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I straighten, putting my hands on the counter and try to move him back. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing? Back up.”
Ignoring me, his face appears beside mine. “You missed a spot.” Lifting his hand, he swipes his finger at the corner of my mouth.
“There was nothing wrong with my lipstick,” I growl.
“I know.” He slides his hand down my neck to just above my collarbone. He stops and loosely wraps his fingers around the base of my throat. “Since you were pretending to fix your makeup, I figured I’d play along.”
My scowl meets his amused expression through the mirror. “Back off, Kai.”
“Nah.” He presses his erection against my backside and my breath catches. “I think I quite like where I am.”
A shiver races down my spine when his fingers tighten around my neck, holding my head in place as he dips his down and lightly grazes his lips along the side of my neck.
Snap out of it, Penelope, my mind reprimands. This has gone on long enough. It’s time to put a stop to it.
“Kai—” I start, but it ends in a yelp.
The bastard just bit the side of my neck.
“What the hell?” With his lips still attached to my neck, he looks up at me. “Did you just bite me?”
When he lifts his head, a smug grin pulls up his lips. “It was a love bite.”
“Love bite,” I mutter.
Using more force than before, I push against him hard. He finally relents and takes a step back. I spin around to face him, leaning back against the counter so I’m as far away from him as I can get. “Keep your love bites to yourself. Or better yet, give them to someone else.”
“Sorry, baby, no can do. They belong to you.” He gets in my space again, propping his hands on the counter beside my waist, and I’m forced to arch my back over the counter. “Just like you belong to me. That mark on your neck tells any man to stay the fuck away.”
My mouth practically drops open with his outlandish statement, and I’m frozen in shock for a moment. I make a mental note to call my doctor to have my hearing checked because I did not just hear what I thought I did.
“Excuse me?” The words come out a harsh whisper.
“You heard me, Penelope.”
I sputter out a laugh, still amazed at his audacity. “You’re claiming me? You’ve lost your mind. I’m nearly old enough to be your mother. I used to babysit you. I bandaged your booboos and read you bedtime stories.”
The more I say, the bigger his grin gets, and it’s frustrating as hell.
“You wanna hear something funny?” he asks, confusing the hell out of me. He doesn’t wait for my answer before he continues. “I had a major crush on you back then. Even at four years old, I was claiming you. I even told Mom I was going to marry you one day.”
For some reason, that makes me want to laugh. Memories of a four-year-old Kai flash through my mind. When I was babysitting him, he would follow me all over the house, then cry when I had to leave. He looked at me with worship and adoration. I thought it was innocent and cute that he had a crush on me. A lot of boys his age have crushes on adult authoritative women in their lives. Once they get older, that crush fades and they move on to girls their own age.
It seems Kai’s crush never went away, and now he thinks he has the right to lay an asinine claim on me.
“This is insane, Kai. You’re letting a crush you had, as a child, override your common sense.” I try to reason with him. “You need to step back and think about this.”
“Oh, I’ve thought about it,” he says. When he drops his head and it looks like he’s going to kiss me, I turn my face to the side. He’s not deterred, though. He just presses his lips against my neck instead. Right over the spot he bit a few minutes ago. “I’ve thought about you a lot over the years. You have no fucking clue how hard it was on me when I hit puberty. I probably hold the world record for how many times a person can jack off in a single day. Thoughts of you drove me insane on a daily basis.”
“Jesus,” I mumble. I put my hands on his chest with the intention of shoving him away, but when my fingers touch the firm planes of his pecs, my nails curl against the tight muscle instead. How in the hell can a man—a young man, I amend—have a chest as solid as Kai’s? It’s wrong and shouldn’t be a thing.
Hearing a thump coming from outside my office, my eyes widen, and I frantically begin shoving Kai away from me. His eyes dance playfully, and I narrow mine. I have no doubt that if Kai wants to stay where he is, my feeble attempts to shove him backward would do nothing to move him. Luckily, he relents and allows me to push him back.
I slide sideways, away from him and toward the door. Once I’m outside the bathroom, I spin around, pointing a manicured finger at him.
“This ridiculous claim you think you have over me stops now. You and I will never happen. It’s ludicrous to even contemplate. Now leave, and do the job I hired you to do, or I’ll break my word to your mother and fire you.”
“You got it, Lady Boss.” He winks as he leaves the bathroom.
I grind my teeth together, hating the moniker Kai gave me the first day he came to work.
I glare at his back, fighting the urge to look down at his butt. In the doorway, he looks back over his shoulder.
“Just so we’re clear, this conversation isn’t over. And if you even think about covering my mark, your ass will be just as red. Only this time with my handprint.”
