s an empire.”

“Empires do crumble. And I don’t want ours to be one of them.”

“And you think the pharmaceutical division is the key to successfully preventing that?”

“I know it is. It allows us to cut the dead weight that are many of our divisions.”

“Well, the financial division sure seems to be booming.”

“You base this on what?”

“The powerful, filthy rich people involved in this new hedge fund your father’s working on.”

“The hedge fund he didn’t tell me about,” Shane replies dryly.

“Why didn’t he?”

“He wanted to bury something I won’t approve of before it hits my desk.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Nothing good and nothing you need to think about.”

“But if I am staying, I should know what to look for.”

“I don’t want you to look for anything.”

“But Shane—”

He slides down to the mattress again and rolls me to my back. “You are not to get involved beyond helping me with my research today. End of topic.”

“I want to help.”

“I’ll fire you myself if you get involved in this Emily.” His tone is hard, absolute, and I believe him, but he softens the blow with a kiss, before rolling away, standing, and in all his naked abundant glory, walks toward a door opposite the bathroom that I assume is a closet.

Grimacing, not sure how I feel about this, I sit up, shivering with my still damp hair and a cold breeze from a vent somewhere nearby. “What are you trying to achieve with your research?” I call out, tugging the blanket to my chin.

He exits the closet in faded jeans, tugging a white tee over his impressively broad chest, giving me only a moment more to admire his defined abs before it falls to the waistband of his low-slung jeans. “I was behind this acquisition but I was too wrapped up in that legal matter I mentioned to dive in fully.” He sits down next to me, his dark hair a rumpled, sexy mess that I’m pretty sure my fingers created. “Now, I’m ready to take it to the next level.”

“Don’t you have staff to research for you?” I ask.

“I do, but I’m not prepared to let my strategy out in the wild.”

“You mean Derek.”

“Among others.”

“What’s your strategy?” I ask. “I mean, unless you don’t want to tell me.”

“You’re about to help me research. I’m not exactly keeping you in the dark. As for my strategy, it’s pretty direct and simple, at least on the surface. Know everything about this business, my competition, and everyone involved in the industry.”