“Where are you going now?”
He doesn’t respond.
I scowl. “You can’t just ignore me.”
He keeps walking. Growling, I stomp after him, following him to the office on the second floor.
“You know, I should be mad, not you.”
Shooting me a look that borders on murderous, he drops into his chair and wakes up the computer. He has one of those giant curved screens that I’ve always wanted but could never afford. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I walk around the desk, eyeing the screen.
“What are you doing?”
His fingers fly across the keyboard, moving with the fluid grace of someone who knows their way around a computer, and multiple screens open. He clicks into the first and starts coding. The first lines have me sucking in a breath.
“Mace . . .”
“Cassia,” he says, voice dangerously low. “If you say one more word, I’m going to spank that ass.”
My mouth snaps closed as my pulse’s dull pitter-patter turns into a rapid thud. I watch him create malware faster than I ever could. Eyes flicking from left to right, I follow along with rapt attention, noting pieces of code I recognize and others I never considered using. This isn’t a simple virus. This is a virus that’ll shut a company down for a few days.
“Holy shit.” The words slip out, and the crack of his palm is muffled by the fluffy towel I’m wearing like a tube dress.
I glare down at him.
He spares a second to give me a heated smirk, then gets back to work. The sting of the spank quickly fades, and I cross my arms, keeping my mouth pressed into a firm line as he works. The clack of the keys slows a while later. Mace leans back, reading the code line by line.
My knees are a little annoyed at standing for so long on a hard floor. I shift, and he glances at me, then grabs my hips and pulls me into his lap. My heart jumps into my throat, and I immediately try to stand, but Mace clamps his arms around my waist.
“You know, this could all be considered kidnapping.”
“Shh,” he whispers, breath brushing over my ear and sending a shiver skipping down my spine.
I try again, writhing to try and find a way to break his hold.
“Fuck, Cassia.” The words come out as a deep groan, and his hands lock on my hips to stop the movement. I realize what I’ve done a little too late and gulp as his length rapidly hardens beneath me. Thick and girthy, pulsing.
Jesus Christ, Mace is packing. “Sorry,” I whisper.
One of his hands moves from my hip to my throat, stroking my neck in a shockingly gentle way. “I’m trying to focus,” he murmurs, his hand creating a necklace around my throat and squeezing before drifting down to cup my left breast. “But if you keep rocking that ass against me, I’m going to bend you over and fuck you.”
He pinches my nipple and heat erupts within my core, my body responding like a hussy to being touched. A gasp tumbles from my lips, despite everything in me resisting his words.
“No sex,” I manage to get out, voice tight and high.
His responding chuckle is a seductive caress against my skin. Keeping my body as still as possible, too scared to find out if he’ll follow through on that threat, I focus on breathing. My pants fill the space between us as he continues to massage my breast, tweaking my pebbled peak every once in a while.
Each touch and stroke sends flames of desirethrough my body, heat licking every inch, pooling in my core, the damp swimsuit wet for an entirely different, embarrassing reason.
“This is wrong,” he mutters, removing the hand on my tit to fix a line of code.
How is he focusing?
The hand comes back to my body, but this time, his palm lands on my bare thigh, fingers moving over my skin in slow, sensual strokes, inching higher with each pass. My exhale comes out shaky, and I fight the full body tremble that threatens to take over as his fingers dip below the towel. The warmth of his body is a brand against my skin as he drags his palm down to the inside of my thigh, sliding his fingers between my legs. He pushes his hand between them, wrenching my legs apart just an inch, enough to glide up the length of my thigh, his fingers dangerously close to my cunt.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” I remind him.
He hums. “I heard you.” Clearly, he’s not a good listener, because he grips my pussy with his hand, pressing the heel of his palm against my clit.