Page 101 of A Dusk Of Stars

I contemplate getting up and taking my work elsewhere, when I hear him get out of his chair. This time, I force myself not to even glance in his direction.

Then I hear him clear his throat and say, “Alright, people, time to wrap things up.”

Now that makes me look up, my eyebrows shooting up.

“We’re done whenIsay we’re done, Bane,” Lorcan warns.

Bane throws him a forced smile. “Scorpio is in Mercury today,” he says. “Miss Novak has an excellent opportunity to establish a better connection with her wolf this afternoon. Unless… You want her to miss it.”

“Of course we don’t,” Serra says.

Excitement floods me.

I turn to look at Lorcan, who’s thinking. “Fine,” he finally replies. “We’ll continue this tomorrow, seven AM sharp.”

Everyone starts getting up to leave. I get out of my chair as well. And I’m still under the impression of Bane’s weird behavior, but this is important, so I push all my shit aside, I turn to look at him and I say, “Let’s go. You can walk me through it on the way to the gym.”

“We won’t be needing the gym for this,” he replies as he pushes his chair back under the table.

“Good luck, Anna,” I hear Raven say and I look over my shoulder to wave to her and Alaric just as they disappear through the door and shut it behind them.

I turn to face Bane again, finding him walking around the table to where I’m standing.

“You sure you want us to do ithere?” I ask, my eyebrows pulling down when I see how intently he’s looking at me.

“So serious,” he teases in his bedroom voice, the contrast to how he’d ignored me throwing me off a little.

Maybe it was all in my head, and even if it wasn’t… I don’t care. I just want to hear him say more stuff to me in that tone.I find myself walking over to him with my arms folded and an eyebrow quirked. “Why? What would you like me to be?” I ask in a teasing, sultry voice.

He lets out a scoff, but there’s a flash of hunger in his eyes. “Two things,” he starts as he pulls my hands away from my chest and presses my core to himself with an arm around my waist. “One, wearing a lot less than this.” He locks eyes with me, the deft fingers of his free hand making my breath hitch as they start work on unbuttoning my shirt. “Two, looking at me like you did during the whole meeting.”

Meeting. Opportunity. Fuck.

Forcing myself to refocus, I pry his fingers away just as they start sliding under the shirt, cupping my breast. “We might not have a lot of time, you know better than I do how time-sensitive these things can be,” I say.

He just hums, his eyes fixed on my lips as he moves in for a kiss.

“No, I need you to stop,” I say, trying my best to sound firm and ignore the gnawing need for him in the pit of my stomach.

His lips come to hover in front of mine just before he whispers, “You mean, you need me, period.”

The words… They make me clam up, instantly and completely. I raise my palms to his shoulders and push him away.

I turn my back to him so he can’t see the discomfort on my face and I fold my arms. “You said we’d be making a breakthrough this afternoon,” I insist, trying not to sound too cold.

I sense him get closer. “Yeah, we will be,” he replies in a smoldering voice. “After a week-long siege, I’m about to penetrate an impenetrable fortress.”

He tries to grab me, but I just duck out of his reach and turn to face him with a frown. “My shifting, Bane. What kind of opportunity were you talking about?”

There’s a moment of silence before I see his jaw clench. He takes a step back. “Nothing in particular,” he says with a shrug, his eyes narrowing at me slightly.

I fold my arms. “So you stopped the meeting because you were bored and wanted to fool around?”

“I did,” he says defiantly. “Why? Were we making progress and I somehow failed to notice it?”

“You know, you should start taking this whole thing more seriously.”

It’s with this bitterness in his voice that he says, “I believe you’re taking it seriously enough for the both of us.”

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