“Fine. You. Wouldn’t. Know. What. To—”
His hands slide through my hair, gripping it tight, and then his mouth is on mine.
His lovely, full mouth. I shiver at the perfection of it. Kissing him is like sinking into a warm bath when you’re freezing cold. His lips open, his tongue teases, and everything about him is suddenly soft and warm and hungry. His hands, holding my face, are firm and rough, possessive and gentle all at once. The voice in my head screaming, “but we hate Ben!” is overridden by every ounce of blood in my body, which is straining toward him.
He pulls away only long enough to breathe, and then he’s back, even harder now, more determined. His hands slide down my back and grab my ass firmly, as if it’s the award he’s wanted to snatch for years. The hard bulge of him, pressing into my abdomen, makes that devil crow with delight.
I already know how he’d be in bed—the way he’d be so fucking focused until the end, pinning me with his gaze until he started to fall apart. There’s nothing I want more right now than to watch Ben Tate wind tighter and tighter until he explodes.
My fingers dig into his hair, desperate for that moment; it can’t come soon enough.
He pulls away though. His eyes are hazy, intense—but there’s a hint of a smirk on his mouth, which suggests maybe this wasn’t about me at all. Maybe he just wanted to fucking win.
I push him away, missing the heat of him even as I do it. His smile doesn’t fade at all, smug fucking asshole that he is. If he thinks he’s won something, he’s gravely mistaken.
“Was kissing me without my consent supposed to prove something?” I ask, sounding more breathless than indignant.
He raises a brow, and his generous mouth quirks up at one corner. “Are you really going to pretend you didn’t kiss me back?”
I kissed him back. I ran my hands into his hair, and I’m pretty sure I gasped. Denying it, at this point, is illogical.
“You took me by surprise.”
“I should have fucked you then, too,” he says, eyes flashing, “just to see how else surprise makes you yield.”
My jaw falls open. A thousand responses come to mind, but instead of voicing them, I brush past him, snatching up my keys and phone as I rush to the elevator.
Because if I’m in here for even a second more, I don’t know what that devil on my shoulder will make me do next.
17
“I think I’m sick,” I tell Keeley.
“What are your symptoms?” she asks. I sometimes forget Keeley’s a doctor. Probably because she mostly leads her life like a teenage heiress who’s just arrived in LA with unlimited funds and a fake ID.
“I’m feverish.”
I hear the sound of a vending machine in the background. Keeley has the worst eating habits of anyone I’ve ever met. Maybe that’s why I keep forgetting she’s a doctor.
“Feverish is not a thing,” she informs me. “You either have a fever or do not. What’s your temperature?”
I hold a palm to my forehead. My hand is cold, my face is hot, so who knows? They ought to invent a better way to assess this. “Are you asking because you’re concerned or because you plan to make me go out tonight if I answer wrong?”
“Both,” she says. “But mostly option two. Because if you’re well enough to go to the office, you’re well enough to go out.”
“I’m not at the office,” I reply…because I already raced there like a coward at six in the morning to get some files and am now working from home.
She gasps. “Not at the office on a Saturday afternoon? I’m calling you an ambulance. No, wait. A helicopter. Can a helicopter land on the roof of your building?”
I laugh. “Shut up. I’m just a little off.”
It isn’t a lie. I spent the entire night tangled in my sheets, sweating and miserable, and I still feel overheated and raw.
I think Ben might have given me a virus. That kiss went on for a while.
I should have fucked you then, too, just to see how else surprise makes you yield.
There was something so shockingly filthy in the way he said it, as if he hadn’t ruled the possibility out. As if he knew I hadn’t either. Maybe he did it to win and maybe he didn’t, but I remember that bulge of his pressing insistently against me, so it wasn’t only to win.
I close my eyes, and it’s almost as if he’s here. Almost as if his mouth is brushing mine and his hands are fisted in my hair. It leaves me feeling like I’m all nerve endings, as if even the slight breeze of my door shutting behind me is sexual in a way.
I imagine that’s just the virus too.
I prepare for the staff meeting Monday as if it’s some bizarre battle with rules only I’m aware of: my favorite V-neck blouse, my best lingerie and, of course, my precious baby-blue, suede slingbacks. Though I’m not sure what, precisely, I’m hoping the lucky shoes will bring me.
Maybe just the return of my sanity.
I don’t feel any better now than I did Saturday. No matter how hard I try not to think about that kiss, I can’t seem to stop, and I suspect the only cure might involve getting him to do it again. Getting him to do more. And since I refuse, I guess this situation is permanent.
I take the seat across from his in the conference room. Our gazes lock. He doesn’t smile, nor do I. We are definitely at war now, though I don’t know what he’s got to be pissed about. Neither of us speak, and the meeting ends unusually fast, which leads me to think our bickering might have been wasting more of the staff’s time than I realized.
When he walks out without a word to anyone, I tell myself I’m relieved. It’s strange, sometimes, the way relief feels a bit like disappointment.
I spend the day trying to ignore the lingering effects of the virus he gave me—the repeated clench of a muscle low in my abdomen, the warmth and occasional breathlessness. I almost feel normal again by the time I meet my favorite client for dinner. Walter is in his early sixties and is possibly the one person capable of restoring my faith in men: he adores his wife and kids and he cares deeply about the well-being of his employees. That he specifically requested me when he came to the firm—right on the heels of Ben stealing my biggest client—was nothing short of a miracle, and since that time he’s sent me more work than the rest of my clients put together.
We meet at his favorite steakhouse, and briefly discuss some litigation I’m handling for him before he sets down his fork and knife and looks at me.
“So, when are they going to give you a piece of the pie over there, at that law firm of yours?” he asks. “You’ve certainly earned it by now.”
I force a smile. “If it’s up to them, never.”
“You can always come to us. You told me yourself I needed in-house counsel.”
“You do. You’re paying FMG twice what you would otherwise.” I don’t understand why he’s still going through me.
“Then work for us. Think how much shorter your days would be. These are the best years of your life. You’re letting them pass you by.”
If FMG doesn’t make me a partner this winter, I’ll have to consider it—it could be another five years before the opportunity comes again—but the mere possibility fills me with dread.