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I gave him a quick nod, but didn’t feed into whatever moment he was creating because it could have been a trap. However, this praise did something to me that I refused to admit out loud. Praise had always been a thing for me, but hearing it come from his lips almost sent me into another dimension. I reminded myself that I needed to keep the urge contained because I was in a professional setting, but whether I would listen to the voice of reason was another matter entirely.

How I could go from hating a man to being completely turned on by him at a moment’s notice should be studied. I turned away first because someone had to. If I kept looking at him across that table, I was going to do something very stupid in front of all of these people who had already watched me professionally undress them.

“We’ll need to send Harold a follow-up by close of business today. Make sure that I’m cc’d on the email,” I announced to the room. I didn’t know who would be put in charge of completing that task, but I assumed with Cain in the room still it would get done.

One of the men at the table nodded quickly and said, “I’ll handle it.”

“Good,” I said. “Send me the draft before it goes out.”

His gaze flicked over to Cain and that was the wrong thing to do. I stared at him for a beat to let him know the mistake he’d just made before I spoke up. “Did I give you the impression that Mr. Ashcroft would know whether the tone was correct for Harold Lyle?”

The room went completely still and the executive’s face turned bright red. “No, Ms. Prescott.”

“Excellent. Then send it to me.”

“Yes, Ms. Prescott.”

I stood before anyone else could decide to test whether I was still the person in charge at this given moment. Everyone else followed my lead and Cain was the last to rise.

“We need to head out now,” he said as he buttoned his suit jacket.

I turned my head toward him slowly. “We?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to leave.”

“You finished what you came here to do.”

“That’s one interpretation.” I waited a second before I continued. “But there is still more work to do.”

“We can discuss it in the car on the way back to the penthouse.”

It seemed as if Cain had no issue spreading our business in a slightly controlled way and the last thing I needed was the rest of these people in the room spreading information they shouldn’t know about. I just nodded and waited for him to lead me out of the room and the building and back into the limo that was waiting curbside when we walked out the front doors.

The car door shut behind us with a soft click and when the limo pulled away from the curb, I turned my head to look at Cain. I found him already staring back at me. Without a second thought or care in the world, I grabbed his face and brought his lips down to mine.

18

SUTTON

There was nothing slow and sensual about this kiss at all. Days of pent-up frustration poured out of me without warning. I kissed him like I was trying to prove something, but to whom, I wasn’t completely sure. Maybe it was to him, to myself, to the universe that had put me in this car with this man who was doing everything he could to ruin my life and still somehow made my body run hot.

Cain didn’t seem surprised in the slightest by my actions. In fact, I’d wondered if he’d been waiting for this moment. We were so in sync with one another that my lips were already parting as if he’d told me to do so. His hand found the back of my neck and I shivered slightly as I felt his fingers slide into the hair at my nape.

This was me finding my leverage against him. If he wanted me this badly, I could use it to my advantage. Maybe it would be the icing on the cake that would allow me more freedom to get what I wanted including him letting me go. At least that was the explanation I gave myself because it sounded better than the truth. In actuality, the second his mouth moved against mine, my strategy became harder to remember because I was fully consumed with thoughts that revolved around us getting naked as soon as physically possible.

I pushed one knee onto the leather seat beside him and climbed into his lap with all the grace a moving vehicle allowed, which was not much, but Cain caught me like he’d already calculated the move I was going to make. His hands settled at my waist, holding me in place.

“You’re awfully restrained for a man who keeps getting accused of having none,” I said against his mouth.

His eyes were darker than normal and focused on the fact that I was currently straddling him like my self-respect had taken a short walk into traffic. “You initiated,” he said. “I’m letting you.”

Letting.

That word should have cooled me down like a torrential downpour, yet I stayed firmly in place like I was glued to his lap. With a raggedy breath, I managed to say, “You make everything sound like a transaction.”

“Most things are.”