Page 12 of Tempting the King

Firecracker.

That’s the word that’s been on repeat inside my head since the moment I saw her standing in the bar last night. Even Victor keeping me up half the night playing Call of Duty in my living room didn’t prevent me from waking up hard, dreaming of her soft curves riding my face.

But, Jesus, up close she’s a thousand times more beautiful. She’s a fucking knockout.

She deserves to be painted on the side of some vintage World War II bomber.

The way her green eyes glimmer as she sizes me up with obvious pleasant surprise is making my nutsack tighten and my balls start to fill.

I even forget about the lingering pounding in my head from that beer bottle shot.

“Look,” she says, scratching at the top of her head. She’s so fucking cute, I want to carry her around on my hip for the rest of my life. “Last night needs to stay outside this office. I hope you read through the Code of Conduct that Dr. Hoffman said he emailed you yesterday. You did sign the documents electronically, but that doesn’t mean you read and understood them. This is a platonic, professional relationship. So, we need to forget about last night.”

“I don’t even get a thank you?”

My fingers twitch, wanting them around her throat, desperate to feel her pulse pounding against my hand.

But that’s not the only pounding I’m thinking about.

I imagine rolling down those black stretch pants, stripping the pink t-shirt with its Bristol Empathetic Counseling Yin-Yang logo off her head. It’s making it hard to think of anything but what she might taste like.

There’s a hint of citrus and cherries in the air around her. Sweet and tart. Just like she looks. A vent in the ceiling blows cool air onto my damp hair, making me shiver against the ball of heat ricocheting around inside me like an out-of-control pinball.

Sweat trickles down the indent of my spine as my mouth turns drier than the Sahara. She’s got just the thing to quench my thirst, and I’m not talking about water.

As she stares, her sparkling green eyes narrow, lips popping together as an uneasy and unfamiliar tension centers around my heart.

I fucking care about this girl. More than I should. More than I have ever cared about a woman before.

Except my mom, but that doesn’t count.

How dare she wiggle herself through my hard shell with barely a look?

“I appreciate that you understood I was in an uncomfortable position. However,” She clears her throat with this cute as fuck little defiant stare, her fists pressing into her womanly hips, then finishes, “you need to learn to control your violent outbursts. That’s the reason you’re here. And I do not need a man to save me. I am perfectly capable of saving myself.”

Hell, yeah. Give it to me, firecracker.

“That so?” My eyes drift from hers for a moment, taking in the controlled space around us. Clean, white, neat, without frills or anything that makes the space feel like she belongs here with her unruly copper waves and state-of-the-art curves.

I note the way everything on her desk is set up in grid like organization, and I want to make a mess of her office while making a mess of her more than I want to breathe.

Instead of crushing my lips to hers in a sloppy kiss, then shoving her to her knees, showing her she’s mine now, I say, “I like your hair better today.”

See, Firecracker? I can control myself.

Her eyes snap wide, brow furrowed, silence falling from her open lips as I run the flat of my hand up and down my chest, watching her gaze drop, eyes lighting up before her cheeks ripen deep pink, as she gobbles up an eyeful of my hearty gray sweatpants-salute from down below.

“Mr. Hertzof.” She stumbles for a beat on my name as I reach forward to spin her phone that’s sitting perfectly perpendicular to her keyboard a few degrees to the left. Everything here is at ninety-degree angles. It’s unsettling. “You are here for a service, a platonic service.”

“You mentioned that already,” I reply, running my hand through my hair, wondering if she’s reminding me or herself.

Her face is clean and fresh. Fucking glowing.

Last night she was more made up, but today, she’s all business and more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever seen. And her freckles?

I’m memorizing each one as I wonder if she shaves her pussy bare or if she has a little strawberry blonde bush for me to rub my face against.

The points of her nipples are waving hello through the pink fabric of her t-shirt, and I imagine them as the same color. I groan through my teeth, my mouth going from dry to drowning, my gaze devouring the lush lines of her body, already knowing I’m going to spend the rest of my life drinking at the heavenly fountain between her legs.

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