“Really?” she derided. “I thought I just asked you not to lie to me? Because you’ve never once acted like you wanted anything to do with me.”
“Ha!” He punched the side of his fist into the red emergency button, stalling the elevator with a jar and a short buzz, making her stagger and reach for the rail. “The very fact that you can’t read the signs tells me how ill-suited you are for an affair. But, just so we’re crystal clear, cara, I don’t care about that, either. I want you.”
She couldn’t look away from him, fascinated by the way his gold-brown eyes shot glittering shards of bronze.
He stepped closer, setting one hand then the other on the wall next to her head, leaning in. “I wanted you when you smiled across the lobby and you were already under suspicion, so I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. I wanted you when I looked at this...” His boiling metal gaze slid down her front, scalding her. “And I knew every other man in the world was looking at you, too.” His gaze flashed up, bright and piercing. “I want to kill each and every one of them,” he added tightly. “Especially Jensen.”
Her knuckle bumped his side and she realized her hand had lifted of its own volition, moving to press against her chest and keep her heart inside its cage. It slammed hard and fast.
He looked at her splayed fingers. “Scared?”
“I honestly didn’t think you...” Her voice trailed off as his expression hardened with accusation.
“How could you not know? You look at me constantly. I feel it. How could you not be aware that I’m watching you, too?” He picked up her hand and pressed it to his own chest, where his heart punched against her palm. “You felt this in the car, when just my touch made you scream with pleasure. How could you not know it’s the same for me?”
Emotion pressed at the backs of her eyes and thickened her throat.
He watched her struggle to swallow and cupped his hand under her jaw, palm against her throbbing artery, thumb caressing the hollow below her ear.
“The only thing holding me back, mia bella, is your indecision. Have you made up your mind yet? Do you want cheap, physical gratification?” The bitterness in his tone scraped at something in her, making her squirm in a kind of guilt.
She had hurt him with that? She searched his eyes, the windows into his soul. “What else would it be?” she asked in a near whisper.
His lips hardened and his brow lowered in consternation. “I don’t know. But it would be a hell of a lot more than that.”
She lifted her hand to the side of his face, drew him in and pressed a kiss of apology onto his mouth. It was perfect and sweet and healing.
And a mistake.
With a moan from her and a tortured groan from him, they laced themselves together, mouths opening with instant passion, dragged together like magnets meeting its attractor. His fingers dug into her back, her bottom, crushing her close. She arched into his steely body, loving his strength and the smell of him and that firm evidence of arousal that was not purely incidental, but his reaction to her.
He pressed her into the wall with his body, stilling the rock of her hips with a hard pin of his own. “You want me,” he said against her lips. It was a demand for confirmation.
“I do,” she admitted with an ache of helpless need.
“Now?”
“Wh-what?” She opened her eyes to see a fiery passion in him that was barely controlled. This man who seemed to have command of the entire world was so affected by her, he was looking at her with a kind of desperation. She thought she could feel each pulse pound in him, rocking his entire being.
“Here?” she asked. She was achy and heavy and ready. The thought of waiting until they were upstairs—it was too far.
This was insanity. Complete insanity.
“No?” He shuffled closer, feet between hers, one hand going to the slit in her skirt, finding her bare thigh and stroking across her skin like magic. “If not here, say so now.”
She might have hung on to a shred of decorum if he hadn’t found the front of her lace undies and traced lightly while his mouth found the side of her neck at the same time. Need flooded through her at that light caress. She gasped with longing, clinging to his shoulders, trying to keep her knees locked so she wouldn’t wilt right to the floor.
“Open my pants,” he said, breath hot on her skin while the nibble of his lips made her shiver with pleasure and that exploring touch worked past the edge of lace into wetness and need. She made a guttural sound of pure excitement as he circled and pressed the swollen bud he found. His other hand was gathering her skirt out of the way, lifting her bare thigh to his hip, opening her to his flagrant touch.