Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
He stands.
The shift in height changes everything.
The room.
The air.
The distance between us.
I don’t move.
I don’t step back.
He comes around the desk and stops in front of me. He’s close but he doesn’t touch me.
I feel it anyway.
“You’re pushing,” he says. He drops his gaze to my mouth.
And my body reacts before my brain can shut it down.
He sees it.
“That,” he says quietly, “is exactly what I’m talking about.”
I straighten slightly. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pretend this is about anything other than what happened yesterday.”
His jaw goes tense. “Yesterday changed nothing.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
He steps closer. Just one step, but it’s enough.
My pulse buzzes but I hold my ground.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says.
“Yet I’m here.”
“Yet you’re here.” He lifts a hand. Stops just short of touching me.
My body leans into it before I can stop it.
His lips are dangerously close to mine. My eyes close of their own accord, and…
His breath is hot against my ear. “You’re not going to stop.”
I swallow, shivering at his closeness. “No.”
“Even now.”
“Especially now.”
“If you keep doing this,” he says, voice low and rough, “it doesn’t stay contained.”
“Then don’t contain it.”
“Delaney—”
“No,” I cut in. “You don’t get to warn me and then act like you’re the only one with a choice here.”
“You don’t understand what you’re stepping into.”
“You keep saying that, and obviously it hasn’t stopped me.” I lean in. “So tell me, then. Tell me exactly what I’m stepping into.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He sears his gaze into mine. “Because you don’t walk away from it.”
“That’s not your decision.”
“No,” he says again. “But it becomes my problem.”
I step closer. Close enough now that there’s no space left between us that isn’t charged. He’s not saying anything he hasn’t said before.
“There’s that word again,” I say softly. “Everything seems to be your problem. My questions. My apartment. Me.”
His eyes darken. “You walked in here.”
“Yes.”
“You came to me.”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t pretend you don’t know what that means.”
I hold his gaze. “I know exactly what it means.”
“Do you?” He bites down hard on my earlobe.
I gasp, but I don’t pull away.
One more step and this goes somewhere it shouldn’t.
We both know it.
That’s what makes it worse.
He releases me and steps back abruptly.
“I ought to put you over my knee and spank that gorgeous ass of yours,” he says.
I swallow, tamping down the desire that overwhelms me. I’m not into that. No spanking. No bondage. No submission.
But I’m ready to lay myself out for Samson Vexley and let him do whatever he fucking wants.
“Leave,” he says.
I don’t move. “Or what?”
“Or I don’t stop this time.”
My pulse spikes. Not fear. Something hotter. More dangerous.
“For someone who wants me gone,” I say, “you’re doing a terrible job of making that happen.”
He glares at me.
I turn, walk to the door, but then look over my shoulder. “If he wasn’t supposed to be there,” I say quietly, “then someone else was.”
I open the door and step out.
He knows now. He knows I’m getting closer.
So I don’t wait to see if he follows.
Because I already know he will. Maybe not this moment, but eventually.
25
SAMSON
The room seems to hold her essence when she leaves. Her scent. Her voice. The heat she left in the air. I still see the subtle bruising on her neck from my hands, my teeth. And around all of it, her pendant. Justice.
Fuck…
I stay where I am for a moment, staring at the door like I expect it to open again.
It doesn’t.
Good.
I don’t want her back in here.
Which is a big-ass fucking lie.
My hand is still half-curled at my side. I remember the line of her wrist, the pull of her body when I dragged her closer, the way she leaned in instead of away.
I force my fingers open. Close them again.
Twice now.
Twice I’ve let her close the distance.
Twice I’ve chosen not to stop it.
That’s not loss of control.
That’s worse.
That’s desire. No, it’s pure lusty want.
And want is a dangerous thing for a man raised the way I was.
I move behind the desk and brace both hands on the edge. The office is too quiet. From here, I can’t hear the soft jazz, the hum of conversation from the club.
I’m a beast in a fine cage.
The memory hits before I can stop it.
I’m ten.
The kitchen at Vexley House gleams with marble floors and white counters.
I’m holding one of my mother’s crystal tumblers. It’s heavy, and it slips out of my hand, hits the tile, and shatters.
The sound cuts through the room.
I freeze.
Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Don’t look at the pieces.
I expect the maid to come. Or my nanny. Maybe even my mother, but when I hear footsteps, I know it’s not any of them.
I know the sound. I know what follows it.
I brace before I even turn.
But he doesn’t reach me first.
She does.
My mother steps between my father and me and settles one hand lightly on my shoulder. Her touch is not force. It’s not warning. It’s simply there. Calm where everything else in the room is about to become something else.