My skin prickles, and a traitorous heat pools inside me, despite my hate.
“Good morning, Ms. Hollis. Glad to see you actually want a job.”
He’s pushed me too far.
I bring my chin up. “I’m sure security can check the log. You’ll find I entered the building at 6:45 and your suite at 6:59 a.m.”
“Do you always take your time actually getting to work once you clock in?”
Turns out, I’m incapable of keeping my mouth shut—even though I should. “You planning another punishment, Mr. Blackheart?”
“Blackheart?”
He roars the word.
Oh fuckity fuck.
Why did I let my temper get the best of me?
He pushes away from the counter and closes the distance in two strides, gripping my shoulders, his fingers digging in, spinning me to pin me against the wall with his body, his heat a furnace searing through my uniform. My knees weaken as his hard chest presses against mine, trapping me in his orbit.
His dark eyes are searing, and they lock on my mouth.
Slowly, deliberately, he cups my jaw and tilts my face up. His cologne—woodsy and sharp—wraps around me. “That mouth of yours, Seraphina, always gets you in trouble.”
Fear knots my breath so tight I might choke.
“I…” Though I’m desperate to escape, my body betrays me by leaning into his heat. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“And yet I don’t hear an apology.” A dark smile toys with his lips. “Would you like to say you’re sorry?”
Why am I pushing him?
When I remain silent, his lips crash onto mine, deep and devouring, claiming me with a hunger that steals my breath. Frantically I grip his lapels, needing an anchor in a world that he tipped upside down
After I’d arrived home after meeting Lila last night, I’d taken a long shower. Even though I was yawning, I still wasn’t able to settle down to sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, thoughts of him slipped into my mind. The harder I tried to shove them away, the more persistent they became.
After tossing and turning for a couple of hours, I got back up and watched a little TV, flipped through a magazine. Then, knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop myself, I picked up my phone and searched his name.
The recent headline on my favorite gossip site, Scandalicious, almost made me drop my phone: PREDATOR KING’S COZY NIGHT ON THE TOWN WITH BIANCA LOCKHART.
What the heck was he thinking, cozying up to the sister of the Lockhart CEO? The article went on to say that Bianca completely denied having a fling with him.
But that wasn’t the only time he was mentioned recently.
There were lots of breathtaking pictures of him out on the town with different women, and never the same one twice.
So why would he have any interest in someone like me?
Finally, when I was so exhausted that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I made my way back to bed, only for my eyes to pop open again. Damn him.
No matter how many times I buried my head beneath my pillow or told myself I hated him—my legs kept pressing together, slick and desperate.
I kept replaying our earlier scene at his penthouse, but I’m not just remembering, I’m expanding on what happened. I see him standing over me as I sleep in his bed. His crisp, white shirtsleeves are rolled up, and his wrist bones are cutting against thick veins.
His massive hand is braced on my lower back as he forces me to bend for him. As if I’m his to do with as he pleases.
