Court

I shouldn’t have been looking for her, but I was.

Every waking minute since we’d parted and most of the sleeping ones had been spent obsessing over her, over the encounter, over my mistakes and regrets. And I’d come out of the weekend with a new plan.

Today, I would redefine the boundaries I’d crossed and apologize for crossing them in the first place. She deserved to know it wasn’t her fault. I’d broken my own code, my own rule, and I’d put myself—and her—in danger. I’d taken a tip from my father and taken advantage of an employee, putting me in a position I wasn’t interested in filling.

What has she done to me?

I had one damn rule, and I’d thrown it away after a day spent with her, one day with her long legs in stride with mine. One suspicious moment. One dressing down. One kiss.

My suspicion had been deep and complete, my accusations as painful and honest as they were loathsome. Even now, the louder, larger part of me screamed its warning. To find that she’d read up on me had triggered a chain reaction of thought as impossible to fight as gravity. And my mind had formed a presumptuous story it still largely believed—she had orchestrated our day together in a long con, starting before she even walked through the doors of the museum.

Never again would I be a pawn. Never.

But the truth remained—I needed to put the boundaries back in place, hitch up the ranch fence and divide the territory. I needed to apologize, and I needed her to know it would never happen again, not just for her sake, but for mine.

Deep in my chest, thoughts of her twisted and curled around each other, buried inside a logical, civilized facade of control. That facade held fast, reminding me I was looking for her to speak with distance about what I’d done. But the truth underneath whispered my desire to see her. To talk to her. To know she was all right and to breathe her air. And somehow, stupidly, I thought I could hold that facade in place and ignore the dark star underneath, contracting with pressure, waiting to blow that thin shell apart like shrapnel.

Apologize—that’s all you’re allowed to do. Fix it.

I’d tried to talk to her in the elevator, albeit weakly, but she’d said please, and that simple word coupled with the hurt in her eyes stayed me without understanding why.

All morning, I’d tried to distract myself with the Medici article, but the piece itself reminded me of her, every topic discussed and collaborated to the point that she was woven into the work as deeply as I was. The words were slow coming, every one fought for, my attention constantly wandering back to her. I pictured her walking away from me in that skirt and those heels as the elevator doors closed on the vision. Her hair was shorter, shinier, wavier, and I found myself both desperate to slip my fingers into it and mystifyingly annoyed that it had happened without my knowledge. Because I had opinions about her hair and its length. I had opinions about the height of her heels and the lipstick she wore, which was different too, darker and deeper.

Maybe I’d wanted her to stay frozen exactly how she was in the moment I’d touched her, as if it could prolong the truth of it, make her mine for as long as I could. Or maybe I wanted to control her.

Either way, I couldn’t.

I’d gone looking for her around lunch, hoping I could catch her during my break and hers. But she hadn’t been in the library, and my annoyance and frustration mounted as I went from café to café, starting with where we’d had lunch Friday, ending in the American Wing. Where I found her.

Talking to him.

My father stood next to her table, smirking like the son of a bitch that he was, leaning in to tell her something that made her blush. I nearly shot out of my skin at the sight of him. There. With her. But the ground had swallowed me, the marble tiles holding me as cold and still as they were, that dark star trembling with brilliant force, a screaming warning hurtling through my mind.

Logic had no place here. Boundaries meant nothing. The thin veneer of my composure fissured, cracked, split open.

He walked away.

I followed heedlessly.

My breath rasped in and out of my chest, my stride as long as his but my pace faster, driven by the mad impulse to grab him by the lapels of his fucking Italian suit and throw him into a wall.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

I caught up to him as he turned into the empty hall for the staff elevators. “What the fuck do you want with her?” I asked his back, the question echoing off the creamy stone walls.

He stopped, turning with casual grace that inspired violence in me. “I could ask you the same question.” He assessed me coolly.

And I found that I was unable to control myself, unable to maintain that pretense of calm I’d vowed to hold in his presence.

I didn’t stop walking until I was close enough to grab him, though I restrained myself, my fists clenched at my sides. “What. The fuck. Do you want?”

He had the nerve to look amused. “Just wanted to introduce myself. I try to meet all the new employees. You know that.”

Oh, did I. “Leave her alone.”

“Or…?”

“I mean it. She’s not meant for you.”

“But she’s meant for you? I thought you’d learned your lesson, Court,” he said with a condescending tsk.

“Well, you’re a great teacher,” I shot.

His face hardened. “You and Lydia never would have worked out. I saved you the trouble of having to find that out the hard way.”

