Page 38 of His Pretty Little Duet

With a soft growl, I crawl to my feet, angry this primitive sensation is controlling me, making the world hazy at the edges. I pull a towel from the rail, wrap the soft white material around me, and pout my way into the bedroom.

Fuck.

My eyes hit Clay.

I fist the towel at my chest, holding it high, feeling my heart a frantic tattoo vibrating on the other side. I stare wide-eyed at him sitting on the edge of the mattress, intensity consuming his gaze.

Dressed in a black suit and smooth black silk tie, he continues to stare at me as though his gaze was drilling holes through the door moments before I entered.

“You didn’t finish,” he says, his tone strained and rough.

I gasp.

He can’t mean... Did he hear me?

Blood pumps into my cheeks, the heat radiating like fire directly beneath my thin layers of skin.

He rises, and I sidestep from the blazing trail his eyes have me marked in. What is he doing in here? I will my mouth to tell him to get out.Fuck, what am I thinking? It's his house... I can't just tell him to leave.

Walking slowly to my backpack on the floor, I hold my breath along with any protests. My mind a siren of white noise while my sanity hides in the drone of it all. Ignoring the thick clouds of indecency closing in on me, I frantically search for clothes inside the blue canvas. Clothes. I need clothes.

I feel him come up behind me, and I immediately straighten, before the expensive material of his suit touches my shoulder, and a big warm hand feeds up through my hair.

It wasn't in my head.

I'm not just an obligation.

Not just his responsibility.

I gasp at the sensation of his touch. Flutters rush from my toes to my scalp, as he fists the strands tightly.

God, air.

I need it.

His shoes hit my heels as he walks me to the seating area in the corner of the room.

My bare feet slide across the floor. His shoes rap menacingly. When my shins touch the cushion, he stops me from falling forward with his hold on my hair.

His breath blankets the nape of my neck. “I want to touch you, but I won't,” he states while his grasp tightens and tugs on my hair, pulling my chin to the ceiling. A warning sting of sensation rushes along my crown. "You're a very naughty girl for showing me your body by the poolside. For letting me hear your sweet moans."

“Why can't you touch me?Why?”I breathe the last word, a panting sound that is now my chorus.

Remember those red flags, Fawn?

He has a wife.

He's twice your age.

He's dangerous...

God, I could write an extensive list, and yet, I don't give a shit. "Because of your wife?"

He chuckles, the rumble deep and delicious, and God, I love that sound more than any other. "No, Fawn. Aurora doesn't care who I touch. We don't have a physical relationship."

I squeeze the towel, holding it in place, as though it is ready to drop to the floor of its own accord in response to his statement. Even inanimate objects obey him.Yep, enchanted house. I knew it.The enchanted towel believes his word to be infallible... But do I believe him?'Do I'and'should I'seem to be duelling concepts here.

The memory of his wife's soft, unaffected smile as he cradled my unborn baby, flashes behind my eyes. How can that be? Is that just a line? He doesn't strike me as the kind of man who endures or offers lies.

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