“I don’t need you to stand in front of me.” She turned away from him, furious herself now as she paced to the sliding glass doors that led to the deck. “Dammit, Sax, why do you think I’ve stayed away from you? Why do you think I’ve lived like a nun in that damned fortress Father built, and forgot I was woman all these years? He’s crazy. He could try to kill someone.”
“Yes, he could,” he snapped, but not in anger, more in frustration. “And that someone could be you. Because he knows you’re not strong enough to fight back. Until the sheriff apprehends him and the courts put him away for good, you need to stay safe. I can keep you safe.”
He said the last sentence as he moved behind her, pulling her against his much taller body, his strong, warm body, as she fought the weakness that filled hers. He made her weak, made her want to lean on him, trust him. How insane was that? She knew better than to trust anyone.
“If you walk away now, Marey, it’s forever.” He lowered his head, pressing a kiss to her hair as his eyes met hers in the glass. “Now, are you going to the office with me, or do you want me to take you to that hotel?”
She stared back at him, their gazes locked in the glass of the sliding doors, and frowned fiercely.
“You are going to piss me off,” she finally snapped.
Surprise flared in his eyes. Surprise and arousal.
“Baby, that’s a given,” he chuckled. “Now, make up your mind and let’s get out of here. I have work waiting.”
8
Sax watched from beneath his lashes as Marey lounged on the couch on the other side of the room, calmly flipping through a magazine as he worked on the reports he needed to finish up for the day.
She was driving him crazy. She was as calm and placid as a mountain lake right now, waiting on him, as though it was nothing unusual to have little or nothing to fill her day. He knew she was an editor for a small publishing company, one that published extremely erotic content. She hadn’t been the one to reveal the information though, it had been Ella who had dropped that little bomb months before.
Was that how she had learned to sit so silently, immersing herself in whatever she was reading? Or had she learned patience and silence while caring for her ill parents so many years ago?
There was so much about her that he needed to know. So many ways he wanted to learn everything possible about this intriguing woman.
“Bored?” he asked curiously.
She glanced up, her gaze a bit distant as it met his.
“No.” She shook her head. “I have company.”
She lifted the edge of the magazine before returning her attention to the article she was reading. It wasn’t fluff. The news magazine was one of his favorites actually.
He shifted in his chair, attempting to ease the uncomfortable weight of his throbbing erection.
“Do you need to run by your house before we head back to mine?” he asked her then. “Pick anything up?”
She glanced up again. “No. I should have enough for a few days.”
Her attention went back to the magazine. It made him crazy. Made him horny. She was as calm and relaxed as a summer’s day, and just as damned hot. He knew how hot she could get, how wet and sweet.
“How long has it been since you’ve had a lover?” he asked her then, shifting to relieve the discomfort of his hard-on.
He watched her tense before she looked back at him, narrow-eyed and suspicious, but hot.
She glanced at her watch mockingly.
“Eight hours maybe?” She went back to the magazine.
Sax observed her for long moments. She looked cool as hell, but he could see the altered breathing, the heavy rise and fall of her breasts. She was aroused. Just that fast. Her nipples were pressing tight against her shirt, her face flushed just enough to testify to her heat.
“Before that,” he bit out between clenched teeth, waiting, his erection throbbing in agony.
She flipped the magazine closed and turned to him defensively, her gray eyes sparkling in defiance.
“Exactly what do you want to know, Sax?” she asked him. “And why all the questions?”
God he loved it when her eyes went hot like that. Anger and passion and complete female stubbornness mixed with arousal. It was invigorating, energizing. It was making him so fucking horny he couldn’t breathe.
“Does everything have to be a test?” he growled back, coming out of his chair and stalking across the room. “Maybe there are just things I want to know about you.”
“You should pretty much know everything by now,” she shot back, staring up at him as he towered over her. She didn’t jump to her feet to even out the distance or to assert her own control. She kept her seat, though she leaned back against the couch to keep the arch of her neck at a more comfortable angle. “It’s not as though we’ve just met.”
“And the more I think about it, the less I know,” he told her, frustration rising within him.
“And how many lovers I may or may not have had is important?” She arched her brow mockingly. “Fine, Sax, until you, there’s been no one since my divorce. Before my marriage there were two. I’m sexually inexperienced but not stupid. Anything else?”
“What the hell do you do all day besides flip through magazines and edit romances?” His cock was steel-hard and driving him crazy with the need to fuck.
She smiled slowly, her eyelids drifting lower, giving her a mysterious, sensual look.
“Play with my favorite toys and fantasize about you,” she drawled. “What do you do when you’re home alone?”
The little liar. He could see the devilry in her gaze, the deliberate teasing in the way her tongue stroked slowly over her full, lower lip.
“Jack off and imagine your ass burning red,” he snarled, reaching down and pulling her to her feet. “I won’t let you hide from me forever, Marey.”
“But I’m not hiding anymore, Sax,” she reminded him, her hands moving up his chest, over his shoulders. “I’m right here where you can see me.”
God, she was a temptation. A sweet, beautiful little keg of dynamite standing placidly in his arms. For now.
She shifted against him then, her lower stomach pressing against the hard ridge of his cock as a light flush of arousal stained her cheeks.
“Are you finished working?”
His fingers burrowed in the soft weight of her hair as he held her still, watching the heat flame in her eyes.
“I’m finished,” he growled as he pulled at the silk he held, watching her eyelids drift lower as sensual weakness consumed her.
“We could go back to the house.” Her hands moved from his shoulders to his waist, gripping the flesh there as his head lowered to her cheek.
“I won’t make it to the house,” he told her roughly. “I want you here. Now.”
A low, aroused laugh came from her throat as she tilted her head back, allowing his lips to caress her neck.
“Trojans and their office sex. I’ve heard about that.”
“You hear too damned much. Those women have loose lips.” He nipped at her neck, imagining her stretched out on the leather sofa, naked and filled with his dick.
She gasped as his hands moved to her breasts, cupping the delicate weight, his thumb and forefinger testing the hardness of her nipple through the soft silk blouse she wore. He was dying to get it in his mouth, to feel the sensitive nub growing harder as he sucked at it.
“You know too much about things you shouldn’t.” He nipped at her neck, feeling her shudder from the erotic little pain he delivered.
“Hmm, have to get my jollies somewhere,” she moaned as he licked at the soft flesh he had nipped.
Oh, he could give her jollies, he thought with a grimace of building lust, more jollies than she could have imagined.
As his lips moved to hers, taking her in a kiss that had them both moaning at the heated pleasure of it, his hands went to the small buttons of her shirt. He wanted her naked, wanted her wet, wild and screaming out her pleasure.