"You're going to get sick, Sarah."Sabrina, I want to respond. Please call me Sabrina.But I can't. If he's here, I might get a second chance at the temp position. I might still have a shot at making my father proud. Being useful to him. Of course, that means betraying this man, but I don't have to think about that now. Not yet. It's in the future. Not in the rainy, dreamlike landscape where only Bryant and I exist."I'll be fine," I say, biting my lip when he delves the pocket square beneath my neckline and it rasps over my nipple, stiffening it into a peak. Oh. Wow. "You really didn't learn your lesson yesterday, d-did you?" I chatter.He drags that very memorable tongue across the seam of his mouth. "What lesson was that?"Lord. His voice is even more compelling than I remember. Dark, saturated velvet. "I left because you assumed I would give you permission with my body." We both look down at the way he works the linen between the valley of my breasts. Down, down, deeper, until I'm
Goddammit.I didn't imagine her effect on me yesterday. As soon as she turned the corner, beautiful beyond words in her soaked dress and damp hair, my resolve grew fuzzy. Every thought in my head but her became translucent, insignificant. How does she reach into my chest and make my heart beat differently? Faster with arousal, excitement, slower with calm. Relief. Like I've...Found what I'm looking for.But a relationship between us is not to be. It's not happening.I can't let my bond with her become more important than the one I lost. The one that was stolen from me and my family. When I look into Sabrina's eyes, I need to see the girl for what she is. Someone who agreed to spy on me. Infiltrate the company I built from the ground up in my agony over the loss of my parents. The company I made successful. She wants to help her bastard father take that away from me.It's not going to happen.I won't allow it.No matter how much I want to get inside this apartment, sink my cock betwee
She knows what her father did.Doesn't she? Yes. Of course she does."My parents went to prison when I was young. They were there for fifteen years." I watch her for signs of recognition—and I get it. It's easy to tell that Sabrina knows about the incarceration of my mother and father. How they were sent to prison for purchasing property with laundered money. Turned in by their competitor who made it his business to expose them. Break them. Turn our world inside out. "When they were released, they just...they were so ashamed. They'd lost their will to live. My father was a shell of his former self and when my mother passed from heart disease, he just...followed. Didn't wake up. Prison withered them into nothing. Dust."Her golden eyes are wide, unblinking. She starts to say something and stops short, her face losing a healthy degree of color. "I'm so sorry. I d-didn't...I didn't know that.""Didn't you?" I ask, with slightly too much accusation in my tone.She shakes her head rapidly.
Sabrina pushes up onto her hands, attempting to leave. Shaken. Wheezing. "Stop—"But I surge up over her, bending her knees all the way back to her shoulders, pinning her to the easy chair with my mouth, my bared teeth against her parted lips. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want it."Our hot, panting breaths mingle between us.When she blinks rapidly, her hand curling in the front of my dress shirt, I'm caught off guard by a wave of regret. Of...affection. For her. It leads me to speak without thinking. "I'm a bastard. I don't know how to be any other way. I don't have an ounce of sweetness inside of me. I'm sorry if that's what you need. I'll make up for it in other ways." A swallow gets stuck in my throat. "Let me make up for it in other ways."Her grip on my shirt loosens in degrees, as does some of the fight in her body.When she nods, that permission is...Jesus, it's better than conquering. Or winning a fight. It's the most intoxicating victory I've ever experienced. "
No. She told me she had no experience with men. I didn't believe her. How could I believe her? There is nothing so pure in my world. Purity doesn't exist. Not like this. Not like her. Everything is morally gray and corrupted, including me. And I've just defiled her. I'm...I'm recording this.An invisible clamp closes around my windpipe, denial rattling my skull. I forgot about my phone across the room. I lost myself in her and forgot, but I remember with a vengeance now. I remember I'm an immoral bastard and I've just crossed the line into irredeemable."Bryant," she whimpers shakily.And for the moment, I forget about everything but her. Everything but making this right and good for her. "I'm here," I grit out against her lips, because there are no words to describe how tight she is. My eyes are watering, she's squeezing me so brutally, her delicate pussy muscles stroking me every time she breathes or blinks or shifts on the chair. "I'm here," I say again, kissing her mouth gently,
Bryant picks me up the next morning in an SUV with tinted windows.I step out of my studio and he's there. Waiting.It's not raining like it was yesterday when he left. The world is bathed in sunshine and there's a new texture to the air. It's easier to breathe, hold life in my lungs. I didn't realize I was so lonely before. I had my dollhouses and my inner monologue and I didn't need a single other thing, but when Bryant's body joined with mine yesterday, I was home.And I have no idea what to do about that.About him.As soon as I spot him outside my door, I'm elevated to a new state of awareness. Of my body. My breasts and belly and mouth. I'm rocked by the pattering in my chest that only grows louder when he slides off his sunglasses and looks at me. Simply looks. No smile. Just those blue eyes boring into mine, a greeting of souls. And everything inside of me rejoices at his presence. I'm not merely walking in his direction, I'm floating. I'm on an invisible cloud and my body doe
I'm a ticking time bomb.I'm unwell.A man on the edge of madness, waiting to see if the girl I'm obsessed with will betray me. By the end of today, I will know. I'll know the direction my life is going to take. I'm either going to be the happiest man alive or I'll want to jump from the very top of this building.She is on the other side of my office, smelling of cedar and roses and my seed, diligently answering the phone and taking messages, making notations in my schedule. She senses me looking at her and we trade a long stare. That single glance from her is like a breath of mountain air, a shot of adrenaline, a soft, warm blanket. It makes my heart beat truer. My soul mate. Both of us know it's true. Somehow we've found each other among the wilds of the city, despite the tragic way our pasts interconnect. She's not faking it. There's no way.We're in love.I would walk across an ocean of broken glass for her.I'd give my life.She would crawl inside of me if she could and never lea
When the office door closes behind Bryant, it takes me a few minutes to fill my lungs again. They're totally depleted. That's what he does, that's what we seem to do together. Suck the oxygen straight out of the room. We're using every ounce of it to exist around each other under the weight of feeling. Of love."What am I going to do?" I whisper, swiping at my damp eyes.Turning in my chair, I look at his computer where it sits silently on his desk. No password engaged. Everything is right there. All I need to do is find some evidence that Bryant has been bleeding corporations dry financially so they will have no choice but to sell him their property in exchange for being bailed out of debt. Once I have that evidence, I'll finally be brought into the family fold. No longer on the outside.I stand up and approach his desk, sitting down carefully in the leather executive chair, still warm from his body. After several deep breaths, I begin going through his files. Long minutes pass while