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I needed a new fucking chair—actually, an entirely new office would be best.
“I heard about the Tigers’ partnership,” he said, stuffing his hands deep into the pocket of his slacks and leaning against the armrest of my couch. “Congrats. That’s…a big deal.”
“It is, thank you.”
He stared at me, as though willing me to elaborate, but honestly, I had nothing else to say. Cal’s praise would always come under duress, with conditions attached, and I wasn’t willing to make an emotional investment in him when he couldn’t make a professional one in me.
“Mar…” he began, but I held up my hand.
“You said what you came here to say, Cal. Now I’ve got work to do, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind, actually. Because that’s not all I came in here to say.”
I quirked a brow, settling back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. “Alright then, let’s hear it.”
“I miss you,” he said quietly, and I scoffed.
“You see me every day.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“Here’s the thing, Cal. I have too many eyes on me right now. Every single move I make is under a microscope, and no one is watching more closely than you. I can’t afford to get entangled in something, have it get messy, and our already tenuous work relationship suffer further when shit inevitably hits the fan. I can’t think of any good reason why we should hop back into bed together.”
“How about because the sex is amazing? And we both know you’re not getting that good anywhere else.”
“I could always go back to Owen,” I taunted.
The muscles in his jaw ticked as he ground his molars together. “You wouldn’t.”
He was right, but I didn’t like the confidence in his tone. “You don’t know that.”
“I do know that,” he said, rising from the couch and stalking around my desk, spinning my chair and leaning into my face until we were eye to eye.
With him in my space like this, the déjà vu was intense, bringing me right back to our meeting when he agreed to give me a shoestring budget and three months to roll out my new plans.
I could only assume that’s exactly why he did it. Somehow, he’d figured out he still held all the cards here. This man lived for tipping me off balance, and knew he had perfected the ability to do so. One glancing touch from him and I’d be a goner, so I purposely shrunk myself as small as I could in my chair, careful to avoid brushing against his body in any way.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” he whispered, his breath fanning across my cheeks. “There’s this fucking…tetheraround my chest”—he tapped a spot right over his heart—“pulling me to you constantly. I couldn’t get free, even if I wanted to.”
“And do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you want to get free? Don’t you think our lives would be so much easier without that tether?”
Because he was right: I felt it too, and it scared the ever loving shit out of me.
“Nothing about our lives was easy before we gave into temptation, Mar. The fire between us simply fueled that hatred.”
“And now?”
“Now, the fire fuels something a lot more fun. And, maybe, something more lasting.”
“What are you saying right now?” I asked, voice small, fear and excitement mixing together in my tone.
Almost in slow motion, I watched him reach for me, watched raptly as he dragged his pointer finger along the full length of my right collarbone, trailing it over the silky fabric of my top at my shoulder.
“I want you, Mar. Only you.”
