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“When necessary. Not all the time.”
He studies me for several beats, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Go home, Bella.”
It rings like a warning, and I have a flash of that moment in his office when he dragged my skirt down and treated me like shit. That’s all it takes. I rotate on my heels, and I don’t stop until I’m inside my car and the engine is cranked.
I drive away and I know without looking he’s standing there, watching me leave.
Chapter Sixteen
Bella
Home is where the heart is usually refers to family, but my cute little two-story house in downtown Nashville is empty for me. Okay, it’s not little. Just last year I bought a huge place, had it remodeled, and finally moved in six months ago. As if buying a huge home somehow validated my success and therefore created happiness. If it works for my father, it could work for me, had been my mentality, but as of late, I can see that he’s alone too.
He loved my mother and not one of the women chasing him and his stardom has ever replaced her. What I missed in the big picture was how he lives for fast cars, fast women, and stays so busy he never feels the pain.
Only I didn’t miss it at all. I copied his formula.
My job has controlled my life for years now, to the point that I now go to Dash’s place for waffles to feel the bond of home and hearth. I feel alone when I enter my foyer, with no one to greet me, not even the pitter-patter of furry paws. I just worry that I travel too much and work long hours.
But I need my home to feel like home, and a furry child would help. Lord knows kids are not in my future any time soon. Dash was feeling the same things when he found Allie. My father does as well, even if he won’t admit it. I wonder if Tyler does as well, which is sort of how I got into this mess. My choice to go to Tyler after his father died came from me watching Dash struggle with the loss of his estranged father. Family matters, and Dash, fortunately, had me and Allie to get him through that. Tyler is so like my father—shutting everyone out—that I thought he needed someone.
And maybe I was right, but I wasn’t that person. He treated me like my father treats women, like a physical escape that allows him to hide from a more emotional connection. I am no one to him. I’m not sure why that bothers me. But it does. A little too much, which I tell myself is about me and whatever I’m feeling about life lately, not about him.
I need something to feel fulfilled.
Tyler Hawk is not that something. He is not my someone.
He’s my boss. The end.
Chapter Seventeen
Tyler
I can still taste her on my tongue.
Hot water runs over my body in the shower of my master bedroom, after rejecting a cold shower to combat my body’s craving for Bella. A better option would have been to say screw the party going on above us and her brother in the building. I could have just bent her over my desk and fucked her right there in my office. No one would have known but us. Then I wouldn’t be hard as a rock with my own cock in my hand.
I pump my cock with images of Bella in my mind. Those breasts. Her perfect, pink nipples. Her moans and sighs. The tight grip of her body around my fingers, all slick and hot for me. The shy way she refused to say what she wanted. The moment she finally said, “I want you to lick my pussy.” She didn’t say my name, though. I should have made her. God, to have her naked and on top of me.
My cellphone rings in the distance and I ignore it, pumping into my hand to an orchestra of Bella’s moans and sighs until I jerk with the intensity of my release. When it’s over, my damn phone is ringing again, and I curse, facing the wall and letting the water pelt me. Whoever it is can wait. My body calms, but I can’t say I’m satisfied.
Fucking her would have been satisfaction.
How many times have I thought about fucking Bella? How many times did I remind myself she is forbidden? How many times did I walk away until I didn’t? I curse and push off the wall, running my hand over my face. I don’t have to ask why Ididn’t walk away from Bella tonight. I know. Nothing about what happened was about satisfaction.
Josh’s hand on her body stirred an unfamiliar, uncomfortable anger in me. I’ve never been jealous in my life, but I was jealous tonight. I took her into my office knowing damn well what I was feeling, and the risk it represented. She is my employee. She is not for me, and I am not my father. I will not become my father.
I will not touch Bella again.
Chapter Eighteen
Bella
I’m running late.
After Tyler told me not to be late, I seem to be trying to do just the opposite. I pull into the parking lot with ten minutes to spare, with no coffee down me. I cannot deal with Tyler Hawk this morning without any coffee. Thankfully, Hawk Legal has its own little restaurant and coffee shop I call our café. We even have our own app. I order coffee for me and Tyler as a peace offering I hope he doesn’t end up wearing. It’s doubtful, considering he controls my paycheck, but I’m human and fallible. As to how I know his drink, we’ve run into each other at Cupcakes and Books, a little bookstore down the road, that Dash favors for his little writing escape.
We both go there for Dash.
