Page 30 of Resisting Mr Black

“It’s inevitable. We’re going to end up in bed together.”

His brazen reply jolts my brain back into action. “You don’t get to decide if I sleep with you. I do,” I reply tartly.

“Why are you afraid to give in to your feelings?”

My cheeks warm and I look through the passenger window down the drive, uncomfortable in the knowledge that he knows how I feel about him.

“I watch you. When we’re close, when I touch you…” He brushes his palm against the back of my hand and a warm tingle travels up my arm at the contact. I try to control the shudder that threatens to rise from my core. “Your body lights up and you feel alive. I know because I feel it too.”

He feels the same way about me?

My heart gallops in my chest as my gaze slides to him.

“I want you. You want me. Stop fighting it.”

His words ring in my ears. I feel as if I’m standing on the top of a precipice deciding whether to jump or not. It would be so easy to give in and take a step off the edge, but I can’t get hurt again. It’s taken me three years to get over my last relationship. I can’t let someone else break my heart and with him I know it wouldn’t just break in two, it would shatter.

“I’ll take you out to dinner after work.”

I press my lips together at the thought of an entire evening in his company. Given his expensive taste in cars and clothes, he’s bound to dine at only the finest restaurants. And I bet he looks scorching in a suit. “What if I don’t want to go?”

The crease line on his forehead deepens in irritation and I know I’m pissing him off. “But you do want to, don’t you?”

The word “no” sticks in the back of my throat and refuses to come to the fore because it would be an out-and-out lie. I can’t make myself say it and I can’t be around him any longer because I can’t think straight. I’m dangerously close to leaping off the precipice.

“I need to get to work,” I say, pushing open the car door and climbing out.

I make a beeline for my office, hurrying through reception. I don’t hang about to see if he’s following me; right now all I can focus on is getting some headspace. I’m aware that it won’t have gone unnoticed by the other staff that I’ve turned up to work in the manager’s car, but right now I don’t care.

Lucy’s head pops up from behind the desk as I walk on by. I purposefully don’t look in her direction and carry on walking to my office, but it’s no use. I can hear her shoes against the tiled floor, hot on my heels for gossip. I’m really not in the mood.

“So?” she cries the second we’re alone.

“So,” I repeat, dumping my handbag on the desk. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Shit,” she replies flatly. “What are you doing turning up to work with Art?”

“He gave me a lift into work.” I settle down in the chair and switch on my laptop.

“Because he spent the night at yours?” Lucy nods eagerly, waiting for me to fill her in and I know her patience is going to snap very soon if I don’t.

“Yes, but nothing happened.”

She scrambles to sit on the chair opposite and straightens her light-blue blouse over her ample bosom. “You expect me to believe that the extremely sexy guy, who swooped to your rescue last night, stayed over at yours and you didn’t end up shagging?”

“It’s the truth. Believe it or don’t believe it. Nothing happened. I was so drunk I passed out. Even if I hadn’t, I was too drunk to have sex with anyone. He slept on the sofa.”

Lucy rests her chin on her hands and frowns. “Have you at least kissed?”

“No. Have you forgotten how drunk we were last night? My head’s still spinning. I’m never drinking on a work night again,” I warn, opening up my emails.

She sighs, clearly disappointed that I’ve no tantalising gossip to share. “So, what DID happen?”

“He took me home, carried me upstairs, then he made me breakfast this morning, and gave me a lift into work,” I reply. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Her eyes sparkle. “He carried you up to your flat in his arms, stayed over the night to make sure you were okay, then looked after you this morning?”

I throw her an odd look. “You’re over-romanticising it.”

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