Lexie: Sorry, I can’t make dinner. I’m at a PR conference and have an evening meeting after that. But I can be there by 8:30. I’ll bring dessert.
I heart that message, too, then get back to work.
The team is pumped and already brainstorming ideas for tomorrow. I love that. The creative juice gets everybody going. But Talon has chosen to miss out on it and has yet to get back to me.
I send an update to my contact on the Friar side, letting her know that I’ll have a preliminary project plan by the end of the week. Then, looking forward to the evening, I shut down my computer at six o’clock and head over to Gold Coast.
Since Dee is temporarily staying at Mick’s condo while the renovations on their house are being completed, it’s only a ten-minute drive from my downtown office. I arrive early.
After a call up to the penthouse, a woman at the front desk gives me a visitor pass for the private elevator. I press the button and, while waiting for the car to descend, respond to a text from Athena. When the ding alerts me and the doors open, I step forward and glance up to see where I’m going.
Dark, hostile eyes meet mine.
I open my mouth in wordless surprise, and my feet come to a stumbling halt.
DAMMIT TO HELL! When I heardshewas coming, I’d made my excuses, wrapped up the security planning meeting on the very home renovationssheredesigned, and hightailed it out of there with every intention of avoiding her. But it was just my shit luck that here I am, face-to-face with Jordyn Sinclair.
“Oh,” she gasps, then recovering, adds flatly, “it’s you.”
I stand there, my gaze drilling into her, mustering up my most intimidating stare. I’m trained to kill, for fuck’s sake, so why is a five-foot-two redhead scaring the hell out of me? The answer is as simple as it is complex. It’s because of how I feel every damn time I see her—which, counting this evening, has been eight brief encounters, except last Tuesday at the pub. It’s pathetic that I even know the exact number. But that’s because each interaction is accompanied by a shooting current of electricity firing up every traitorous neuron in my body.
“Ms. Sinclair.” I nod curtly and hit the button to keep the doors from shutting us in tight quarters. I hadn’t spent all these years rising above temptation to cave now.
Her chin angles upward, and she flashes me a smile of saccharine sweetness. “There’s no need to scurry off like a frightened mouse, Jasper. I’m no longer into you.”
“Glad to hear it,” I state, ignoring the jibe.
But she’s not done yet. She takes one hot step forward, and fuck, shit, fuck, I get up close and personal with the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the tiny beauty spot just above the right side of her top lip, the sheen of gloss painted on her heart-shaped mouth, and the whiff of something soft, delicate, and unexpected.
I clench my hands and ruthlessly banish the thoughts of feasting on that mouth, of filling my hands with her small, round breasts, of stripping her down, and chasing that alluring scent to wherever it leads me. In my fight to regain control, I let go of the button, and before I can make my escape, the doors begin to close, trapping me inside with her. But on a rant, she doesn’t seem to care.
“Here’s a newsflash for you, Jasper.” Her finger juts out at my chest. “You can turn down a woman without acting like a misogynistic jerkass.”
Jerkass, I deserve, but… “I’m not a misogynist.”
“Oh, please. What do you call a man that gets off on insulting women?”Poke.
“I didn’t—”
“Spare me your excuses.”Poke. Poke.“I know men like you.”
She doesn’t know a damn thing about me, but she’s got a head of steam, and I just let her blow it off.
“The gutless kind.”Poke.“They can’t handle strong women. It’s too much for their fragile egos.”Poke.“It makes their little penises shrivel up. Gives them performance anxiety.”
Say what?This woman poking me in my chest did not just accuse me of being a woman-hater with a small, limp dick. Pissed by her finger jabs, brazen accusation, and how damn wrong she is, I have a sudden urge to shut her up and show her what’s what.
Acting on the primal instincts I’ve held in check until now, I haul her into my arms, lifting her feet off the ground. Her phone falls to the elevator floor, and her lips part in shock. Heedless of the warning bells clanging in my head, I crush my mouth to hers. On some level, I hope she’ll protest, slap my face, pull away…something. But instead, her legs wrap around my waist, and her hands move to clasp the back of my neck. Her warm, glossy mouth opens and closes repeatedly against mine, giving me her tongue. Like a lit match to a trail of gasoline, desire blazes a path to my cock, catching fire everywhere.
I cup her round ass, and she moans.
I know I have to stop, but she feels and tastes so fucking good. All the things I’ve denied myself. The decadency of her wet, lusty mouth, the heat of her body permeating the cotton of my T-shirt, the raw, husky sounds that tell me she’s just as turned on as I am—I want it all.
But I can’t have it.
Remembering how this started, I force myself to end the kiss. She looks at me, breaths panting, cheeks flushed. With my hands firmly pressed to the side of her hips, I inch her lower body past the waistband of my jeans—the torture is sheer hell.
I gaze into her dewy green eyes when I draw her against the bulge throbbing behind my zipper. Pain tugs at my gut and sends sweat trickling down my spine. “Does that clear things up?”
