Page 12 of Sensual Games

“Don’t blame anybody but yourself for that one.”

“I’m not interested in blaming anybody for anything. I was glad my idea was approved. That’s all that matters.”

“Of course,” I offered with a smirk. “Because you’re so altruistic.”

“Wow. I have to admit, I’m impressed. That’s a pretty big word.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, and I’d be damned if some perverse part of me didn’t warm in anticipation. I wanted a fight. I craved it. What the hell did that say about me?

“Last I checked, you like when I use big things, Poison. Words, my hands, other parts of my anatomy…” I trailed off, grinning when she blushed to the roots of her hair.

“Could you not be so unprofessional?” she hissed. “We both know that was then, and this is now. You don’t have to throw it in my face.”

“What are you so afraid of?” I challenged, egged on by the way her shoulders crept up around her ears. “We’re alone. You don’t have to pretend.”

“Who’s pretending?” She pushed back from the desk, wearing the irritating smile she put on at moments like this. “I’m not interested in rehashing the past. What matters is the work I’m doing now, which was going well until you showed up. Now you’ve completely destroyed my flow, so I’m going to go home and continue there.”

“Are you sure you aren’t in a hurry to meet your boyfriend?” I nodded to the phone on her desk. “Let me guess. He doesn’t like you working late.”

“Wow. When you’re off, you’re off by a mile.” Instead of explaining what that meant, she laughed softly, pulling her leather shoulder bag from the deep drawer under her desk.

I tried not to ogle her ass when she bent over, but I wasn’t successful. She was right there, in front of me, practically begging to be touched in the tight skirt, molding itself to her curves. And I knew just how she liked it, whether she pretended otherwise or not.

“So you weren’t sitting here asking some guy to understand why you couldn’t meet up tonight? I know what I heard.”

“What you overheard,” she amended, rolling her eyes. “And, of course, that’s where your mind went because you probably never had to split your time between work and a sick relative. I was talking to my mother,” she explained in an almost ominously quiet voice. “She’s been in a nursing home for the past eight months after having a stroke. She needs nursing care much more than anything I could provide on my own, and I’m all she has in the world. I was supposed to visit tonight, but I got too caught up in what I was working on to make it during visiting hours.” She pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin, giving me a superior stare. “Is there anything else you would like to know, or can I go now?”

Fuck me. I could count on one hand the number of times I had felt so intensely like a dick. “I wasn’t aware of that,” I admitted. My opinion of her softened a little before I could help it. What would it be like, balancing a job like hers with a sick parent and nobody else to fall back on?

“No shit,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “I’m just saying, maybe you shouldn’t make assumptions, Lucian.”

“Oh? I thought I was Mr. Diamond.”

“During working hours,” she snapped back, then glanced at her phone. “And we are well beyond working hours. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to get home.”

I must not have moved fast enough for her. She brushed against me on her way around the desk and wobbled a little as if I knocked her off balance. Without thinking, I reached out and took her arm, the breath catching in my throat when a chill ran through me.

She looked down at my hand and then met my gaze. Fuck, why did it have to be this way? Everything came rushing back in full color. Her moans echoed in my ears, and the memory of her ambrosial sweetness danced across my tongue. I didn’t know women like her existed in real life until the night we spent together. A night I would gladly have relived even now.

To hell with right and wrong. To hell with my pride. I wanted to have this woman again and couldn’t pretend otherwise.

“Lucian,” she warned, eyes darting back and forth. “There are people here. This isn’t right.” Her words held no conviction, and the desire burning behind her beautiful orbs told me she wanted this just as much as me.

“What isn’t?” I pulled her closer, soaking in her warmth after being without it for so goddamn long. Hating who she was didn’t seem to make a difference when it came to loving the way her pussy gripped my cock.

“This. You know what I mean.” So what was with the soft gasp when I backed her against her desk? When I lowered my head, inhaling the vanilla citrusy scent of her perfume. She shivered but didn’t resist.

The cleaning staff was on the other side of the floor. I could barely hear the vacuums from back here. Nobody saw me brush my lips over the seashell curve of her ear. “You are much too tense, Poison. Let me help you with that. You know how good it is when I do.”

“Which is it?” Her breath was hot against my neck before her lips grazed my scruff-covered jaw. “You want me, or you hate me? It can’t go both ways.”

“Who says?” I looked her in the eye, barely able to breathe, when I found the same deep, blazing passion that had haunted my dreams for weeks. My dick was hard as steel, and every instinct demanded I take her to my office and bend her over the desk.

“Me.” Blazing passion turned to something sharp and cold before she gave her arm a yank, freeing it from my grip. “You need to make up your mind.”

This time, I didn’t bother trying to stop her. She wanted to go? She could be my guest. If anything, she did me a favor. A few drinks, and I’d fuck damn near anything, apparently. Including the woman working her ass off to unseat me. No one could convince me otherwise. How could I have lost sight of that?

Oh, right. I was horny as hell, and she was the most memorable fuck of my life. My dick was still painfully hard as I watched her walk away, swinging her hips with every quick step. Eager to get home and work on her presentation at a meeting I was supposed to lead. But not so eager that she glanced back at me, her cheeks tinged pink. Our eyes collided before she snapped her head back round.

I had a long weekend ahead of me, but the work would pay off when I crushed this meeting and Ivy’s hopes along with it. Sick mom or not, she needed to learn once and for all who she was up against.

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