I'd start with her mouth. Kiss her the way I almost did, my hand on her jaw, tilting her head back so I could take my time. She'd resist for about three seconds because she resists everything, and then she'd grab the front of my shirt the way she grabs everything she decides she wants, and the sound she'd make when my tongue found hers would be worth every wall she ever built.
My fist tightens. Pace picks up.
I'd peel that fitted base layer off her. Slow. Watch her skin appear inch by inch, pale and warm, those curves that the corporate headshot hid and the hiking clothes only hinted at. I'd put my mouth on her collarbone. Her breasts. I'd find out if her nipples are pink or dusky rose, whether she likes teeth or just tongue, whether she'd arch into me or try to stay controlled while I took her apart.
She'd try to stay controlled. She'd fail.
The water's warming now, running down my back, steam curling around me, and my hand moves faster. I brace my forearm against the tile and let the images come.
Lex on my bed. Lex spread out underneath me, that platinum hair against my pillow, her thighs open, her back arched. I'd go down on her. Bury my face between those long legs and lick her until every ounce of control she clings to dissolves. She'd be vocal. I don't know why I'm sure of that, but I am. A woman who holds that much back in public would let go in bed. She'd grip my hair and say my name the way she said it on the mountain, broken and breathless, and I'd feel her come against my mouth and it would ruin me for anyone else.
My hips thrust forward into my fist. The pressure builds at the base of my spine, hot and tight and relentless.
I'd push inside her. Slow. Watch her face. Those blue eyes locked on mine while I fill her, because a woman like Lex doesn't close her eyes. She watches. She catalogs. She'd feel every inch and I'd see every reaction on her face, and when I bottomed out she'd make that sound again, the one from the mountain, the one that traveled through my nervous system like a lit fuse.
I'd fuck her deep and steady and watch the CEO disappear. Watch the walls come down. Watch her stop calculating and start feeling, and when she came around my cock she'd say my name like it was the only word she had left.
Hayes.
The orgasm hits hard. My hand slams against the tile and I come with a grunt that's closer to a growl, pulsing into my fist, my forehead pressed against the wet wall, her name on my tongue like a prayer I'm not qualified to say.
The water runs over me. My breathing comes back in ragged pulls. The steam thins. My hand unclenches from the tile and the fantasy drains away with the water, leaving me standing in a lukewarm shower in a mountain cabin with come washing off my hand and the absolute certainty that I just made things worse.
Because the edge is gone for about thirty seconds. Then the ache settles right back in, deeper than before, because the fantasy only confirmed what my body already knew.
I don't just want to fuck Alexandra Morrison.
I want to wake up next to her. I want to hand her coffee and watch her drink it. I want to be the man she stops performing for.
I press my forehead against the tile one more time.
"Still in trouble," I mutter to the empty shower. "Still in so much goddamn trouble."
Challenge accepted doesn't cover it anymore.
This is something else entirely.
4
LEX
I've been avoiding him for two days.
Not obviously. I'm a CEO. I know how to create distance without anyone noticing the architecture. I take my breakfast in the cabin instead of the lodge. I schedule my conference calls during the times Hayes would normally walk me through the compound. I keep my conversations with him brief, professional, and focused entirely on security updates.
He lets me.
That's the part that's making me insane. Hayes Donovan, who pushed his way past every boundary I set in the first four days, who memorized my coffee order and dragged me up a mountain and put his hand on my face like he had every right to touch me, is suddenly giving me exactly the space I asked for.
He's still there. Forty yards away. Walking beside me when I leave the cabin, scanning the tree line with those sharp hazel eyes, checking in at mealtimes with a brief update on the investigation. But the teasing is gone. The warmth in his voicehas cooled to something purely professional. He calls me Ms. Morrison again.
I should be relieved.
The word "should" has never irritated me more.
It's day six. Evening. I'm sitting at my kitchen table with a glass of wine I found in the cabin's small pantry, reviewing the financials Sully pulled from Thomas Whitfield's personal accounts. The numbers tell a story. Three large deposits over four months, each one timed within forty-eight hours of a data leak. The sourcing is layered through shell companies, but Sully's peeling them back methodically.
Thomas Whitfield. My VP of Research. A man I hired personally, mentored through two promotions, trusted with formulas worth more than the GDP of small nations. He sat across from me at my kitchen table in San Francisco six months ago and told me the company's research integrity was his highest priority.
