“Everything that matters leaves a mark.”
“It’s not a good idea.”
I’m close enough now to touch her, to cup her face in my hands the way I’ve dreamed.Her eyes flutter closed, and I lean down, drawn by gravity and desire and the impossible fact that she’s here, real, within reach?—
Her phone buzzes against the desk where she set it down.
The sound breaks the spell.She steps back quickly, professional demeanor snapping back into place like armor.
“We should start that tour,” she says, her voice that of the consummate professional.
I nod, though it’s the last thing I want.No, I want to finish what we started.I want her against my desk—close enough to prove to my body this isn’t a hallucination.I want to discover if her body remembers what mine can’t forget.Instead, I gesture toward the door.
“After you.”
As she moves past me, I catch her hand briefly, just long enough to feel the slight tremor in her fingers.
“Brie,” I say quietly.“Whatever this is between us…it’s still quite present.”
She looks back at me, and for just a moment, allows her shield to drop.
“I know,” she says.“But that doesn’t mean we should give in to it.We have a job to do.”
ChapterEight
Brie
“It?”His eyes light with mischief.
I should’ve known he’d push.We’re still in his office, the blueprints spread before us, his question posed like a dare.
“Sex,” I answer, chin-raised.
He’s toying with me.Taunting.
The word lands heavy between us, humid as breath against glass.The air changes—thicker, slower—as though the room itself waits for my answer.
“Lust.”He steps closer, his height and presence cornering me.“When you sayit, that’s what you’re choosing to assign a meaningless pronoun.”His fingers lightly tousle my hair and a shiver rolls down my spine.“Am I right?”
Need unfurls down my spine, pooling low, the ache both pleasure and warning.The backs of his fingers skim slowly, oh so slowly, up my arm.
“If it’s only lust, what’s the harm?”
His question is valid.I’ve made a point of refusing to be precious about sex.It’s a physical act and in the right circumstances serves as currency, desire the gold standard.Sex being one of the few commodities that’s less valuable after the trade.Thinking of it that way hardens my emotions, akin to armor.
His lips brush my temple and my knees go weak.
“If it’s only sex, we have options.The desk.This console.The billiard table.”My eyes close, lost in his seductive, honeyed, throaty voice and the warmth from his roaming hand along my hip over the curve of my bottom.“A wide selection of rooms with toys.”
My eyes snap open.The open safe, the vault drenched in darkness, the stainless metal cold and impenetrable.
“My vote is for?—”
“We have work to do.”If I let him keep going, that’s all I’ll think about for the rest of the day.
I step back, breath more shallow and rapid than it should be.The blueprints crinkle when I grab them, the paper thin and malleable.
“But it’s not just sex with us, is it?”
