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“If your trend is anything to go by, you've already fired three people today, and I'm the fourth to receive an email,” she said, still fighting hard not to start begging him to tell her why he wanted to fire her. She was a model employee. Ellis would vouch for her.
“I fired those people because Ellis asked me to get rid of them. He didn't have the heart or balls to do so. You will find, Ms. Reid, that I'm not similarly afflicted.”
She swallowed, then reprimanded herself for showing him even a minuscule sign of weakness.
“So, am I fired?”
“No, Ms. Reid. I am not firing you. But I have a proposition for you.”
For a moment, he did and said nothing but...analyze her. The type of visual examination where he'd taken off her clothes and left her bare to his eyes.
She held his attention despite visibly squirming in her seat. She crossed her legs tightly, hanging on dearly to the last of the coherence he demolished with just one intense glance. But, what he said next, left her truly discombobulated.
“I want to purchase your body. Ms. Reid.”
Chapter Four
Hunter McLeod had seen her once before, six months ago.
She had been on the arm of a high-powered attorney, whose services Hunter had retained on occasion or two.
Dressed in a gold gown that enveloped her curves like skin, she had shimmered past him without a single glance his way and set fire to his blood in a raw instant.
No other person had ever had that kind of an effect on him. He conducted his life in a manner in which everything could be foreseen or closely predicted. Nothing surprised him any longer; nothing moved him. Nothing caught his eye anymore.
He had everything he could possibly want and had satisfied every curiosity he had ever had. Except for that night, she had tossed his carefully planned life off course, and she didn’t even know it. She had made him take a second glance.
Maybe it was the delicate shape of her clavicle, the cherry-red dip of her upper lip, or the perfume that rose from her bare thigh as the slit in her dress parted when she passed him by. He had been so close to her that he could have touched her.
Perhaps it was the way she held herself, graceful and splendid, with her spine so pin-straight, that made him want to curve her back over his arm so she could offer herself to him. Maybe it was the way she spoke. She had greeted someone else as she passed him by, but Hunter imagined it had been his name she had whispered instead.
He wanted her then, with blinding urgency. He wanted to take her hand and remove her from the lawyer’s grasp, then guide her out onto a quiet balcony.
How would she have reacted if he had done that? No questions asked, no permission needed. If he had just taken her like he did everything else he wanted.
Would she have understood the incredible need to possess her without having to say anything? Would she have given herself to him solely because he expected her to?
He had made it his business to find out everything there was about her, from the day she was born to the moment he had seen her. She was engaged to Hugh Blankshaw, but that changed nothing for Hunter because she wasn’t married to him yet.
He had intended to be upfront about his intentions with her. There weren’t going to be any gray areas between them, no doubtful misunderstandings of what he wanted.
But that very night, a small part of his hard, cold existence had disintegrated, and he realized there was nothing he could do to reverse it. His past had collided with him and brought with it a slew of new enemies he had to eliminate, first. He wasn’t going to put her in any danger.
It had taken him six months to do so, and she had haunted him every step of the way. She was now the one loose end he needed to tie up before the world he had created for himself vanished and he began living a new kind of life.
He could no longer have her for the eternity he’d wanted. But he could have her for one night. Just one long night with her body beneath his, his cock thick and hard inside her.
Silently, he had started to own a part of every aspect of her life. The building she lived in, he bought. The block of apartments her grandparents lived in, he bought. He bought the gym she had a membership to but never went to, her favorite coffee shop, and her favorite bookstore. He even bought the company she worked for. Ellis Callahan, the owner of High Cloud, had been too happy to take Hunter up on his offer, which worked out well for both of them.
But now he was even more intrigued by Kensley Reid. Obviously, he knew she had ended her engagement with Blankshaw six months ago, and that had just eliminated Blankshaw as an obstacle in getting to her.
Discovering she was still a virgin hadn’t changed anything for him. He had wanted her before, and he wanted her now. But maybe he had to tread a little more lightly, perhaps differently.
Except, his lawyer, Charles Smith, had asked Hunter if he thought this was treading lightly, with him telling her he wanted to purchase her body right from the onset.
Her pretty hazel eyes widened at the sudden and obviously unexpected announcement he’d just made. Color rose in her cheeks, and her breasts heaved beneath her shirt, which she may have thought concealed her luscious curves, but not from him.
He glanced at her throat, knowing her pulse would be bleating madly against his tongue if he licked her there.
