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“I don’t.” His cell phone was already in his hand. “What’s the number?”
I recited it to him, a sensation of satisfaction settling in my gut when he looked up and met my gaze.
“Josephine Everly,” he confirmed.
“See, that revelation wouldn’t have held the same satisfaction if I’d just discovered it all by myself.”
“Why?”
But I brushed off his question, standing from my chair and grabbing my jacket. “I’m headed back to Gold Moon Inc.”
“Why?” He repeated his question but this time it held more exasperation, and this time, he was asking about more. “Dude, what are you doing to yourself?”
I stopped and tilted my head, considering my answer. “Hell if I know,” I muttered.
But something in me was drawn to Jo. Something I couldn’t seem to shake, and I needed to figure out why before it had me acting even more out of character.
“You’re a masochist,” Jackson said as he shook his head. “Why go there? Why torture yourself by seeing her again if you aren’t going to pursue a relationship with this woman?”
I glanced at my friend. “Oh, it’s not torture,” I assured him. “I’m just showing her where the control lies.”
And that much was true. If she thought she could hang up on me, I’d show her why that was a very bad idea. She’d pretty much summoned me. Surely she had to know that?
My mouth tightened into a grim smile. If she didn’t already know, she was about to find out.
A short while later, I exited towards my parking lot, and relaxed into the driver’s seat. My car ate up the few short miles between the Apex offices and Gold Moon Inc. the way I planned for my company to eat Gold Moon, the way I’d eaten Jo’s pussy.
When I pulled into her company’s parking lot, I parked obnoxiously, but it didn’t hurt to show all of them who was in control today.
I walked into the building like I already owned it and down the hallway to the conference room, but I didn’t stop there this time. Jo’s scent was farther away, deeper in the building, and I followed that instead.
The office door was partly open and people were talking inside, their voices floating out to me. I bit back my grin. They were discussing Apex, and God alone knew where they’d gotten their information because it was largely rumor.
I preferred it that way, though. The less people knew about what Apex was really doing, the better. We could operate much faster if people didn’t know we were secretly cleaning up after all the shit that went down in the city. Not that I was really sure how much longer our covert activities could last.
Still, rumors of Apex’s ruthlessness fueled our legendary status, if nothing else, and they kept people talking about us. Companies certainly knew about it if Apex was coming for them, and my portion was already half won if they feared my appearance at their door.
I stood in the doorway of Jo’s office. I’d definitely come for her.
As her gaze met mine, her scent drowned out everything else. My dick twitched and I wrapped my fingers around the door frame to prevent myself from striding towards Jo and taking her over that desk. I wanted her with a ferocious need I’d never experienced before.
I held myself back, counting my breaths in and out. Then I jerked my head at the two assistants in the room. It was definitely their cue to leave. I stepped back to give them space as they filed past me.
“Give us a few minutes.” My quiet murmur was as close I’d come to telling them to just leave us the fuck alone, but they understood what I meant, and they both nodded.
I stepped back into the office, and with quiet deliberation, I closed the door behind me.
Jo walked around her desk, not looking at me as she pushed her hair behind her ears and picked up some of the paperwork before shuffling it straight by banging the ends on the surface like she’d just finished reading the news.
“I didn’t mean to hang up on you,” she said. “In fact, I was actually going to apologize.” Then she raised her gaze to meet mine. “But just showing up here like this? It’s really too much.”
I watched her for a moment, waiting to see if she’d finished. I mean, all of that was nice to know, but I hadn’t said a word. She’d just started volunteering information. Maybe if I stayed quiet a while longer, she’d volunteer a whole lot more.
But she said nothing else, pressing her lips flat together instead, like she’d realized she shouldn’t do quite so much talking.
“This is too much? What? Me in your space?” I spread my arms, the parody of innocence as I took up even more of the space I was referencing, but she nodded. “And last night…was that also too much? Too much of me in your space?”
She flushed, her neck reddening, the stain creeping onto her cheeks. Then she looked away from me again, back down to the desk. “Last night has done nothing but replay in my mind again and again. It’s like a broken record. And you know what?” She sounded annoyed as her eyes met mine. “It isn’t fair that it’s not having the same effect on you.”
