Page 20 of Working for the Heiress

I was moving before I consciously decided. He stood in the doorway as rain pelted the window behind him, hands at his side, face cracking open. And I was drawn to him.

"Everyone's on the ground," I said. "It's over."

He exhaled all the tension from earlier and, I thought, all his resistance. We felt inevitable in that moment his shoulders dropped and his jaw unclenched.

I put my hand on his chest. I’d never made time for men, never done any of the things I knew were coming next. But I was powerless to stop.

Conrad flinched, toward me. His body pulled toward my palm before his brain caught up and I felt his heart hammer under the cotton. I understood that Conrad Holt had not felt the touch of another person in a very long time.

“Come in,” I heard my voice instruct, though I wasn’t in charge. “Close the door.”

He reached behind him and pulled it shut. The latch clicked and the sound of the storm got quieter from the hallway and louder against the window, the building groaning in a gust that rattled the blinds.

The whole building was empty. Diaz gone. Sharon gone. Pilots grounded, crew dispersed. Just us and the storm and the fluorescent light buzzing overhead and his heartbeat under my hand.

"Here's what's going to happen," I said. "I'm going to copy every requisition record in that file room. Every substitution. Every discrepancy between what you ordered and what arrived. I'm going to cross-reference the parts logs against manufacturer specs and build a case that cannot be buried or explained away by a team of lawyers in Boston."

He was watching me. Green eyes steady. He hadn't blinked.

"When it's done, I'll bring it to someone who isn't my father."

His voice rasped. “That'll cost you everything. Your job. Your family."

"I know."

The wind hit the window hard enough to make the blinds jump. Somewhere in the building, a door banged open and shut.

"You're sure," he said.

"I've never been more sure of anything."

He leaned forward, elbows to his knees, head dropped. I watched the back of his neck — dark hair cut short, skin tan from working outside — and I wanted to put my mouth there so badly my teeth ached.

"I'm not asking your permission," I said. "I'm telling you what I'm going to do."

"I hear you."

The lights flickered once, held. The storm pushed against the building like it was trying to get in. "Now stand up."

He did, and moved close enough that I had to tilt my head to see his face. He smelled of engine grease and rain and plain soap and underneath it just him, the warm fact of his body.

"I am going to do something that has nothing to do with the file room or my father or your guilt".

His fists were clenched at his sides. I could see the cords in his forearms, the grease under his nails, the scar on his left knuckle I'd noticed the first day. I put both hands on his chest and pushed him backward until his shoulders hit the wall. The thud went straight down through the framing of the building, matching the baseline of the wind outside.

He didn't move. He didn't resist. He stood against the drywall with my palms flat against his chest and he looked down at me with his jaw set so hard a muscle was jumping below his ear.

"Lili," he said.

"Shut up, Conrad."

I stepped in until the tips of my boots touched his. Enough to see his face. Enough to see the raw hunger etched into his features. "No one has ever... I've never felt anything like that before," I whispered, the confession tearing out of me.

He went still, his entire muscular frame locking up as his eyes blazed down at me. "What do you mean, Lili? Tell me."

"I mean no one's ever — I haven't —" I held his gaze. "I'm… yours. Completely. You're the first man to ever touch me like this."

He didn't move. His hands flexed against my thighs, a fierce, protective growl vibrating in his chest. His mouth was still wet from our kiss, and the realization that he was the sole ruler of this territory transformed him from a man in love to a protector prepared to kill for me.