I glance at her when she trails off, finding her surveying me like I’m a bug that needs to be squashed under her pointy heels. Lifting my chin, I introduce myself, “I’m Arya, his publicist. Remember when we chatted yesterday and you said Mr. Singhania won’t be back for another week?”
Twin red splotches appear on her cheeks that are overdone with blush. She opens her mouth to probably make an excuse or deny it, but Nathan speaks up in his commanding voice.
“Go into my office, Arya,” he urges with the hand still resting on my back. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Smirking at an incensed Erika, I strut past her and into Nathan’s office. The heavy door clicks shut behind me. Thick silence descends. My stomach dips at the skyline from the two floor-to-ceiling glass walls, giving the illusion you’re floating in the air.
The interior is decorated with understated colors and plants, designed to be inviting and soothing. The wide, dark gray desk and chair in the center dominate the space as I walk toward it. On my right, there’s another locked door.
As I approach Nathan’s desk, my face reflects off the shiny surface. I’m running my fingertip along the edge when I hear him come in.
A low gust of wind teases my bare calves. A shiver raises the small hairs on my neck at the confident sound of his footsteps coming closer.
“We have fifteen minutes before I have to be in a meeting,” he announces.
His seemingly casual words cause my treacherous mind to conjure a filthy image of us utilizing the minutes naked and inappropriately. The brazen thought pops up out of nowhere, sending my pulse racing.
I blame it on him asking if I slept with someone else earlier.
“Make what you wish to discuss fast.”
His voice cracks like a whip on my back, jolting me out of my musings.
At a clicking noise, I turn in time to catch him slipping into the locked room. He leaves it ajar, so naturally I follow him in there.
“I need more than fif-” The word gets trapped in my throat as I gape at him.
The room is a walk-in closet that further leads into an adjoined luxurious restroom.
In front of the mirror over the vanity, Nathan has his suit jacket off and is working on the buttons of his ruined silk dress shirt. The golden-brown skin stretched over muscular pecs and flat nipples to the slope of his six-no, eight-packabs is revealed as he parts and untucks the material from his pants.
Oh fuck! The way the slabs of muscles ripple and shift in his abdomen.
I swallow the ball of lust that threatens to choke me.
Lord, what a crime to have missed seeing him gloriously half-naked the last time. I had been so high on deranged lust that the thought of begging him to remove his shirt never crossed my mind.
Nonetheless, I had felt the hard muscles he was packing underneath his clothes, but my imagination didn’t even come close to the real thing a few feet from me.
He lifts his head, sensing the heat of my stare.
I freeze like a lost lamb, unable to avert my eyes. Though I dare not move it from his face, which isn’t a safer option either.Especially when his features sharpen into something predatory. Rooting me to the spot with his dark stare, he lets his shirt hang open and turns around.
Crossing the distance between us in two long steps, he grabs the doorframe on either side of me. In my peripheral vision, his forearms flex enticingly. I inhale sharply when he dips his head an inch from mine. In a split second, I become intoxicated by his scent and overwhelmed by his dominant stance.
“Ari?”
“Y-yes, Nathan?” I answer, my voice wobbly.
“Step out.”
The sensual bubble bursts. I lurch away, stumbling back a step. My skin is burning up as though I’m running a fever. Snapping my back straight, I cross my arms defensively. “Couldn’t you wait to change until I left?”
“Couldn’t you wait at my desk like a good girl?”
“I’m not your… Don’t call me that.”
He mimics my pose, folding his arms and leaning against the doorway. “Call you what?”