A bitter laugh climbed up my throat. “Noble of you, considering you fucked her right out from under me.” I stepped into him, invading his space, our eyes level. Thunder crackled between us. “Don’t you fucking touch that intern.” The words were calm, low, sharp. “Last time, I only broke your nose. This time, I don’t think I’ll stop there.”

I turned to walk away, furious that I’d been reckless enough to hand him an ace to play. Because he’d play it. He let me go without arguing, and though I would have liked to think it was my threat that stopped him, it was the elevator doors opening to deposit a handful of staff into the hall with us that left me with the last word.

My penchant for a scathing exit was genetic.

I blew into the atrium looking for Rin, but she was gone. And rather than use that fucking elevator where my Judas patriarch had been, I opted for the stairs. The expenditure of energy was a motivator too, my heart pumping and adrenaline racing through me.

I took the stairs two at a time, Rin at the forefront of my mind and a barrage of questions at my back. Beads of sweat touched my temples, the heat between my heaving chest and my shirt radiating through me as I flew out of the stairwell and down the hall, shoving the door of the library open the second it was unlocked.

She jumped when she saw me, her eyes wide and lips parted in surprise as her hand flew to her chest, pale against deep burgundy.

“What did he want from you?” I demanded as I stormed toward her.

Confusion brought her brows together, and she stood, alarmed. “Who?”

“My father.” I ground the words out like stone against stone as I closed the space between us.

She blinked. “I don’t understand—”

“Why were you talking? What did he want?” I asked, my voice rough, the scent of her hair invading my senses.

She blinked again and frowned. “He didn’t want anything. And why wouldn’t I talk to him? He’s the president of the museum. What the hell is the matter with you? You can’t just come in here and—”

“He doesn’t get to talk to you,” I said, stepping into her without fear or remorse, without care for my plan or my job or the boundaries that were supposed to be in place. There was only possession. I slipped my hand into the space behind her ear, wrapped my fingers around the back of her long neck. “He’s not worthy of making your cheeks flush like this, like they are right now.” The words were deep, rumbling in the base of my throat. “He will never touch you,” I said against her lips.

Because you’re mine.

Before she could speak, I tipped her head as I descended, pressing my lips to hers like I’d been dreaming about since the second I last kissed them. But dreams and memories paled to the real thing, to the heat of her tongue and the moan in the back of her throat, to her body arching, pressing into mine in a plea I heard in the very depths of me.

This was the moment I realized I couldn’t stay away from her. My plan—my big, strong plan—was nothing but cheap paint over the truth—I wanted her for myself. Against all judgment, against all reason. Against my will, I wanted her. And I was powerless to fight it.

I breathed deep and loud through my nose, my lungs free for the first time in days, the air crisp and hot and filled with the intoxicating scent of her. Her body wound around mine, her arms snaking around my neck, flexing to bring me closer, to raise her up, to bring her hips to mine, yearning for pressure she applied to my straining cock.

She broke away, and I buried my face in her neck.

“Why?” she whispered, her fingers slipping into my hair. “Why do you do this to me?”

“I don’t know,” I said against her skin. “But I can’t stay away. I thought I could, but I can’t. You’re—”

Mine, my mind sang as I angled my head for access to her mouth, for my tongue to search its depths. Mine, I chanted like a prayer as I backed her into an aisle of tall shelves, and she let me guide her with no protest. Mine, was the thought that consumed me as I pulled her skirt up her thighs, over her hips. As I dropped her panties to the floor. As I dragged my fingertips up the length of her thighs, covered in goosebumps. As I cupped the curve and dip where those thighs met and slipped the tip of my finger into the slick heat of her.

Her lips slowed with a moan as her body melted into the palm of my hand.

God, how I wanted her. I swallowed the moan, my finger sliding in to meet the roll of her hips, my palm flexing to grind the swollen tip of her. I wanted to see her, I realized, more than anything outside of my cock buried in her.

I broke away and turned her around in one motion, the force fast enough that she grabbed the bookshelf in front of her with a gasp. My eyes moved down the length of her spine to her small waist to the skirt bunched in the curve, black against her snowy ass, which was thrust in my direction in display. An offering I took with the reverence it deserved.

My hands caressed the curves, squeezing when the weight of her cheeks filled my palms to expose her even more, to open her up. My eyes drank in the sight—the mounds of flesh in my splayed fingers, the swell of her hips as they rounded down and around to meet in the very center of her, the line where her flesh met, pink and plump and wet, the tight hole above it that begged to be touched. All of her begged to be touched, every fucking inch. By me.

