Page 76 of Possession

And I would, probably for hours. Anything to jog my recollection. Still, I couldn’t grasp those little whispers of memory.

Now, I had this hulking, intense version of that boy living in the epicenter of my world.

I looked down to see my fingers grasping the edges of his shirt.

His chest was expanding with tension and the air between us crackled. How could I not remember this between us?

It felt like it had to have always been there. From that first day in his office with his glasses between his teeth and his gaze zeroing in on me—almost a foregone conclusion.

Why didn’t it register before?

Was I that oblivious?

The fact that I had to ask myself that question was frustrating and pathetic. And not the point of this conversation. As usual, the heavy tension and anger superseded my focus on the matter at hand.

I’d resisted voicing my fears, but I couldn’t ignore them anymore. “Do you think my grandmother was into something illegal?”

“I think you know the answer to that already.”

“I just don’t understand why. She wasn’t that kind of person when I was a child. I’m certain of it. What changed?”

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I wish I could give you an answer.”

“Me too.” I released the edges of his shirt and smoothed them down as I slowly buttoned it closed. His nostrils flared and that jaw tic started up again.

Awareness bloomed to life. The tie thing was a kink I hadn’t known I had before I met him.

So many things he’d awakened in me.

I got to the bottom of his shirt and the back of my fingers brushed over his increasing hardness.

I ached to curl my fingers around his shaft, to drag my thumb over and around his head until he finally groaned, but I didn’t. The need to button him up was more important than touching his skin right now.

I skirted around him to his walk-in closet and selected a cranberry-colored tie with a thin navy line. When I turned back to him, he was standing in the same spot, his hands fisted at his sides.

I wasn’t sure if he was indulging me or preparing to strike. Cordelia and Gunn were arguing in the background on the TV, but I had one focus.

Him. Always him.

I circled him, trailing my fingertips over the wide plane of his back, the hard curve of shoulder and pecs, to the buttons again. I walked up the placket of buttons to his collar and flipped it up.

He lifted his chin and looked down at me through his lashes. My nipples beaded up until they showed under the heavy material. I was wearing a matching shirt, mine in snowy white. He seemed to like me in his clothes.

He wouldn’t say it, but his body language was the only way I could figure him out, anyway.

Just like now.

Yet again, I was teetering on a precipice, and it was labeledBlake Carson. I was either going to plummet to a fiery crash or fall even harder for this man.

I still wasn’t sure which was preferable.

I raised my arms to drape the tie around his neck. He didn’t bend to help me. Oh, no, there was no giving an inch when it came to this man. Not now.

Not last night. Last night had been a storm without end.

He’d demanded participation and my submission. And I’d given it. Lord, I’d given it over and over again.

But at the oddest times, he conceded too. It wasn’t all just his way or the highway.

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