Page 59 of Obsession

“It’s okay. Shh, Blake. It’s okay.”

I wanted to burrow into her, to hold on like nothing could ever separate us. But I wasn’t a fanciful man. I’d turned my art into an empire, because art for the sake of beauty alone was meaningless. I’d taught myself that so long ago that I almost couldn’t remember when I’d believed otherwise.

Almost.

But Grace did. The ocean-tinted eyes shining up at me under a fringe of curling blond hair, believed in things I couldn’t allow myself.

The trust and hope in her expression was what shut me down. What had me untangling myself from her and backing away.

Not because it was too much, but because Iwasn’tenough.

I stripped off the condom and disposed of it and zipped myself back into my pants. Yet again, I’d kept most of my clothes on.

This time, she had too.

Something else I could regret. Later. First, I had to end this moment before she realized that I was laughably out of my depth.

“I’ll wait for you to get ready,” I said, stepping back.

Every step I put between us felt like a chasm.

“For what? Oh, yes, back on that again.” She shook her head and hopped off the sink. She’d lost one of her heels and she slipped it back on while straightening her clothes.

Somehow what we’d done had barely caused a wrinkle in her skirt or a hair out of place.

It was like that tornado in a bottle I’d made for a school science fair as a kid. In that small space, chaos reigned. Outside it, the air was still, the landscape undisturbed.

I might still be trying to regain my breath, and my tie might be tight enough to choke me, but Grace was already on her way back to normal. And I’d better catch up quick unless I wanted her to know the effect she had on me.

She was my tornado, and the glass walls were so fucking close to shattering.

“Ten minutes, Ms. Copeland.” The words tangled together until I had to practically spit them out. It seemed wrong to call her anything but Grace when her skin was still flushed from what we’d done. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

I turned away, but not before I glimpsed the pure malice that crossed her face. I opened the door and closed it behind me just as something heavy thunked against the door.

Her shoe, maybe. Had to be her shoe.

Oddly, her impulsive action made me smile. She wasn’t quite so unaffected, after all.

I scraped a hand down the back of my neck, collecting the perspiration drying there. My clothes were sticking to me after our exertions.

I needed a shower, long and cold.

And I needed to jerk off under the spray to the memory of her fisting my dick, her soft golden hair clinging to my lips as we ground ourselves into each other.

I started down the hall to my office and glanced at my arm. The cuff was still dangling open, revealing part of my tattoo. Woven through the pattern of thick sepia ink were about a half dozen angry red crescent moons from her nails.

She’d marked me in more ways than one.

Chapter Twenty

She kept me waiting.

It didn’t surprise me. What did, however, was her response when I finally left my office and stopped by her desk, my umbrella tucked under my arm.

“Dammit, I’m not going home with you.”

My eyebrow raised. I wasn’t offended, merely curious. “That might wound me, had I any intention of inviting you to my house.”

---