“Please,” she begged with her mouth as well, her back arching and rocking gently, her voice tight and soft, her lips—the ones near my hands—pulsing as she tightened in a place I couldn’t see, but I could touch.

One hand stayed on her ass, kneading the curve, guiding her hips, as my free hand traced her slick center, eliciting a hiss at the moment of contact, and I didn’t stop until I was buried to the knuckle.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” I breathed, my chest tight again, though now with desire, and I slipped my index finger in next, my ring finger hanging in a tight V that brushed her clit.

She moaned, her fingers white-knuckled on the bookshelf, her head hanging between her shoulders, her hips swinging in a rhythm that I matched.

“I’ve thought about this every second since I touched you last,” I said, releasing her ass cheek in favor of gathering her hair, swinging it to one side to expose the column of her long neck. The handprint on her ass faded as I clamped my hand in the elegant curve.

Her hips bucked.

“Do you know how many times I had to take my own cock in my hands, Rin?” I asked as I stroked her with more pressure, more intent. “Do you know what you did to me?” She pulsed around my fingers, muttering something I couldn’t hear. “All I could think about were your lips,” I said, my eyes on my hand between her legs. “All I could think about was how good you felt,” I admitted as my thumb circled that forbidden, puckered hole. “All I wanted was to fuck you.” I pressed until the very tip of my thumb rested inside of her, and she hissed a swear I knew all too well, the walls around my middle fingers tightening, squeezing, pulling me in. “Is that what you want too?” The question was coupled with a flex of my hand, and the flex of her body answered just before her lips.

“Yes, please—Court, please—oh God,. Oh God,” she panted. “Oh—”

She exploded around me in a hot rush, a thumping pulse of her body as she came, the sound of her breath, of the succession of gasps punctuated with affirmations, her hips moving in waves and my hand moving with her, unrelenting, spurring the orgasm on, keeping it going until her thighs trembled and her body slowed.

I released her neck, my hand moving to my belt, my other hand still stroking her gently as I worked to do exactly what I intended, right here, right now.

And then the door to the library opened.

My heart skidded to a stop, starting again with a painful thump as we sprang into motion.

There was no time for discussion, no time for even a glance—she pulled up her panties and righted her skirt, re-tucking her blouse as I adjusted my throbbing cock, which there was no hiding. And I shielded her with my body, stepping out in front of her as she smoothed her hair and followed.

Another intern was walking in, his head down and focus on the screen of his phone. He glanced up, then back at his phone before depositing his backpack in a chair across from Rin’s.

I eyed the little shit suspiciously as Rin stepped out from behind me and to her bag, the air between us heavy and thick with too many things left unsaid.

“Rin—” I started.

But she shot me a look, a look that almost stopped me, a look full of hurt and anger and desire. Her hands trembled as she picked up her bag, turning for the door.

Anger flared in my chest as I watched her walk away from me for the second time that day.

“Rin.” The word was a demand, a command, an order given as I followed her out into the hallway. “Don’t walk away from me, goddammit.”

She whirled around on me. “What is your problem?” she shot. “Yesterday, you left me like I meant nothing to you, and today you come in here…why? You can’t make up your mind, but I’m just as bad—I’m the fool who wanted you to kiss me again. You’re giving me whiplash, Court, and I just don’t understand what the hell you want from me.”

I fumed, the heat of a combustion engine building in my chest. “I think it’s pretty fucking clear what I want from you. What I don’t know is what you want from me. Because it can’t be me—that’s not what anybody wants. So, what’s your price, Rin? Everybody has one, and I’ve been killing myself trying to figure out what yours is. A recommendation? A job? Money? What do you want?”

Her eyes flashed, her lips drawn back. “What? What I want? I…” She blinked, shaking her head. “For starters, I want a fucking apology. You want to…what? Pay me off? Do you think I’m going to rat you out, trap you, when you’re the one who keeps putting me here? I have done nothing but work my ass off and be honest and try so hard just to even be myself. But you keep doing this to me, not the other way around. What’s my price? Is that what you think of me? That I’m just…that I’m a…” She took a shuddering breath. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you.”

She turned to go, but I grabbed the hook of her elbow and tugged, the truth of her words lodged in my chest and the apology I owed her on my guilty lips. “Wait—”

She spun, her hand swinging too fast and suddenly for me to avoid the stinging slap when it landed on my cheek. Her eyes glittered with tears, her face bent in anger. “Don’t you touch me again, you son of a bitch. Ever.”

And for a third time, she walked away, and there was nothing I could do but watch her go.