Page 3 of Tell Me You Need Me

It’s humiliating how thoroughly he consumes my thoughts, especially when he can walk into the office looking like an icy god who hasn’t felt a single emotion in his life.

I shake my thoughts from my head, grab the leather folder, smooth down my skirt once again, and take a deep, steadying breath. I’m a professional. I’ve built my career here by standing on my own two feet, not to be undone by a man who clearly regrets letting his control slip for three amazing minutes in a garden.

I raise my hand and rap my knuckles on the wood for three rhythmic beats.

“Enter.” His voice is deep, rugged, and more tempting than ever. I turn the handle, surprised to find it unlocked. Nolan is standing behind his massive black marble desk, unbuttoning his suit jacket and tossing it over the back of his chair. His sleeves are crisp, and his cufflinks gleam in the soft morning light.

“The risk assessment you asked for.” He looks up, his expression a mask of cool composure. I walk forward, placing the folder in the center of his desk. “I’ve highlighted the exposure clauses in section four. The eleven o’clock with the board has already been moved to tomorrow, and Maxim is putting the metrics together now.” Nolan doesn’t look at the folder. He looks at me.

For one brief, agonizing second, his mask slips. His dark eyes travel down the length of my throat, tracing the delicate rise and fall of my chest beneath my silk blouse before snapping back to my face. A subtle pulse ticks in his jaw. It makes me happy to know I can at least tempt the beast, even if it comes in the form of knowing what he needs before he does and being three steps ahead.

“Is there anything else, Mischa?” His voice is lower now, a rough rasp hiding beneath the corporate polish.

“No, Mr. Cross. Unless you need me to review the company policy on professional boundaries again.” I lean forward slightly, resting my palms on the polished surface of his desk, forcing him to look at me up close and personal. Nolan’s eyes darken instantly, his breathing changes, and the cool CEO completely vanishes behind the sheer, possessive heat of a man who held me in the dark.

“Careful, Mischa.” He leans across the desk, closing the distance between us until I can smell the scent of tobacco and leather on his skin. “You’re playing with fire.” His voice turns into a gravelly whisper that sends a shiver straight down my spine. Liquid pools low in my belly, and my core aches with the need for more.

“Then I look forward to letting it burn,” I whisper back, holding his gaze without flinching. The silence between us stretches, thick and suffocating, before the intercom on his desk buzzes loudly, shattering the moment. Nolan snaps back, his jaw tight as he presses the button, his eyes never leave mine. Whatever game he thinks we’re playing, he’s not going to win. Because I’m done being the quiet assistant, and I’m definitely done letting him pretend our kiss didn’t change everything.

CHAPTER TWO

nolan

“Nolan,” I bark, pressing my thumb down on the intercom button, breaking the electric charge suspending between us, but I don’t pull my eyes away from Mischa, not in the slightest.

“You got a second?” Maxim’s voice blares through the speaker, crisp and loud. “I need to walk you through these Singapore logistics numbers before the board meeting tomorrow.”

“I’m on line one, Max. Push it through.” I clear my throat, forcing my tone into a flat, level plane that belies the roaring of my blood currently pumping through my veins. I pick up the receiver and bring it to my ear, not bothering to sit down to take the call. Nope, I stand right where I am, gripping the edge of my desk, mere inches away from Mischa. She’s still leaning forward, her palms pressed against the polish stone, the scent of her perfume, warm jasmine and vanilla, swirling around us.

My cock shouldn’t be hard, not from the verbal sparring, and it damn sure shouldn’t be throbbing so violently against the restrictive fabric of my trousers that it feels like a physical ache. The way she’s looking at me, with those warm defiant green eyes and that faint tilt to her chin, it shouldn’t make me want to clear the entire desk with one sweep of my arm, either. I shouldn’t be imagining the folder, laptop, and everything else on the floor or pulling Mischa by her delicate waist and propping her perfect ass on the edge of my desk.

Christ, I want to stand between her spread thighs, watching as her navy pencil skirt slides higher and higher up those shapely, golden curves of hers. I want to feast on her for hours. I want to lick, suck, and kiss every single square inch of her body until she’s breathless, sobbing my name, and completely undone beneath me.

“Nolan, you there?” Max’s voice crackles through the earpiece, blissfully ignorant of the dirty thoughts taking up every square inch of my mind about his baby sister.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I rasp out, my knuckles tightening on the receiver so hard I hear the plastic crack. Mischa doesn’t move. Shit, she doesn’t back down a fucking inch or offer a shred of mercy. Instead of quietly retreating to her desk like she would normally do when her boss takes a call, she stands her ground.

Slowly, deliberately, sinfully, her eyes drag down the front of my tailored suit, tracing the hard lines of my chest, cutting past my vest, and locking directly on the heavy bulge straining against the front of my trousers, scorching a trail of pure reckless desire in their wake. My cock pulses beneath the fabric, a heavy, involuntary twitch that betrays every single ounce of control I’m attempting to pretend I possess.

A slow, wicked smirks spreads across her plush, kissable, painted lips, and she slowly quirks an eyebrow up at me.

Little brat.

My jaw tightens so hard my molars ache. The sheer audacity of this woman is going to be the absolute fucking death of me. She’s standing right in front of her older brother’s voice, watching me burn for her, and she’s enjoying every single second of my torture. She knows the position I’m in. She knows I can’t touch her, can’t growl at her, can’t pin her against the wall and show her what happens when she pushes me—not while her own blood is talking in my ear.

“So, look,” Max continues, completely oblivious of what’s transpiring on the other end of the line. Fuck, he doesn’t even know what happened last weekend, how I got my first taste of Mischa, and now I’m trying to forget every last second of it. A near impossible task when she’s right here in front of me. “The shipping lanes are delayed by three days due to a union strike. If we don’t pivot the air freight through Changi by midnight, the third-quarter projections are going to take a five-percent hit across the board.”

I try to process the words, but my brain is completely hijacked by the visual of her mouth, her full lips are curved into a silent challenge. When Mischa shifts her weight slightly, the silk of her blouse strains against the swell of her chest. I catch the faint dark outline of her lace bra beneath the thin material, and my cock throbs harder, blood rushing so fast in my ears that Max’s voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of the ocean.

“Nolan? Is this thing on, or are you not listening to me? Frankfurt,” Max repeats, his tone sharpening with a touch of impatience. “We need your authorization code to override the secondary transport limits, or the whole deal stalls.”

The word stalls breaks through the thick, heavy fog in my head like a bucket of ice water. Financial exposure. Supply chain failure. Board scrutiny.

The cold, ruthless CEO side of my brain snaps back online with a violent precision, forcing the raging inferno inside me to cool down. I can lose my mind over Mischa in private all I want, but I will not let Cross Enterprise suffer because I’m too distracted by the sight of my best friend’s little sister standing in my office looking like sin incarnate.

“I hear you, Max,” I reply. My tone shifts instantly into the commanding authority that usually makes adversaries take a step back. “Routing through Changi is fine, but don’t pull from the secondary transport reserves. Use the contingency line we set up in Zurich last month. It bypasses the limits entirely without triggering the extra tariffs.” This is, in all honesty, Max’s area of expertise, I just oversee certain things. And with Maxim and Mischa’s dad, it was his idea to err on the side of caution.

On the other side of the desk, Mischa’s eyes flicker. The playful, teasing smirk vanishes, replaced by a sudden yet subtle flare of surprise as she watches me pivot back into corporate mode in a fraction of a second. She thought she had me completely helpless. She thought she had broken my composure beyond repair. Except she forgot one thing: I’m the one who built this empire.