Against her neck, he muttered something she couldn’t understand as he came. His body shuddered and went momentarily limp before he quickly shot up and reached to untie her hands.
Relief prickled the raw skin around her wrists and the soreness in her shoulders. The lines were faint, but she rubbed them anyway and peered up at the man watching her.
“That was different.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Thought you’d like it.”
She shrugged, her mouth twisting up at the corners. “I did once I got over being scared out of my mind. Thanks for that, by the way.”
His hand lifted to the side of her face in a loving caress that made her insides flutter. “I would never let that happen. I would kill anyone who ever touched you like that.”
Not sure what possessed her to do it, maybe it was just the tangle of fierce anger and determination glowing across his face, but she scooted over to him and climbed into his lap. Her arms went around his shoulders and she nuzzled into his neck where the skin smelled of spices and something wild she could never put her fingers on.
He held her back. He closed her up in his arms and cradled her to his chest.
It was a rare thing, this moment of absolute intimacy. He hadn’t really held her since the afternoon he told her he’d saved her from Arlo. Being held during sex or a few minutes after wasn’t the same thing. Normally, she never initiated it either for the same reason she couldn’t look at a calendar without her stomach hurting. It was mind fucking and dangerous. But neither of them pulled away.
“I should go,” she murmured at last. “I have an hour left, not that it matters.” Carefully, she got to her feet. “I’m pretty sure I’m fired.”
“You’re not fired.” He rose and moved to a chair pushed up next to the window in the corner of a beautiful bedroom. He picked up a pretty black and pink box and returned to her. “And you’re not going back tonight. I have other plans.”
Frowning, she took the box and set it on the bed. Killian moved aside to let her push back the pink tissue paper.
The fabric shimmered as she drew it from its resting place. It spilled through her fingers in a ripple of white satin woven through with fine, silver threads that matched the thick silver straps that ran lengthwise from under the left arm down the right hip. It circled around the back in three ropes that hooped over the right shoulder. At a first glance it almost reminded her of the light dresses Greek women used to wear, but the front was plated beneath the strips and there was a long cut up the right leg that went dangerously close to her hipbone.
Dress still in hand, she turned to Killian. “This is a bit … fancy for a hotel clerk.”
Beautifully naked, Killian moved with fluid confidence to the settee opposite the chair and hooked a finger through the hanger of a garment bag. He lifted it to study closely before turning to her.
“I told you, you’re not going back tonight,” he told her simply.
“Killian…” Her exasperated sigh was met with a carefully neutral expression from him. “By now, Celina is probably having a fit in Harold’s office about me running up here to screw my boyfriend, which by the way, I did not appreciate!”
An eyebrow rose. “Getting screwed by your boyfriend?”
“You know what I mean!” she shot back. “You calling down there and threatening to fuck me in the middle of the foyer just because you were horny and couldn’t wait two hours.”
“Oh sweetheart.” He moved towards her and stopped once he had her face properly tipped up to his. “That wasn’t a threat. That was a very clear promise.”
“Killian!” She set the dress down before she dropped the thing that probably cost more than her entire house. “This is my job! You can’t just—”
“I can when your shift was over and you were free to get fucked.”
Juliette frowned. “What are you talking about? I know my schedule. I had two hours.”
“I promise you didn’t.”
Leaving him watching, she stalked to the phone on the nightstand and called down to the front. She braced herself for Celina’s sultry purr to answer.
“It’s me, Celina,” Juliette said, doing her best not to grit her teeth. “Can you check my schedule for tonight?”
“I made an official report!” the woman retorted venomously. “So it doesn’t really matter—”
“Can you please just check?” Juliette snapped.
She heard Celina’s huff. Then the click of keys. Then there was a too long silence that made her nervous.
“This can’t be right…” Celina muttered at long last. “I checked yesterday and it said you were working until three.”
“So, I’m not working until three?” Juliette asked cautiously.
“It says you were off at one.”
Juliette turned to look at Killian who was watching her with an almost catlike grin.
“This doesn’t make sense!” Celina said. “I saw it—”
“Thank you, Celina.” Juliette hung up and faced the man behind her fully. “What did you do?”
Killian blinked. “Why do you always assume I did something?”
“Because Celina and I both know I was supposed to work until three. Somehow, mysteriously, that time was changed so I could get off early, which is convenient since you arrived and summoned me upstairs.”
“I didn’t summon,” he mumbled, looking genuinely offended. “I requested your presence.”
“Killian, you can’t do stuff like that!” She hated the frustrated whine in her tone, hated that she wanted to stomp her feet and scream at him. “You are going to get me fired and I am going to be so pissed that I might set all your clothes on fire.”
He visibly recoiled. “That’s a little excessive, isn’t it?”
“No!” she barked. “It’s not. It’s self-preservation and since you like to meddle in my affairs … you know what,” she broke off, realizing something. “In the contract you stated perfectly well that I was not allowed to interfere with your business. So why do you get to come meddle in mine?”
The garment bag was tossed down on the bed next to her dress and he folded his arms, his posture as angry as hers.
“I have not meddled in your business,” he said with a deadly calm that almost made her back down.
“Then explain the lost two hours,” she shot back.
“Poor scheduling. A typo.”
The anger washed out of her, not because there was a possibility that he could be right, which he could have been, mistakes happened. But because she was inexplicably exhausted. No part of her wanted to be upright anymore. Maybe it was adrenaline from being scared wearing off or the rush that always came with having mind blowing sex finally waning, but all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep.
Instead, she walked over to where he’d tossed his white dress shirt neatly over his folded trousers and pulled it on. Then she gathered up her ruined clothes and tossed them into the trash. Half under the bed, a pair of heavy duty night vision goggles lay forgotten. That must have been the thud she heard and how he was able to see so clearly in the dark. She left them there.
“Juliette…”
She shook her head. “I’m fine,” she lied.
“You’re angry,” he argued.
She stopped to meet his gaze. “I’m not. I’m not sure what I am.”
He studied her with those calculating eyes, no doubt trying to assess just how to go about handling the situation.
“What part of this upset you the most?” he asked at last. “Tell me and I’ll fix it.”
Because that was what he did. He fixed things. He was forever fixing problems for her and while it was so good to finally not have to do them herself for once, she knew she needed to put a stop to it before she became so dependent on him that when their time was up, she didn’t recognize herself.