Chapter 28

Jeremy

Her cheeks flush.

She looks down, hiding her reaction to my words, but it’s too late. I know she felt the same way when she saw me standing in the conference room last week.

“It looks like we’re at an impasse,” I say to lure her gaze back up.

It works. “An impasse? How so?”

I trail her fingertips over my lips before I kiss them one last time. I slip my hand from hers and I hear it. I hear the slightest sigh of regret at the loss of my touch.

“It’s against the rules to fuck me.” I don’t mince words because there’s no need. “You won’t let me fire you.”

A soft smile slides over her perfect mouth. “I suppose you could call that an impasse.”

“You want me, angel.”

“Yes,” she whispers, the nod of her head confirming her words. “You know that I do.”

“Tell me how to make this work.” I edge closer to her in my chair. “We can be discreet. We’ll meet at a hotel, or here. You name the place and time and I’ll be there, with a believable work excuse in my back pocket in the event anyone ever questions you about where you are.”

Her gaze drops to my pants and the bulge that I gave up trying to hide. “You’re talking about finding a place to fuck, aren’t you?”

“A place where we can spend time together without the threat of exposure,” I clarify.

She ponders that with a sweep of her hand over her forehead. “You’re suggesting that we meet to fuck under the guise that we’re conducting business.”

Hearing her say the word fuck over and over is making everything fall away but my need to feel her, taste her and be inside her beautiful body.

“I’m suggesting that we fuck, soon, and we can do that wherever the hell you want.” I jerk my thumb toward my desk. “I’ll eat you right now on my desk. I’ll fuck you bent over it. I don’t care where I have you. I just want you.”

Her fingers trace a path over her jaw before they whisper over the skin of her neck, drawing lazy circles.

I don’t even know if she’s aware of how erotic she looks like right now.

“Your assistant would hear us.” She laughs like she thinks I was trying to be funny.

I correct that with one sentence. “I’m serious, Linny.”

“You’re not serious,” she counters. “We can’t have sex in your office.”

I push to stand, holding a hand out to her. “Get on my desk.”

She swats my hand away with a brush of hers. “No, West. I don’t do that.”

“You also don’t fuck men you just met. Yet, you fucked me. I want you right now.”

She peers over her shoulder. “Your assistant could come back at any moment.”

I glance down at my watch. “She won’t and even if she did, she’d know to hold my calls when she heard you screaming my name.”

She pushes to her feet. “I wouldn’t scream your name.”

“You did in Vegas.”

Her feet shuffle to the side to gain distance from me. I don’t give in. I follow every step of hers with one of my own.

“I had a little too much to drink that night.” She tugs on the front of her dress. “Any other night, I wouldn’t have done it.”

She starts walking backward toward the door of my office. I stalk her, shrugging out of my suit jacket. I toss it back onto the chair she was just sitting in.

“Why are you taking off your jacket?”

“It’s hot in here.” I loosen my tie. “You look flushed.”

Her hand darts to her cheek. “I don’t. I’m not.”

She stops dead when her back hits my closed office door. Her hand searches for the doorknob, but I’m on her before she can turn it.

I reach down and lock it. “Tell me you want to leave.”

Her head shakes back and forth. “I should leave.”

“Do you want to leave?” My arms bracket her, my palms pressing against the door on either side of her head. “Tell me you want to leave and I’ll let you go.”

“I have meetings, I think.” Her eyes lock on mine. “I think I have other work to do today.”

I lean closer, breathing in the scent of her. That perfume. I haven’t smelled it since that night; since I had my lips wrapped around her nipple. “God, you smell incredible.”

“You do too,” she says softly.

“I’ll never forget our first kiss. Let me kiss you again.” My voice is laced with need. “Just one kiss.”

“One kiss,” she repeats back in a whisper. Her tongue darts out to slick her bottom lip. “Only one kiss, West.”

I slide my hand to her neck, tilting her head to just the right angle. “If it’s just one, I need to make it count.”

I do.