Page 14 of Her Filthy Cold Billionaire Boss

I found the book, A Guide to Native and Ornamental Flora, slid it out, and handed it to her. She took it, but her fingers grazed mine, lingering just a beat too long for either of us to pretend it was accidental.

“Thank you,” she said, breathless.

I stepped back, but not far enough. We were less than a foot apart, and I could smell her; the rainwater of her shampoo, the warmth of her skin, something faint and sugary underneath. I wanted to bury my face in the crook of her neck and inhale until I forgot my own name.

Instead, I said, “You might like the garden blueprints, too. I have them in the study.” My voice was rough. I hated it.

She hugged the book to her chest. “That would be amazing. If you have time.” Her eyes flicked up to mine, wide and unguarded. She bit her lower lip, just a little.

I had to look away. If I didn’t, I was going to do something irrevocable.

We stood there, stupid and silent, in the low glow of the room. I became acutely aware of my body, the ache in my jaw, the tension in my hands, and the hard pulse of desire that was doing nothing to disguise itself.

She might have noticed, even in the dark, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, she did something that nearly undid me. She leaned in, just slightly, and brushed her shoulder against mine—a signal so subtle it could have been written off as an accident. But it wasn’t.

I swallowed. Hard.

“Anything else you need?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

She shook her head, curls catching the light. “Just this,” she said, but the way she said it left the sentence unfinished.

I felt the urge rise; fierce, animal, unstoppable. For a fraction of a second, I saw myself pulling her against the books, kissing her so hard the shelf might give. I saw my hands on her waist, her mouth opening under mine, her body yielding, eager. I wanted it so badly my vision went blurry.

But I was not that man. I was not my father, or my grandfather, or any of the other men in those yellowed photographs along the hall.

I stepped away, breaking the spell.

“If you need the blueprints, come by the study after dinner,” I said. “I’ll have them ready for you.”

She smiled, a real, slow-blooming smile that made my chest ache. “I will. Thank you, Mr. Wolfe-erm-Gareth.”

That was the one time I wish she hadn’t said my name. It was low, intimate, and instantly had me thinking of her in my bed. Internally, I told my brain to knock it off, but my body was starving for her.

I nodded, throat dry, and turned to leave. But as I reached the doorway, I glanced back.

She was still standing there, clutching the book, eyes fixed not on the pages but on the space where I’d just been.

I walked the hall at double pace, not stopping until I reached my quarters. I shut the door and leaned against it, fists clenched, every muscle thrumming with the effort it had taken not to do what I wanted.

This is why I wrote the NDA. This is why I had rules. Because I knew what would happen if I let myself go.

But the rules were already starting to look weak.

And I was becoming the wild animal intent on taking a mate.

Too bad I wasn’t the forever type, and that she was wholly off-limits.

Chapter Five

Eden

I woke before the sun, which in this house meant 5:37 a.m.

The rest of Wolfe Manor was dead. Nothing but the sigh of radiators, the distant tick of a grandfather clock, and the echo of my own pulse in my ears. The air outside my comforter was icy, the kind of cold that made you believe in ghosts. Like, one was sitting on my bed right now, messing with me.

I bundled myself in a hoodie, sweats, and the world’s most adorable penguin socks, then crept out of my room, careful to stay quiet to not wake anyone else.

My phone glowed in my pocket, the only warm thing about me, except for the low-grade furnace burn of embarrassment from yesterday’s double-header. First, almost making out with the boss’s mahogany desk with my chest, and then, getting rescued from a staircase face-plant by the man himself. Gareth Wolfe. I could still feel the imprint of his hands at my ribs, right where they’d steadied me. I could still see the look in his eyes, sharp, blue, clinical, but also…something else. Something that made my insides fizz and my outsides sweat, despite the cold.