The kiss catches me completely off guard.
Expecting to be met with some cold, professional version of Cole who’d tell me again that there could be nothing between us, I steeled myself on the elevator ride up. I was ready with my arguments. I had all my speeches prepared. We had to work something out so we could be together, and that was it.
Then he opened the door and fell on me like a starving man.
His mouth is hot and demanding. His tongue delves deep. He holds me against his body with his arms wound tightly around my back and drinks from my mouth until I’m dizzy.
Then he sets me firmly away from him and steps back, shaking his head.
“We can’t do this, Shay.”
Unsteady and breathing hard, I take a moment to gather my wits and try to understand what he’s saying. “You mean here? We can’t do this in your office?”
“No. I mean at all.”
Hurt by his words and the hardness in his voice, I turn and walk away. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. And before you open your mouth again, let me tell you something…”
I stop a few feet away from his desk and stare at the copy of Love in the Time of Cholera sitting on the blotter. When I turn to look at him, he sighs and drags a hand through his hair.
“I thought you didn’t like romance novels.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why is that book on your desk?”
“It’s a long story. How are you?”
I take a moment to inspect his expression. It’s intense. Worried. Yearning. Ambivalent. He stands with his back ramrod straight and his head slightly lowered, arms at his sides, legs spread apart, hands flexed. He looks like he’s fighting himself not to break into a run, grab me, and kiss me again.
Folding my arms over my chest, I stare at him. “I’m well. Thank you for asking. You?”
“Fine. Thanks.”
His intense gaze rakes up and down my body. He licks his lips and shifts his weight from foot to foot.
“Cole, if you seriously think you can act like there are no feelings between us, and we’re just going to go about our lives as if nothing ever happened, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”
“I never said there were no feelings. I said we can’t do anything about them.”
I look at him in his beautiful navy-blue suit with his gorgeous face and his strong body, and wonder how such a perfect specimen of a man could be this absurd.
“So you’re planning on spending the rest of your life alone, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Also yes. You look beautiful today. I love that color on you.”
“Color? I’m wearing black.”
“It’s perfect. You’re so perfect, I could go blind.”
I can’t help it. Despite my hurt and confusion, I smile. “You know, for someone who’s trying to convince me we can’t have a relationship, you’re doing a terrible job.”
“I don’t want you to think it’s because I don’t want you. I want you like I’ve never wanted anything. But I’m not good for you, Shay. I’m not…good.”
My heart is a sucker for this man. He stares at me with such seriousness on his face and in his eyes and voice, trying to tell me why we can’t be together, but I can barely hear him over the pounding of my pulse. It’s a roar of kiss me kiss me kiss me in my ears, deafening me.
I sit on the edge of his desk and close my eyes, trying to block it out.
A moment later, he strokes a hand over my hair.
“Are you really okay?”
His voice is soft, close to my ear. I nod but don’t open my eyes because I want him to keep touching me.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t sleep. Was it because of me?”
I nod again, inhaling his scent and enjoying his body heat. He must be standing very close.
“Shay. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not. I don’t want to be the cause of your sleepless nights.”
“It wasn’t a bad thing. It was just that I woke up and remembered you called me baby the other night. You called me baby when you were taking care of me, just like you did that night at the hotel.”
There’s an electric pause before I open my eyes and look up at him. He’s inches away, gazing down at me with ravenous eyes, his hand on my hair, his lips parted. The pulse in the side of his neck throbs.
I flatten my hands on his chest and whisper, “I want you to call me that again but while you’re inside me.”
Because I’ve got my hands on his chest, I feel his reaction to my words. His heartbeat starts to gallop, and his abdominal muscles tense. He draws a sharp breath. He gathers my hair in his big hand and makes a fist around it.
That simple gesture gets me so hot, I almost moan out loud. I stare up at him with my pulse flying and my nipples hardening, begging him with my eyes to put his mouth on mine.
Eyes burning, he breathes, “What are you doing to me?”
