Page 81 of Guarded King

A hot surge of lust floods my veins and I bite back a groan. It takes everything in me not to tell her that she hasn’t seen anything. That I could easily spend all night making her come over and over before I let my own satisfaction take me.

She bites her lip in an effort to hold back her smile, even though her eyes dance with it.

It hits me in the gut. My too-young, too-pretty assistant, whose smiles I’ve become obsessed with and whose touch I’ve been craving, is playing with me.

And I hate how much I fucking love it.

“You know what happens when you play with fire, don’t you?” I say, my voice low and rough.

If I thought my words would have her backpedaling, I was wrong.

Even as her cheeks flush, she cocks her head. “I imagine I’ll get very, very hot.”

We stand too close, the air between us crackling with enough desire to drown us both. With too much intimacy to pretend that all we are in this moment is a boss and an employee.

With sheer force of will, I step back. It hurts, the way her face falls, but I’m doing the right thing by both of us. There’s no way giving in to this attraction could lead to anything good.

“Come on.” The words come out gruff. “I can’t have my assistant wilting on her feet because I didn’t feed her.”

In response, her stomach grumbles loudly. She presses her hand against it while letting out a self-conscious laugh.

“Let’s go eat.” I do my best to smooth out my tone.

She exhales. “Okay, that would be lovely.”

I feel it the moment she steps back into her role, the distance opening between us more than just physical.

It’s what I need—what webothneed—in order to keep our relationship professional.

There’s nothing professional about the way my hand automatically finds the small of her back as we make our way to the car, but I ignore the implication. It’s become a habit, and I’m not ready to break it just yet.

I’ll work on that once we’re back in New York, along with restoring the boundaries between us.

That’s what I tell myself. But twenty minutes later, when we pull up at our dinner venue, the one I chose just for her, the look on her face as she peers out the window lights me up inside.

Eyes wide, she turns to me. “Is this it?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHLOE

The corners of Roman’s mouth curl. “Why? Are you surprised?”

He knows very well that I wasn’t expecting this. But I won’t hold his cockiness against him. Not when I’m absolutely delighted. “I am, actually. This isn’t where I imagined you’d want to eat.”

The driver opens the door for me, and with one more glance at Roman, I climb out. On the narrow sidewalk, I look up at the quaint wooden front of the bistro in front of me. The cozy space on the other side of the large windows is lit by wall sconces and full of chattering diners sitting at tables covered with red and white-checked tablecloths.

Roman steps up beside me, his head dipped like he’s trying to hide his smile. “That’s because you assume I only eat food worthy of a Michelin star.”

I gape at him, my pulse going haywire and my mind flashing back to the night we worked late and ordered from my favorite pizza place.

“Because you’re a billionaire who wears thousand-dollar suits, rides around in a chauffeur-driven car, only dateswomen who look like supermodels, and probably has a home chef to whip up food worthy of a Michelin starred restaurant.”

He remembered that comment? Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s the most detail-oriented person I know.

“So you brought me to a hole-in-the-wall Parisian bistro?”

He shrugs his broad shoulders. “I thought after a long day you might be more comfortable eating here than a fine-dining restaurant. And the food is amazing.”

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