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The quiet beep of her alarm the next morning was useless. She’d been lying flat, staring up at the coffered ceilings, where white-painted molding outlined boxes of pale yellow. Sunny had painted the ceiling herself. Liam had offered to help, but life kept getting in the way until she’d pulled out the buckets and the ladders while he was off at some exercise.
It hadn’t felt like a big deal at the time.
Lying there, she couldn’t help but see the contrast with I would give you anything. Maybe he’d give her anything when it came to his dick.
Too much of her wanted to believe he meant it.
She got up and went about getting ready for work—all the usual stuff, along with aching legs, stiff shoulders and a sore ass. The lightweight linen pantsuit was the best she could do to hide the evidence—not because she feared they might get caught, but because she wanted to keep their night close and private. Theirs.
At least it was Friday. She would only need to hide it for eight hours.
Then what? It wasn’t as if facing a weekend alone with Liam meant she’d be healed by Monday—healed in any sense.
Emerging from the bedroom, she tingled with the same heightened awareness she’d experienced the night before when stepping out of her office. The hair stood up across the back of her neck and her hearing flared. She was prey leaving the safety of her den, sneaking out as if a taxi were her only escape route.
The house wasn’t exactly quiet. It ticked and sighed with all the usual noises of a house she knew intimately. The refrigerator hummed and wind whistled around the eastern cornice.
No sign of Dash.
He wasn’t asleep in the living room, so maybe he’d left early. He’d taken to folding the blanket and topping it with a pillow after crawling off the couch for each of the five mornings.
Maybe he’d… What, took a taxi himself to go get her Acura? Headed to base in some turnaround means of spiting her, leaving her to her own devices. One was generous, if a little over the top. One was too easy for her mind to latch on to. Dash, letting her down.
She curled her hand around the handle of her attaché case. The leather smashed into her flesh—not cutting, because the case was too well made for that. She could use a bite of pain to keep her jaw from locking.
Trailing her hand down the cool wall, she waited for something. The cab’s honk? A sign? So damn stupid. A few feet more and she’d be free for the day. She could bury herself in work and let everything else go away.
Just over three weeks now.
A pair of steps from the door, she heard him behind her. Not heard. Felt. The skin between her shoulder blades prickled. The air shifted and weighed heavily against her skin.
“Where are you going, Sunny?” His voice was low. Gravelly.
That was what she’d been waiting for.
She didn’t look back. Her tongue slicked over her bottom lip, and there was no denying the way her body clenched and readied. A flood of moisture dampened her panties. Her expensive, pretty pink panties, which matched her lace balconette bra. She was such an idiot, holding on to secret hopes and wants that she hadn’t stopped to examine. She’d wanted to be pretty. For him. Just in case.
But she still played along.
“I’m going to work.” She lifted her chin and put as much attitude as she could into her words. She reached for the brass door handle. Let him come for her. Let him try. “You can’t stop me.”
That quick.
Between one breath and the next.
She’d turned the knob when the slam of their combined weight made the door shake in the frame. Her already-raw knees burned where they ground against the wood. The oval leaded glass shuddered.
He was bare from the waist up. Jeans were hitched around his hips, but what pressed against her torso and bent over her shoulders was pure skin. Smooth, healthy, tanned skin. He was warm with sleep.
She managed not to shiver.
His head bowed low, and he nudged her neck with his chin. Tousled hair tickled her ear. “You’re not going anywhere. Thought you would’ve learned that last night. You go where I let you.”
His bare foot shoved between hers, his thigh pressing hers apart. She tried to surprise him
with her heel—lifting and slamming down. His reflexes were too fast. He jerked back at the same time as he pushed his upper chest more firmly against her back. She was pinned.
“You’re a mean little whore, aren’t you?”