“The same thing you’re doing to me. Please, Cole. Please kiss me. You can send me away after that. I promise I’ll go if you ask me to, but please just kiss me again before I lose my mind.”
His lids flutter. His voice turns gruff. “Stop begging. You’re fucking killing me.”
“Please.”
He closes his eyes and groans. I stand, slide my hands up his chest and wind my arms around his shoulders, then brush my lips over his with feather-light pressure. Against his mouth, I whisper, “Please.”
His voice turns guttural. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing.”
“It’s not a game.”
His erection is stiff against my hip. His breathing is erratic. I know he’s close to snapping and losing control of himself. He’s right on the razor’s edge of letting go and crushing his mouth to mine.
So to try to push him over, I lick his lips from one corner of his mouth to the other, the stroke of my tongue whisper soft. Then I ever so gently take his lower lip between my teeth and bite down.
He reacts so fast, I can’t comprehend how it happens.
In a whipcrack move, he turns me around and pushes me facedown onto his desk. I’m bent over the edge of it, my breasts flattened on his blotter, my bottom pressed against his crotch as he stands behind me.
With one hand on my hip and the other curled around the back of my neck, he leans over and speaks into my ear in a voice so hot and rough, it makes my legs shake.
“You don’t want me to lose control of myself, pretty girl. You don’t want me to let the monster off its leash. I played nice that night we spent at the hotel, but nice isn’t what I am. I keep telling you I’m not good, but you refuse to listen.”
I’m shaking with excitement. I can’t catch my breath. My panties are soaked, and he hasn’t even touched me yet. I think if he pinched one of my hard nipples, I’d spontaneously combust.
“You are good. You are.”
He growls in frustration. Yanking up my skirt, he spanks my ass several times in quick succession. The blows are sharp and stinging. Then he pulls my skirt down, hauls me off the desk, and leads me to the door with his hand around my upper arm.
He pulls the door open. He pushes me through it. I spin around and gape at him, my face hot, my pussy wet, my ass burning.
Without another word, he shuts the door in my face.
I flatten my shaking hands on the door, then rest my forehead against it, trying to catch my breath and calm the butterflies in my stomach.
My entire body sizzles with need. I might light this entire building on fire from how hot he made me.
After a few moments, I hear his gruff voice. “Don’t make me open this door again. Go.”
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“You get to decide unilaterally?”
“Yes.”
“And you think I’m just going to roll over and let you do that?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not giving up, Cole.”
“I’ll hire a new assistant if I have to.”
“No, you won’t.”
He doesn’t answer for so long, I think he must’ve walked away. But then I hear a heavy exhalation.
“You’re right. I won’t. Go back to your desk, Ms. Sanders. This conversation is over. And stop reading those goddamn romance novels!”
I stand there listening to him breathe raggedly. He mutters a curse. I picture him dragging his hands through his hair, fighting with himself not to open the door and pull me back inside again so he can kiss me, and I fall for him a little more.
“I don’t care if you’re a monster, Cole. Whatever you are, good or bad, I want you.”
He growls, “You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re not a narcissist like Chet. And I know you care about me.”
“Why do you have to be so goddamn persistent? Why can’t you just believe that I have your best interests at heart when I tell you to walk away?”
“Because you made the mistake of giving me everything I needed the first night we met. Because the more I see of you, the more I want. And because I decide what’s in my best interests, not you. And by the way, if that little show of dominance was meant to scare me, it had the opposite effect. I’m ten seconds away from an orgasm. Have a good day, Mr. McCord.”
I turn around and walk shakily toward the elevators but decide to take the stairs instead. I need a moment to put myself back together before I return to my floor. I’m not sure if anyone else has arrived yet, and I’m a mess. So I turn and head to the Exit door on the other side of Marion’s desk. It leads to the stairwell between floors.
I step onto the concrete landing and into the cool, echoing hallway, but before the door closes behind me, Cole barges through it.
