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“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth. “What do you want?”
“I want to know why, when I was pacing around my house because I couldn’t sleep, that I heard my name being cried out in a way that sounded a whole lot like a woman coming.”
Oh. My. God. What am I even doing right now? I should order him out. Send him packing. Dig a hole deep enough to bury myself for the rest of eternity.
“Maybe I was praying for the strength required to work with you,” I retort.
“I heard you sayoh, Godbut I don’t think you were praying.” He touches a fingertip to my shoulder, which is bared by the thin straps of my pyjama top. The gentle, barely-there touch sends goosebumps skittering over my skin like a pebble skipping across a lake. “I think you were getting off thinking about me, just like I’ve been doing thinking about you.”
I can’t breathe. My heart is barely pumping blood through my veins. This can’t happen...right? I can’t let this go anywhere. Not with him.
Not with a guy who could chew me up and spit me out harder than any of my exes have done.
This isn’t a relationship.
Well, actually it is. The most important kind: a working one.
“I don’t sleep with people I work with,” I say, but I don’t brush his hand off. He’s tracing a slow line down my arm and encircling his fingers around my wrist. Who knew such a soft touch could be so erotic? My sex pulses like the orgasm from five minutes ago never happened. “My career is everything to me. I won’t mess that up.”
“So your mind went straight there, interesting.”
He’s right. Rowan never said anything about us sleeping together and my brain hopped, skipped and jumped right into bed. “I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did. Trust me, I’ve been thinking about it. I haven’t fallen asleep for a single bloody night without thinking about you.”
Against all the better judgement in my head, I whisper, “Me, either.”
“I’m having the contract drawn up tomorrow.”
His intention rings loud and clear. After I’d agreed to work with him, we talked through the importance of a contract to cover off our obligations for the show. I liked that idea. Contracts are good. Boundaries are good.
But I haven’t signed anything yet, which means...
“We’re not working together yet.” He says the words as though plucking them right from my head. “Not until both our signatures hit the page.”
I want him.
The words bounce around in my brain, echoing like ghosts. I want Rowan. I want this, right now, with him.
“The second I sign that document, it’s all business.” It’s almost like someone else is talking, rather than me. I know this is a bad idea. Because we might not speak of it again, but what’s going to stop me from thinking about it. Remembering it. Willing it back to life.
“Deal.”
What the hell are we doing, whispering in the dark and drawing false lines of security around ourselves?
Rowan reaches out and brushes a strand of hair from my forehead, neatly tucking it behind my ear. The action—so deviously and devastatingly innocent—unlatches something deep down inside me.
Right now, I don’t care about the consequences. I don’t care that I’m probably going to be burned alive. I don’t care that I always make mistakes with men and end up hurt. Right now, I want to feel good. I want to feel...free.
I place my hands on his chest. God, he feels incredible. Hard. Honed. Like he could carry the world.
“Say it,” he growls. “I need you to tell me, Emery. And don’t fucking beat around the bush.”
“Yes.” The word escapes into the air, winding up like a tendril of smoke. “Touch me, Rowan. I want this.”
Without another nanosecond of hesitation, he drives his hands into my hair, and brings his lips down to mine. A shudder rips through me, and I open up to him, thrusting my hips against his and letting him walk me backward until I hit something. The sofa.
Our kiss is animalistic—with teeth and grabbing and pent-up frustration. From both sides.
