Page 119 of Melt for You (Slow Burn 2)
“You enjoyed teasing me over email, didn’t you? Sending me that photo of your earlobe.” He chuckles like a comic book villain. “Clever. If it was your plan to make me obsessed, it worked.”
I start to panic, because he’s acting so strange. “No, there was really no plan—”
He digs his hand into my hair, pulls my head back, and clamps his mouth down on my throat like a vampire. It’s so sudden, I jump, startled out of my wits, then yelp when his hand latches onto my breast and squeezes.
“Michael! You’re hurting me!”
He crushes his mouth over mine.
I shove him away, panting, and raise a hand to my stinging lips. “Dude! Get a grip! I’m not making out with you in a bathroom! In case you didn’t hear me, I just said cool it!”
It’s like my refusal makes Michael snap. He’s there one minute, the familiar, well-mannered man, then he’s vanished, replaced by some random psychopath summoned from a séance gone sideways.
He grabs my upper arms, shoves me up onto the sink, and kisses me again, savagely, his teeth sinking into my tender lower lip. He bends me so far back my head slams against the mirror.
I react on pure instinct and bite him.
“Ow!” He pulls away for a second—breathing hard, astonished—and raises his fingers to his mouth. When they come away bloody, he smiles.
He looks up at me with those psycho eyes, and my blood runs cold. I try to jump off the counter, but he holds me in place, his arms strong from all that stupid squash.
“Let me go!”
“She likes to play rough.” He wrestles my arms behind my back. “Me too.”
He laughs into my ear, and I smell the alcohol on his breath again, searing fumes that make me want to gag. How much has he had to drink? “Stop. Michael, stop!”
“Oh, come on, Joellen, don’t be coy. We both know what we’re doing. You wanted a promotion, right? Did you think those were handed out for free?”
He kisses my neck, pressing his crotch into mine, dragging the hem of my dress up so he can grab a handful of bare thigh. My heart is going like gangbusters with equal parts fear and fury, overlaid by complete disbelief.
“Are you kidding me right now? I said stop!”
“I’ll stop when I’m good and goddamn ready.” His voice is a growl. He curls his fingers around the elastic of my panties where they ride over my hip.
Just as I’m about to let loose a full-throated scream, the door opens. The sound of music swells. Michael and I freeze, looking over to see who’s come in.
It’s Portia.
She’s stiff as a statue in the doorway, eyes wide, mouth formed into a horrified O of shock at the picture Michael and I make on the counter.
My hair is mussed. We’re both breathing hard. My lipstick is smeared all over his mouth. My leg is bent at his waist, and my dress is shoved up so my thigh is completely exposed, all the way up to my panties.
I know exactly what it looks like to her, and it makes me want to throw up.
Portia turns without a word and leaves. The door swings closed behind her.
With all my strength, I shove Michael away. Still off-balance from Portia’s interruption, he staggers back, blinking. I slide off the counter, straighten my dress, then stride over to where he’s standing by the toilet I came out of earlier and slap him as hard as I can across his face.
“You can take your promotion and shove it!”
I run out of the ladies’ room, my vision blurry from the water swimming in my eyes. I hurry through the elegant hallways to claim my coat. Out on the sidewalk, I hail a cab, my breath frosting in puffy white clouds in front of my face, my ears too hot to go numb in the cold.
It isn’t until I’m safely inside the cab and have given the driver my home address that I break down and start to cry.
THIRTY-ONE
When Cam opens to my knock, I throw my arms around his shoulders and bury my face in his neck.
