Page 42 of The Love Clause

She shrugs, the casual gesture belied by the intensity in her eyes when I risk a glance at her. "I don't play games, Elliot. Not about this. Yes, I want it to happen again. I wanted it to happen right there in that closet, contract signing be damned."

The stark honesty of her admission makes something twist in my chest. I've spent my career—my life—navigating half-truths and strategic omissions, yet here she is, laying her desires bare without hesitation.

"That would have been inappropriate," I manage, falling back on propriety like a shield.

"God forbid we be inappropriate," she mutters. "Heaven knows that's never happened before."

We lapse back into silence as the city skyline appears on the horizon. I should be taking her back to her apartment in Greenwich Village. Our arrangement is complete. The weekend is over. There is no logical reason to prolong our association.

Yet when I reach the exit that would take us toward her neighborhood, I drive past it.

"Um, you missed the turn," she points out, straightening in her seat.

"I know."

"Then where are we going?"

"My apartment."

I don't elaborate. Don't explain the decision that feels less like a choice and more like an inevitability. Don't tell her that the thought of ending this now—of dropping her off with a handshake and a professional goodbye—feels physically painful.

"Okay," she says simply, settling back into her seat. The single word holds neither triumph nor surprise, just quiet acceptance.

Traffic thickens as we approach the city center, forcing me to focus on navigation rather than the implications of my decision. Beside me, Josie fidgets with the radio, eventually settling on a station playing something low and jazzy that fills the car with sound but requires no conversation.

By the time we reach my building, the tension between us has built to an almost unbearable pitch. The doorman greets uswith the same polite deference as always, showing no reaction to Josie's presence despite the fact that I never bring women to my home. Never allow my personal and professional spaces to overlap.

Yet here we are, Josie with Barney's carrier in one hand and her battered duffel in the other, riding the elevator to my penthouse in a silence thick enough to cut.

Inside, she sets the dog carrier down, letting Barney out to explore. He immediately trots around the perimeter of the living room, sniffing baseboards with intense concentration. I should be concerned about dog hair on my Italian leather, about the chaos of another being in my carefully ordered space. Instead, I'm entirely focused on Josie as she stands in my entryway, looking simultaneously out of place and exactly where she belongs.

"Nice place," she says, glancing around. "Very…you."

"Thank you."

Another pause, another moment balanced on the edge of something neither of us is naming.

"So..." She drops her bag, crosses her arms. "Why am I here, Elliot? What is this?"

"I don't know." The admission costs me, truth always more difficult than careful misdirection.

"Yes, you do." She steps closer, fearless as always. "You just don't want to say it."

"What do you want me to say?" I counter, my own frustration rising to match hers. "That I can't stop thinking about you? That watching you with Sullivan made me want to put my fist through a wall? That I've never lost control like this before, and it terrifies me?"

"Yes!" Her eyes flash with triumph and something deeper, more vulnerable. "Yes, exactly that. The truth, for once. Not lawyer-speak or contractual terms. Just the truth."

"Fine." I close the distance between us in two long strides. "The truth is I want you. Still. Again. Despite every logical reason I shouldn't."

Her breath catches, her pupils dilating visibly. "Then take me."

The simple permission—demand—shatters what remains of my restraint. I reach for her, hands framing her face as I capture her mouth with mine. There's nothing gentle about this kiss, nothing measured or controlled. It's possession, pure and simple, every ounce of the frustration and desire I've been fighting laid bare.

She responds with equal fervor, fingers tangling in my hair, body pressing against mine with an urgency that matches my own. I walk her backward until she hits the wall, pinning her there with my body, needing to feel her contained, captured. Mine.

"Bedroom," she gasps when we break for air, her lips already swollen from my attention. "Now."

I lift her, hands gripping her thighs as she wraps her legs around my waist—a mirror of our position in the closet, but with very different intentions. I carry her down the hallway, her mouth finding my neck, my ear, anywhere she can reach, leaving a trail of fire across my skin.

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