Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Just incredible, period.
I swallow hard, feeling all my hair stand on end. I’m not going to survive this man, am I?
“You came,” he says.
“Danny didn’t give me much choice.”
“Danny offered you a ride. You could have said no.”
He’s right. I could have. The fact that I didn’t says everything I’m trying not to say.
“How was the tour?” he asks, setting down his coffee. “Did Julia roll out the red carpet?”
“She showed me some things.” I stay near the door, keeping distance between us, though I know it’s futile in the end. “Some biology labs, monitoring stations, that room that looks like a dentist chair from hell.”
Something flickers across his face. “And?”
“She warned me to keep things professional. Between us. Between you and me.”
“Uh huh.” He doesn’t look amused.
“She said you have a tendency to become fixated. That whatever I think is happening between us isn’t real. That it’s just programming.” I force myself to meet his eyes. “Dopamine responses designed to create a bond.”
Vanguard is very still. “And you believed her?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
I don’t know what this is.
He carefully sets down his coffee. “She told me the same thing. Last night, after the gala. Was sitting here and waiting for me when I got home.” I raise my brows at the idea of her just waltzing in here. “Warned me to stay away from you. Said I was letting my obsessive tendencies get the better of me.”
“Are you?”
“Probably.” He pushes off the counter, slowly moving toward me with predatory grace. “Does that bother you?”
“It probably should…”
“But does it?”
He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell what soap he used, can see the pulse jumping in his throat, the way his pupils have dilated, the tension coiling in every line of his body.
No, I think. I want nothing more than this man to be obsessed with me.
“Mia.” His voice is rough. “I’ve spent six years doing what Julia tells me. Being who Global Dynamix needs me to be. Performing for cameras and politicians and a public that sees a symbol instead of a man.” He reaches up, his fingers hovering just shy of my face. “But on that rooftop, I finally felt like a man. Just a man. Just Nate Whitaker. I felt something real for the first time since I can remember. And I’m not willing to let that go just because Julia Van Veen is threatened by it.”
“This is a bad idea,” I whisper, feeling the pull toward him like I’m circling a black hole, one that will pull me down and down and never let me go.
“The worst.” His fingers brush my cheek, feather-light, and I shiver, my eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “So tell me to stop.”
I should. I should tell him to stop, walk out that door, go back to the hotel, and figure something out. I should be the professional, cold operative SOE is relying on me to be.
But I’m so tired of should.
“Oh, fuck it,” I breathe.
His mouth crashes into mine, and I surrender to the inevitable.
The kiss is bold, claiming, conquering. His hands grip my face, angling my head exactly where he wants it, and he kisses me like he’s a desperate, drowning man finally getting air. I grab fistfuls of his T-shirt, pulling him closer, and when his tongue slides against mine, I make a sound that’s somewhere between a moan and a sob.
The inevitable is becoming the unstoppable.
“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he growls against my mouth. “All fucking day. Couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus, couldn’t think about anything except getting my hands on you again.”
“Nate…” I moan against his lips, my breath stolen.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He’s walking me backward, steering through the kitchen with his body. “Any idea how hard it was to let you walk into that building this morning, knowing Julia was going to try to poison you against me?”
My back hits the kitchen counter, and he lifts me onto it in one, smooth motion, stepping between my thighs like he belongs there, my knee-length skirt spreading. The height difference puts us almost eye to eye, and he takes full advantage, holding my gaze as his hands slide up my legs, pushing my skirt higher.
“I wanted to fly over there and carry you out,” he continues, his voice dropping to something rough and hazardous. “Wanted to take you somewhere the company couldn’t reach and keep you there. Make you forget them, make you forget your job. Make you forget everything except me.”
“That’s—” I gasp as his fingers find the sensitive, bare skin of my thighs. “That’s a bit possessive.”
“I am a bit possessive.” He leans in, his mouth brushing my ear. “And I can be a lot possessive. Does that scare you?”
“No,” I whisper, though it should.