She twined her fingers together in front of her and shifted from foot to foot nervously. “The guard makes me uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable how?” I asked, closing the door and slipping out of my suit jacket. I tossed it over the armchair in the corner of the room.
She looked up at me from beneath her lashes, green eyes wide. “He stares at me. And with you gone all day, I’m nervous what he might try to do.”
“Fine. I’ll get you a new guard then.”
And have Aleksei murdered. Samantha was there for me, not to be ogled by him. The idea of him fantasizing about her made my blood boil. I felt my heartbeat in my neck. I did my best to push the thought from my mind. I’d deal with that later. For now, I wanted to focus on Samantha.
“Take off your clothes.”
The bedroom light was off, but the light of early evening was coming through the window, leaving streaks of sunlight across the floor and Samantha’s skin. As she slipped the straps of her bra off her shoulders, she turned slightly, giving me the profile view. Her breasts were round and perky, perfectly shaped, hanging over a flat, tight tummy.
She leaned forward and slid her jeans down her legs. I saw the cut of her lean muscle down the side of her thigh and a delicate bunching at her calf when she pressed up onto tiptoes to step out of her jeans. Still panty less because of my indiscretion the first time I’d seen her naked, she was now naked in front of me, wholly exposed.
I stepped forward, unable to resist, and ran my fingers across her collarbone, letting my fingertips dip into the hollows at her neck and massage the tightness in her shoulders. Her pink lips parted, and I realized that we still hadn’t kissed yet. Everything between us had been sexual up to that point – as I preferred it, honestly – but her lips looked irresistible. I wanted to suck her bottom lip into my mouth and nibble on it. I wanted to claim her mouth until she was gasping for air, gasping for more of me.
Before the thought could take hold of me, I reached around and pulled the box out of my back pocket. Samantha’s eyes flicked down to it, and her brow pulled together in confusion.
“It’s for you,” I said, holding out the maroon box.
The confused look didn’t leave her face as she took the jewelry box from me, holding it in her softly trembling hand. “For me?”
“When you obey me, good things happen,” I said, flipping the lid open for her.
Her mouth opened even further, lips parted in shock. She had probably never seen anything so expensive, let alone held it in her hands.
The necklace sparkled in the sunlight, shining on the wall and ceiling like a disco ball. I pulled it from the box and then took the box from her hand, setting it on the nightstand. With a little prodding, Samantha turned around and lifted her hair so I could place the jewelry around her thin neck. It settled perfectly against her collarbone as if it had been made specifically for her.
For a moment, the look of astonishment on her face made me forget that she was entirely naked in front of me. However, when she turned around, her ass brushed against me, much as it had in my office the day before, and then it was all I could think about. I needed to have her.
Now.
“Does this mean you are officially accepting my offer?” she asked.
I pressed down the rising desire in me, taking a deep breath so I could focus on our conversation.
“Your brother never made any attempts to pay or contact me, so I made my final decision this afternoon. Your offer, assuming you do not back out before full payment has been made, will be satisfactory.”
She nodded and absentmindedly let her fingers drift up to the necklace, fingering each of the stones. “So, he won’t be harmed?”
“He won’t be killed,” I amended.
Samantha took a step back, eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means what I said. I instructed my men to leave your brother alive.”
“You hurt him?”
“Not personally,” I said with a small smile playing at the edge of my lips. “But yes, I’d imagine he is in a great deal of pain at the moment.”
She shook her head. “You weren’t supposed to hurt him again.”
I held up a finger. “That wasn’t part of our deal.”
She looked at me like I’d slapped her. “It was implied. I came here to save him from any more harm.”
“Then I suppose you’ve learned a valuable lesson. The details of a business deal should always be explicit. Nothing is implied or inferred. Either it is made abundantly clear, or you risk being taken advantage of.”