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Another swallow. ‘Noah.’ The word is half scold, half plea.
I shake my head, my eyes locking her to the spot and her intention. ‘No lying.’
The room pulses heavily with silence.
‘A long time ago.’
‘That’s not a precise answer,’ I push, a thrill of something like triumph turning my blood to lava.
She expels a breath. An angry breath. ‘Five years ago,’ she snaps and then pulls herself together with effort.
‘What’s your mother’s name?’
I don’t bat an eyelid—not so much as a blink. ‘Alison Parker.’ She might have birthed me, but calling her a ‘mother’ is a step too far. I’ve spent thirty-six years wishing her name wasn’t even in my mind, let alone her blood in my veins.
‘Are you close to her?’
I shake my head. ‘It’s my turn, remember.’
A look of panic colours her spectacular eyes. She moves away to grab a glass of water from her desk. I follow her automatically and my eyes drop to the picture to the right of her. A little child, so exactly like Holly that it must surely be a relation, sits in a frame. ‘Who’s that?’
She looks at me and catches me looking at the frame. For a second I think she’s not going to answer, or that she might lie, but then she shrugs. ‘My daughter.’ Her hand lifts betrayingly to a necklace she wears. A locket?
‘Are you close to your mother?’
I was expecting this question. ‘No.’
‘You don’t like her?’
I move my body closer—she braces her hands on the desk and looks up at me, and the air cracks like a whip as tension tightens between us.
‘No.’ Her expression flickers as she analyses this. ‘Have you thought about me, other than professionally?’
Once more her eyes dart away from me. Such a giveaway gesture for a woman as smart as she is. I would have expected her to have a better poker face. ‘I...’ A very faint peach colour spreads over her cheeks.
‘It’s a yes or no question, Doc.’ I brace my hands on the outside of hers, bending my body forward so that I’ve effectively caged her on her desk. She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, drawing in a breath like she wants to draw me with it. When she speaks, it’s with a courage I admire. A strength and determination—a fearlessness.
‘Yes.’
I tighten all over and it takes every ounce of my willpower not to push her back on the desk and rip that leather skirt off, to make her mine.
‘You weren’t raised by your parents, were you?’
She’s still got her eyes closed, but the question is no less cutting or incisive for that.
If she were looking at me, she might have seen how off-kilter it momentarily knocks me. But I recover quickly. She has asked the right question but phrased it wrong. Who raised you? might have been better. That would have forced me to document the myriad foster homes I was passed through, or to explain that no one really took the time to raise me—that I was left to raise myself.
‘No.’ She looks at me now and, with her eyes fixed on mine, I move so close that my lips are almost brushing hers. ‘Do you want to fuck me?’
She gasps and, before she answers, I do it. I do what I’ve wanted to do since I first saw that perfect Cupid’s bow. I put my mouth to hers, lift my hand to the back of her head, wrap my fingers in her hair and invade her with my tongue. She makes a moaning noise and then she’s kissing me back, her tongue clashing with mine; one leg lifts and hooks around my waist, holding me locked to her, my cock pressed hard against her cunt. She tilts her head back to give me all the access I want and I fucking plunder her. I kiss her to punish her for making me talk about my fucking mother. I kiss her because I can’t not.
And she kisses me back.
But she hasn’t answered my question and I want her to. It’s not enough to feel her wants—I want her to own them. To confess them to me. I have seen her courage, her spirit—but still I want more. I want to hear her be brave for me.
So I pull away but, before she can pretend she wasn’t affected by what we shared, I thrust my cock against her, grinding my hips, and she moans, lifts her fingers to my chest and digs them in. She tilts her head back again.
Hell, if she hasn’t been screwed in five years, I could probably make her come right now. To test my theory, I push against her again and she says my name, low and soft, huskily, a beg, a plea.
