AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His hand clamps over mine, blocking me from shuffling through the next carousel. “Now who’s making excuses?”
He’s got me there, but I move past him, keeping my hands busy by messing with various dials and knobs on a row of stereos. “We’d have to close Hart’s Blooms, and I’ll be damned if I let that happen.”
“You’re not passionate about it,” he says in his clinically observant way.
“How would you know that?” I ask, but I know he’s right.
It’s been two years of trying and failing to learn gardening, growing, and nurturing the way she had, but Mom knew her flowers as intimately as I know every song I’ve ever composed. Asking me to understand her art would be like asking her to play Beethoven.
At the farthest corner of the store, I turn to face him. He’s so close, I can count the fine lines around his mouth and eyes.
“I know passion when I see it, kitten.” He reaches for a bowl of suckers on the shelf above my head and unwraps one. “You hate those flowers. I saw it plain as day when I was at that shop.”
His tongue snakes out, licking the vibrant red candy, and I scoff. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?”
A warm, cherry-scented breath skates across my cheeks, making my lashes flutter, and I swallow, even though my throat’s gone dry.
“What do you mean?” he murmurs.
“Are you telling me that stocks and bonds are really what you want to do for the rest of your life?” I almost laugh when the sucker stills in his mouth. I’m not the only one who’s easy to read anymore. “Passion consumes you. It’s an urge you’re constantly trying to satisfy, and it demands, and demands some more, until eventually, you give.”
I’m backed against the shelves in the corner, staring at his wicked mouth and darkening eyes. “I think what you’re describing is pleasure.”
“There is no pleasure without passion,” I retort, but I’ve lost track of whether we’re talking about work or something else entirely.
I struggle to catch my breath when he slowly removes the sucker from his mouth and twists it between his fingers thoughtfully. “I guess you’d know a thing or two about that.”
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I gasp when he traces my lower lip with the bright red ball. He takes advantage of my surprise by popping the candy into my mouth, then closing my jaw.
I should find it disturbing, the way he’s toying with me, but knowing what Rowan’s tongue did to this sucker before touching it to mine drenches my panties with a bolt of white-hot desire.
“Don’t you?” he asks. “Unless, of course, those sweet little moans coming from your room in the early morning hours belong to one of the housekeepers…”
It takes an embarrassing amount of effort not to arch into him when he presses closer.
“You know what I’m curious about?” he muses breathily. His attention snares where he’s lazily twirling the stick between my lips. “Who you’re picturing while you’re burying those fingers deep inside your pussy.” He grins when my eyes flare, but gone is any trace of humor. “And if it’s not me… Well, I suggest you better warn him that I don’t share.”
He’s trying to get a rise out of me, but I enjoy knocking him down a peg when I suck hard, drawing a rush of sugary tartness across my taste buds before rolling it between my teeth and crunching hard.
Rowan’s eyes blaze as he withdraws what’s left of the treat and pushes the mangled half back inside his cheek. “Delicious.”
He takes a step back, then another.
“There’s something wrong with you,” I mutter, but really, there’s something wrong with me. Because this side of him excites me, and it’s becoming increasingly harder to resist.
I nervously brush my hair behind my ear with my core throbbing for relief, and damn him for making me want it so badly when, tempting as it may be, turning to him isn’t an option.
He bites what’s left of the sucker with a loud crunch, chewing the pieces while he follows me to my space in the back. “Nothing wrong with pushing you to stand your ground. Especially not when I reap the benefits.”
My fists curl at my naivety.
Of course, that was just another lesson. Exactly like when he toyed with me in the study, demanding I take what I want instead of asking.
“One of these days, you’re going to regret teaching me not to be so fragile,” I say with one hand poised on the doorknob.
“No, kitten.” He splays his long fingers over mine before bringing his mouth to my ear. “I’m teaching you to be unbreakable.”
