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“All right, then,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “If that’s what you want.”
“Something else you should know about me,” Balthazar said mildly, though that fire in his gaze did not diminish in the slightest, “is that I do not like to repeat myself.”
Kendra had the slightly hysterical urge to say something inappropriate. Or perhaps...salute. She bit her tongue. And then, telling herself it was no different from stripping in a doctor’s office, started removing her clothes.
Except she didn’t.
She ordered herself to move, but her body did not obey. For one jarring thud of her heart. Then another.
All while he stared at her, ruthless and darkly entertained.
Everything seemed to fuse inside of her until she couldn’t have said, in that moment, if she was doing this for her family or if she was doing this because Balthazar clearly didn’t think she would.
If she stepped back even an inch, she knew it didn’t make sense. Getting naked proved nothing at all.
But suddenly it felt as if Kendra’s entire life had been leading her to this very moment. As if she needed to prove herself in this bizarre way, or die.
That did it.
She kicked off her shoes. Then, holding his gaze, unfastened the zipper at the back of her skirt, letting it fall to her feet. She stepped out of the circle of fabric and felt that hitch again inside her, because his gaze changed.
The way he looked at her made her think of wild things. Birds of prey, fast and dangerously large cats, predators of every description. There was something impossibly masculine in the way he gazed at her, and it made that place between her legs throb as if his hand was already there, cupping her.
That hard, decidedly male grip, that she’d dreamed about since. Too many times to count.
She pulled off her dark silk blouse, then dropped it to the side. She still held his gaze because that was all heat and demand, and better, somehow, than accepting the fact that she was standing before Balthazar Skalas wearing nothing but her bra and some panties.
She realized he’d gone still. As if he’d turned to stone, though there was absolutely no doubt that he was a real, live man. Even if made of flesh, she suspected he would scald her if she leaned across the desk and touched him.
Why did she want to do it anyway?
Kendra didn’t wait for him to egg her on further. She reached around and unhooked her bra, then shrugged it off.
He made a sound then, perhaps nothing more than a breath, but it was like fireworks going off inside of her—bright and hot and uncontrollable.
She fought it, but her own breath came faster, then.
It was as if there was an electrical charge between them, too intense. Almost painful.
But she wasn’t done. She couldn’t dwell on what was happening inside of her, because she still felt a kind of drumming in her chest, threatening her ribs, that made her feel as if sheneededto show him exactly how wrong he was about her.
So Kendra finished the job, stripping off her panties and dropping them on top of the pile of her clothes.
Leaving her...standing there. Stark naked.
And though her cheeks were hot and she felt certain that the flush extended all over the rest of her body, though she wasawarethat she had so many competing emotions it actually hurt, she couldn’t access the things she was feeling. Not quite.
Because his gaze was all over her.
And then, to her horror—no, no, a voice in her chided,that’s nothorrorand you know it—Balthazar moved out from behind the desk.
He hadn’t said he would touch her, and she assured herself that if he did, if he dared, she would—
But that was a lie. It wasn’t even a fully formed thought and it was a lie.
Because the thought of Balthazar touching her made her shiver. That low heat bloomed.
And once again, she was as slippery and hot, as if he’d just finished stroking his way deep into her core.
