The Kiss

Gavin's POV

She took a step back from me as if scared of my closeness to her. “And I don't want to, Gavin. I don't want to kiss you. Rather, I want you to leave," she said.

She snatched the door open and jerked her eyes from me to outside. “Please leave,” she said, steel in her voice, yet for a brief moment, it faltered.

But that wasn't what gave her away. It was her fingers trembling slightly on the doorknob.

She tried to hide it well, yet her body kept betraying her. Her toffee-brown pair shifted uneasily, lingering on me, yet encouraging me for the door.

She wasn't immune to me, as she pretended to be. She was merely putting up a wall of resistance. A wall I was soon to break. I never run from a challenge.

“And what if I refuse to leave, Eva?” I said, trailing my thumb over my lips, my eyes trained on her. I grinned, relishing her distress.

“Then I'll have the security throw you out,” she snapped.

“I’d love to see them try.” I winked at her and dropped back into the room, sure she was bluffing. A strip mall like hers cannot afford its own security.

I heard her growl. Her teeth grinding hard against each other behind me.

“Can't you just please leave, Gavin? Today is a workday, and this is my workplace. I have tons of work to do. Unlike you, I don't have some billionaire daddy to throw money at me. I have to work to pay my bills,” she yelled.

I paused. I spun to her, meeting her hard, lingering stare. It had never happened before, but somehow, her words cracked through my calmness. Billionaire daddy. I scoffed mentally. That was the last thing I ever had.

I dropped onto one of the client's chairs before she could spot the dent in my calmness.

“Just take me as your new employee then,” I said, swirling to her on the swivel chair.

“You are not my employee and can never be.” She snapped. “So can you take your privileged self away from my office and let me do the job I rented this office to do? I have a wedding to plan, and you are in the way of that.”

“How about you take me as a client then? I am representing Lucy. She is my cousin anyway. It is only fair that I oversee her interest and make sure her wedding is being planned smoothly.”

Her cold, hard eyes sized me up. “She would have to tell me that herself, and before then, you need to leave.”

“You can't chase away the representative of your biggest client if you still hope to keep the job.”

Her eyes narrowed on me, harder now. “Is that a threat?” Her tone deepened, hard as her eyes.

“If you call it so,” I answered, throwing her a harmless grin. My voice deliberately low, in my attempt to toy with her.

Her already narrowed eyes dug straight into me. The fury in them only made my grin grow wider. For a moment, we were both wrapped in a silence so loud, it echoed her hate for me.

Yet, my grin never faltered. Her hate only made things more fun. It made the challenge to make her mine tougher and more interesting.

I toured my lower lips with my thumb, looking at her, patiently awaiting her reaction.

I didn't have to wait long. She snatched the door again, pulling it open wider. It creaked as the bottom scraped the tiles. “Get out of my office,” she yelled at me.

“I was merely joking, Eva.” I relaxed my grin, trying to ease the tension between us. Yet the snarl on her face refused to go. Her fingers quivering on the doorknob. “Can't you take a little joke, Eva?”

“Just go, Gavin, and never come back,” she snapped. She led her eyes away from me and planted them in the air before her.

“I didn't mean to—”

“Just go, Gavin. Else I am going to call the police and claim you are harassing me. Her voice crisp and firm.

Nothing in her face assured me I could quell her anger right now. Like every woman I had met, she wanted me, but she was different. She was stronger and feistier. She was more of a challenge than I initially thought.

I rose to my feet with a long, low sigh. “Okay, I’ll leave,” I conceded.

I strode for the door but stopped just before her. Her fingers were still trembling on the doorknob as she opened it wider for me to leave.

My hands buried in my pants pocket, I ambled closer to her. She stepped back from me, her breast rising and falling under the thin material of her shirt.

I was never wrong. She wanted me, just as every fiber in me wanted her too.

“I am leaving, Eva, but I’ll be back,” I said.

“Please, don't,” she snarled, her voice a bit wheezy.

A loud growl came from somewhere. And my eyes strayed beyond the opened door to the outer office.

The patterned sunrays cast on the tiles via the open window lead up to Luke. He stood at the center of the room, before Mia, whose gaze slid continuously between the both of us.

Luke had a bouquet of roses in his hands. His face woven in a big snarl.

I couldn't explain what I saw in his eyes for her, but it made my blood boil inside of me, my veins heated. She was mine, dammit. My new pet.

I whirled for Eva. I snatched her waist, and her eyes, previously on Luke, flicked upward to me. I didn't allow her even a moment to suspect what I was about to do. I claimed her lips with the hunger burning in my veins.