My breath catches, fury clawing its way back through the haze of release.“You’re a sore loser,” I gasp, the words raw, trembling, but defiant.
His grin sharpens, and before I can take another breath, he crushes his mouth onto mine.The kiss is hard, almost bruising, his tongue sweeping in to claim every inch until I’m gasping against him.I hate him.I want him.The contradiction makes me dizzy, makes my stomach clench in ways I can’t control.
When he finally drags away, I’m left panting into the space between us, lips swollen, my pulse a wild, frantic thing.He doesn’t let me breathe.His mouth slides down, marking me again and again, biting, sucking, claiming patches of skin along my throat until each sting blossoms into heat.Shame and desire twist inside me, a dangerous, addictive mix.
By the time he pulls back, my blazer is rumpled, my hair mussed, and my skin littered with his brand.He wipes my lipstick from his face and fixes his shirt.
“Perfect,” he says softly, taunting, his thumb brushing one of the marks on my neck.“Now go sit back at your desk like this.”He straightens his jacket, calm and composed, his eyes raking over me one last time.That wicked grin curves his mouth as he turns for the door.
“We’re even now.”
And then he walks out, leaving me pressed against the wall, panting, disheveled, ruined in every possible way—every nerve still buzzing with the memory of his thigh, his mouth, and the wreckage he left behind.
‘Iexpect you to be professional when working here!This is not your playground, Caleb.Why can’t you take anything seriously for once?!’
My ears were still ringing from Ethan’s lecture when I returned to the office.I knew who it was behind the emails.Pissed as I was with Eve, there was also a hint of admiration for how creative her revenge has been.
In college, we barely interacted, and when we did, it was mostly in the confines of the classrooms where we would constantly be trying our best to out-do each other.Working at Thalvyn Maritime together has been our first time forced together in close proximity, and I find her even more infuriating.And yet, keeping my hands off her is the hardest thing I’ve had to do, especially now when I know what she tastes like, what her moans sound like, how her curves feel under my hands.Her defiance is addicting, breaking it when she’s under me, my obsession.
I never meant to toy with her in the stairwell, never meant to put my hands on her in the office, to put her in that position, but the unrepentant smile on her face drove me crazy.Ethan questioned my work ethics because of her.Her smug smile snapped something inside me.
I glance at my watch.It’s been twenty minutes.
Maybe I should go seek her out, find her wherever she’s gone to cool off and...What?The rational part of my brain knows I should leave it alone.Let her simmer down before we have another confrontation.But the other part of me—the part that’s still buzzing from having my hands on her in that stairwell—wants to track her down and finish what we started.
But I hesitate because I know Eve.She might just shove me down the stairs if I corner her right now.The woman has zero qualms about violence when she’s pissed, and after what just happened, she’s definitely pissed.
My hands are still tingling from where they touched her skin.The memory of her pressed against that concrete wall, the way her breath hitched when I leaned in close, the defiant tilt of her chin, even when she was trapped—It’s driving me insane.
I check my watch again.Twenty-two minutes now.
The office feels too quiet without her presence.Even when we’re not speaking, there’s this electric current that runs between us, this awareness that makes the air feel charged.Without it, everything feels flat.Lifeless.
I try to focus on work, pulling up the Serastra campaign files, but the words blur together on the screen.All I can think about is the taste of her mouth, the soft sound she made when I pressed closer, the way her fingers had gripped my shirt like she couldn’t decide whether to push me away or pull me closer.
This is what she does to me.Turns my brain to mush and makes me act like a fucking teenager with his first crush.
I’m still debating whether to go find her when I hear the sharp click of heels on tile.My pulse kicks up before I even see who it is, but I know.My body recognizes the sound of her walk, the particular rhythm of her stride.
The office door opens, and Eve strolls in like she owns the place.She looks composed.
Her hair is still loose around her shoulders, dark waves cascading down her back, but she’s clearly run a brush through it.The wild tangles from our encounter in the stairwell have been smoothed into something more professional.Her clothes are pressed—shirt tucked back in, skirt straightened out.She’s not wearing any lipstick, which means she wiped it off after I had my mouth on hers.
The thought sends a jolt of heat straight through me.
She walks past my desk without so much as an acknowledgment.Doesn’t even glance in my direction.She looks up at me in that defiant way that always makes me want to grab her and remind her exactly who was making her moan twenty minutes ago.
But as she passes my chair, moving with that fluid grace that makes every man in the office stop and stare, her heel comes down hard on my foot.
“Fuck!”The word explodes out of me as white-hot pain shoots through my foot and up my leg.I double over in my chair, groaning, my hands instinctively going to my injured foot.She didn’t just step on it—She stomped on it.Full force.With that sharp stiletto heel that could probably puncture steel.
“Oops,” she says, settling into her chair with the kind of casual grace that suggests this was anything but an accident.She doesn’t sound sorry at all.If anything, there’s satisfaction in her voice.
I’m still groaning, flexing my foot to make sure she didn’t break anything.The pain is sharp, throbbing in time with my heartbeat.“Jesus Christ, Eve.”She doesn’t respond.Just settles into her chair and pulls out her keyboard like she didn’t just commit assault with a deadly weapon.
Through the haze of pain, I have to appreciate the performance.To anyone else in the office, it would have looked like an accident.A simple misstep as she walked past my desk.No one else even glanced over.But I felt the deliberate pressure, the way she aimed for maximum impact with that stiletto heel.
“I probably deserved that,” I mutter, still nursing my throbbing foot as she opens her bag and takes out her lipstick, reapplying it.She doesn’t acknowledge the comment.I watch her through narrowed eyes as she begins typing on her keyboard.She’s completely ignoring my existence as she gets to work.
