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The boardroom door suddenly opens.
Flies open.
I turn my head and my eyes lock hard on the woman who’s now standing in the open doorway, gripping the doorframe with both hands, breathing so hard she’s struggling to draw air into her lungs.
My stomach drops, and everything comes to a sudden, jarring halt.Holy shit.I recognize those green eyes instantly. Time slows, and it’s like a million tiny explosions detonating inside my chest.
Well, fuck me sideways.
I was not expecting this.
Her eyes move over my face, and I can tell she recognizes me too, but I’m guessing for entirely different reasons. She startles at first when she sees me, all six-foot-three of me, leaning back in my seat with my arms crossed firmly against my chest.
I wore black jeans, black boots, and a navy dress shirt that I left unbuttoned at the collar. My vest is leather, and so are my wristbands, and as the girl scurries across the room and takes a seat beside her lawyer, I make a point of tonguing my lip ring just so she knows what she’s dealing with.
Her gaze lingers on my face for a few seconds more, then she tears her eyes from mine, but I see a hint of hesitation there, a glimpse of nervousness, maybe it was something else altogether, maybe it’s fear. But she doesn’t look at me again as she apologizes profusely to Joanie in a hurried rush of whispered words that seem to be meant for her ears alone.
I stare at her, silently.
I have a moment of inner debate as she looks down at the papers spread out in front of her. On one hand, that same swirling feeling in my stomach that I got last night has just returned and I desperately want her to look up again so I can see myself in the reflection of her stunning eyes.
She’s so beautifully damaged, so deep-seated with emotion that I could feel it as soon as she entered the room.
On the other hand, I want to rip her head off her shoulders and take a massive shit in the hole for what she’s currently putting me through.
The rigid set of my jaw is starting to grow painful, and I have to breathe deeply through the wave of emotions rolling through me. My fingernails press firmly into my palm, and the pain of the flesh breaking feels good. It takes me to the place I need to get to so I might make it through this meeting without wanting to punish this chick in the best/worst possible ways.
Fuck, she’s hot.
And the dominant side of me instantly rears its ugly head. I want to see her tied up and bound, naked and spreadeagled on my bed. God, now wouldn’t that be a perfect sight, all soft, and pink, and deliciously wet for me.
If I also didn’t want to see her burn in hell, it would make for the perfect scenario, but I’m treading on very delicate ground here, and I need to be careful.
“Mr. Devlin,” says the mediator, tapping the end of her pen on the table to garner my full attention. I look over at her, and she smiles politely. “This is Miss Brinley Thomas. If you’re ready, we should begin.” I nod absentmindedly, and she continues. “Today’s meeting isn’t a formal hearing. This is mediation, and it’s set in the hopes that any disagreements between the two of you can be settled without involving a court of law. You may speak freely, of course. I just ask that all parties involved respect one another, don’t speak when someone else is speaking, and I will not tolerate any kind of racial, sexual, or religious slurs. Do you understand me?”
I stretch my legs out even farther. “Goes without saying.”
The mediator glances across the table. “Miss Thomas?”
“Of course,” she says.
Her voice is softer than I expect it to be, but it holds weight. I want to reach out and see if I can feel it, touch it. But I don’t, because I’m not a fucking psychopath, and that would be all kinds of weird.
There’s some shuffling of papers on the table in front of the mediator, but I don’t look away from the woman sitting opposite me, and to her credit, neither does she. She holds my gaze like a fucking pro.
I glare at her.
She glares back.
I take it up a notch.
And so does she.
She’s got some balls about her, I’ll give her that much. She’s young, maybe twenty-three, twenty-four?Brinley.It’s an unusual name. It’s kind of nice, and I actually like it.
Under other circumstances, like if I was trying to pick her up in a bar or something, I’d tell her what a unique name she has, and how pretty it is. Maybe I’d take a strand of her hair between my fingers, twisting it around softly as I whisper in her ear how perfect her name would sound falling from my lips while I came hard inside her.
Yes. That’s worked for me before.
