Page 94 of Failure to Match

Jackson Sinclair guided my hand forward and pressed it to his chest. Over his heart.

Over his rapidly beating heart.

“Now feel what happens when I do this.” Without warning, he leaned in and brushed a kiss over my cheek.

My body went up in flames.

His pulse jumped under my palm.

“You feel that?” His hot breath grazed my skin, making me shiver. “It likes you.”

I went rigid. Blinked. “I… pardon?”

He didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t understand what “my heart likes you”could be interpreted as, surely.

“My whole body likes you.”

“Jackson…” This was officially too much. We’d crossed another line, and I really didn’t see how we could find our way back from this one.

“Use your safeword, Jamie.” My lashes fluttered when he brushed his lips over my jaw.

I meant to use it, I swear. It waswhyI opened my mouth in the first place. But he nipped at my earlobe just as I was about to thread the correct letters together, and what came out was a ruptured whimper.

“Say it,” he demanded unreasonably. “Tell me to fuck off.”

I would if he’d just stop nibbling on my skin like that for a second. It was so… distracting. And pleasant.

So, so, so pleasant. Why was it so pleasant?

Before I knew what’d even happened, my half-empty glass was discarded, Jackson had looped a muscled arm around my waist, and I was seated comfortably on his lap.

Oh, and my hand was still clamped to his racing chest.

“Is this so bad?” he teased. “Would a year of this be so horrible, Jamie?”

“This is… so inappropriate.”

“You know how to make it stop.” His nose brushed over the shell of my ear, and I quivered against him.

I should’ve insisted we had this conversation back in his office. So many mistakes had been made in such quick succession.

“Tell me some more about how you don’t want my money, so I can tell you exactly how spoiled you’d be as my wife.” He placed a searing kiss on my neck, then nipped at the spot with his teeth. “You wouldn’t have a choice. I’d put it in our marriage contract. You wouldn’t be allowed to say no to me buying you things.”

In my defense, I hadn’t meant to break him like this.

“Jackson—”

“I’m not done.” His eyes were black when he pulled his head back to look at me, his heart pounding against my hand. It was fucking intoxicating. “You’d have your own staff, I’d gift you apartments, clothes, company shares. You’d be financially secure for the rest of your life. What more could you possibly want?”

“I…” I had nothing.

“See?” His midnight gaze dropped to my mouth. “It’s a fantastic deal, so take it.”

I swallowed. “No.”

With a frustrated growl, he pulled me flush against him—pressed me right to his raging erection. It drenched my brain in charged static.

“What else do you want?”

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