Page 15 of Possession

She wasn’t the only one who was blurring the lines of our arrangement.

And it had to stop.

“He was in my house.Mine, Grace. I might fuck you, I might enjoy the hell out of it, and I might even let you tie up my dick because it gets off your kinky little soul. But don’t mistake what I am. Whatthisis.” I nudged her off me and rolled off the other side of the bed. Staring at the wall, I said words that ripped my throat as I uttered them. “You were my assistant. Now you’re not even that.”

Then I walked out of the room.

It was only when I stepped out on the porch to grab the morning paper that I realized I hadn’t told her about the class. More important than how I’d met her grandmother, that class had been how I’d met Grace. How I’d fallen in love with glass.

And I couldn’t ever tell her, because then she would know how hard it was becoming for me to separate the two.

Chapter Four

Iexpected her to leave. Any other woman would have, probably while throwing a few pieces of expensive statuary at my head. I wouldn’t have blamed her, either. I’d been cruel, moments after she’d cried over her grandmother.

What kind of man was I?

Oh, that’s right. I was a bloodthirsty, heartless, ruthless bastard from the streets who’d fought and clawed my way out of them. I wasn’t going to forget my roots and play the role of Grace’s white knight.

Not now, not ever.

I might delude myself when I needed to come that she belonged to me. That when I had a gun in my hand and her behind me that I would die to keep her safe. But in the light of day, she was just a woman, and I was just a man surrounded by the scattered pieces of a family who barely even acknowledged me and a company that I’d sacrificed everything for to create.

I wouldn’t be diverted again.

When she came downstairs around lunchtime in just a short silky robe with her hair loose and wet from the shower—apparently, she enjoyed bathing more than once a day—I didn’t even look away from the financial reports scrolling on the TV. She’d probably come to tell me she was leaving, and I had no intention of reacting one way or another.

She was free to go. I was having my security people head to the Marblehead house today to fit the property with a state-of-the-art system, so beyond gathering the rest of her things, she wouldn’t be in danger since she would no longer have free lodging there.

Her days of sneaking onto the property were over. As difficult as it was, she needed to let go of the past.

So did I.

But she wasn’t about to be ignored. She sat on the coffee table in front of the couch, her bare legs bumping mine either by accident or by design. Then she leaned backward on her hands, the movement enough to make her robe gape. One glance was all it took for me to glimpse the side of her pale full breast, pressed tight to the fabric. Goddamn her.

“I want my job back.”

My fingers tightened around my pencil. I’d resumed studying the figures on the legal pad in my lap rather than ogle her taut nipples outlined by her satin kimono, but that statement brought my attention right back to her.

Only to realize she was pulling aBasic InstinctSharon Stone move and wasn’t wearing any fucking panties. She was sitting in front of me, legs spread but not lewdly so, hair swinging, asking for her job back while she was the next thing to naked. Knowing how it would seem and not caring.

She was using her weapons to play me now, and I’d be damned if I fell right in line.

“I fired you.”

“Yes, you did. It wasn’t for cause. You know I’m the best damn assistant you’ll ever have. No one else can work with your cantankerous ass.” She leaned forward and the kimono didn’t entirely move with her. The material was still far too open, and I had to curl my hands into fists beside my hips to stop myself from ripping it apart to get to the multiple treasures beneath.

Those firm, perfect breasts. That sweet, succulent pussy I could still taste when I swallowed. I wanted nothing more than to sink into the haven between her creamy thighs, even as her knowing eyes sparkled with their witchy secrets.

Witches didn’t scare me. But Grace Copeland’s power over me fucking terrified me.

“I’m not hiring.”

“Oh, really? You’re not hiring or you’re not hiringme?”

I leaned forward until we were nose to nose. “Where’s your résumé? Written in soap crayon beneath your tits?”

She set her jaw for just long enough that I thought maybe she’d go away and leave me be.

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