Page 14 of Possession

I wrapped a hank of her hair around my fingers and tugged. “You would think so. Damn creative sort.”

“You’re creative too. That you hide it doesn’t change the reality.”

Ignoring her, I stared over her shoulder at the windows. The pale pink-gray light of morning was slipping into the room. The sky was growing lighter by the moment.

And I had a woman in my bed, in my house. She was curled up on my chest, her body soft and warm, her tears still drying on my skin.

There were needs in her eyes. Ones beyond sex that I wasn’t capable of filling.

The muscles in my shoulders tensed. I shouldn’t be doing this. Men like me weren’t meant for cuddling after sex. Not with all the lies and necessary deflections between us. That we’d eliminated hers tonight didn’t change the reality that she wanted something that was now mine. Or all of the things in my past I wasn’t about to share, no matter how relaxed we were after fucking our brains out.

The longer she stared at me with her vulnerable eyes, the less relaxed I was, anyway. I wasn’t the man she was looking for. I didn’t want to be.

Liar.

“What about your father? Were you close?” She skated her nail over my collarbone, and I nearly hissed at the renewed blood flow in my dick. Some parts of me might be searching for sense when it came to Grace Copeland. My cock wasn’t one of them.

“Keep that up, and I will be.”

“What?” She frowned and glanced at her hand, then she gave herself a little shake. “Oh. Sorry. Really? Your collarbone is an erogenous zone?”

“It is when you’re stretched out on top of me.” I spread my legs enough for her to fall into the gap between them and my growing erection nudged her hip.

Her lips parted on a sigh.

There, that was better. Keep things in the arena where they were supposed to be. Work. Fucking. Maybe even a kind of uneasy friendship.

But no more.

Nothing personal. There couldn’t be.

“Were you close?” she asked again. She slid her gaze back to her finger tracing over my skin. She understood my diversionary tactics all too well. “You and your father.”

“My father is dead. God rest his stupid black soul.”

Her head snapped up. “How can you say that about your own father?”

“Easily. He was a stupid motherfucker who played with things he shouldn’t have, and he got his head blown off. It was no kind of loss, not for any of us. Did you miss the part where he screwed around with his cleaning lady while he was married? That wasn’t the first time, either. He did it other times too, but not all of the women got pregnant. That was his MO. He hired women to work for him, and he took advantage?—”

I fell silent, but she was already shaking her head. “Don’t. That’s not like this. I came to work for you under a ruse. I never intended to get a job in your company. Never intended to like it. Toloveit.” The heat thrumming through her voice didn’t do anything but piss me off.

I didn’t need her to defend me about anything.

She didn’t know it yet, but I’d done things that were indefensible. I was my father’s son. As much as I might hate myself for it, the facts were the facts.

“How do you know it was the first time?” I asked softly, deliberately pushing her away. She was too warm, and it was too easy for me to curl into her, to confess my whole sordid life story to her in the waning hours of the night.

Because I had this sick idea she would understand and not judge. Sheshouldbe judging me. I didn’t want her viewing my actions in anything but the correct light.

An asshole I might be, but I would never pretend to be someone else.

“I don’t.” Her voice, her expression, hell, even her body had cooled. But she wasn’t moving away. “I don’t know much about you when it comes right down to it, now do I?”

“That’s for the best. For your own good.”

“Yet I let you tie me up a little while ago. Sounds an awful lot like I trust you, which makes me a colossal idiot, huh? If not for the fact that you played my white knight just a few hours ago. You shot a man, and you were protectingme. Lie to yourself all you want. Don’t lie to me, Blake.”

I already have. So many times. That it was getting harder to do meant nothing other than I needed space.

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