Page 6 of Her Innocent CEO

“Does Ms. Singleton smoke?” he asks, making my face a puzzle but I nod.

“Uh… yeah, she does,” I tell him, feeling a little stab of hurt he’d want to even talk about her.

But his fingers stroke mine and he pulls me closer. He smells like a man should.

Subtle but strong, sweet but spicy and something else… Money.

He literally smells of money.

Fresh, crisp bills.

I dunno, for me it’s like gasoline. I shouldn’t like the smell but I just do. It does something to me.

But even if he smelled like old gym socks, I couldn’t care less.

Maddox Mapleton is the hottest man alive and his eyes are telling me he wants to do more than just hold my hand.

Chapter Five

Maddox

I don’t have much time, but for Jasmine… being with Jasmine. It feels like every second is forever and I just want more of her, forever.

I’d happily stay in this office forever with her if I could, but we need to get moving.

The fact she’s helped with a place for me to escape to, as well as showing me with her eyes and her body that she wants it. She wants me. She’s the all or nothing now.

I only need to stay out of jail long enough so I can be with her.

Business and money be damned.

But if I can keep both…

“Does she have a lighter somewhere?” I ask her, not wanting her to frown at the mention of Karen Singleton or anything else even for one second.

“Filthy habit,” I murmur with a grin as Jasmine hands me a gold colored lighter from the same drawer the hotel key card came from.

“Why do you need that?” Jasmine asks, reading the new mischief in my eyes.

I press my own finger to my lips thoughtfully and walk briskly back to her desk long enough to fetch my laptop, then stride back into Karen Singleton’s office, flipping open the screen and bringing up the building’s control panel.

“We need a way out,” I remind her. “And it’s probably easier to only saturate one floor of the building,” I muse to myself, shutting down all the automatic fire sprinklers on every floor except ours.

“Perfect!” I mutter to myself, but feel Jasmine’s eyes on me.

Concerned.

“Umbrella?” I ask her, scanning the room but not seeing anything of much use.

I see the light go on in Jasmine’s eyes and she opens a closet next to the bathroom door, producing two umbrellas.

“Atta girl!” I tell her, smiling wide and feeling my heart lift as she smiles back.

She has great teeth, and she looks even more like a goddess when she’s smiling.

Note to self: Keep her smiling.

The sound of the doors at reception rattling, then being pounded on interrupts us both.

Jasmine’s eyes grow wide with fear, and I realize it’s not a look I like on her. It doesn’t suit her to be afraid or worried.

“Looks like our friends want to play already,” I growl, and giving Jasmine instructions to open the doors on my cue, I tell her to tell them she had to use the ladies.

“It’s why you locked the door,” I prompt her, relieved when she nods, having caught on.

“Here,” I tell her, handing her one of the umbrellas. “You might want this.”

She moves quickly back to her desk and I hang back in the doorway to the bathroom in her boss’s office.

On my command, she unlocks the frosted glass doors, and four guys come spilling in, demanding to know why she locked them out.

Explaining it only as a woman knows how, they’re all pretty ashamed of themselves and apologize to her, which is nice but not enough to save them from a soaking.

Locking myself in the bathroom, I stand on the edge of the toilet seat, lighting the lighter and holding the flame to the sprinkler in the ceiling.

In seconds the heat ruptures the valve and the alarm sounds, a deafening high pitch siren that’s made all the more annoying by a torrent of water spraying from above.

I’m drenched in seconds but grabbing my umbrella, I pop it open and use it as a shield to cover me until I make it back to Jasmine.

Our four friends are taken by surprise, but are more surprised to see two figures bustling past them with umbrellas in the chaos as they radio for help.

“Gentlemen,” I say to one of them, nudging past as I shield Jasmine from them all with my body, opening the private elevator again which will takes us straight down and out of the building.

It all happens so quickly, so perfectly, that before anyone even knows what’s happened, both Jasmine and I have left the floor and are plummeting in silence towards the basement.

“You have a car?” I ask her, realizing I forgot earlier.

She nods her head, water spraying from her hair as she folds up her umbrella, signaling me to do the same.

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