But not now. Now the thought of the blonde left me cold.
Get out of the car, you stupid bastard.
I should get out of the car. Not sit here, hard and annoyed because I wanted a woman I shouldn’t touch.
But I didn’t.
And she was still looking at me in the rear-view mirror, gold glowing through the green in her eyes, like the sun through leaves on a hot summer’s day. Making me realise that I was cold and had been for quite some time.
Except the gold in her eyes now was different from the sunny cheerfulness of before. There was a smoky heat to it that was definitely not forced.
Where there’s heat, there’s fire.
Oh, yes, I could see hints of that fire now, glowing embers in her gaze that wouldn’t take much to ignite...
‘You shouldn’t look at me like that.’ My voice was rough and harsh in the dense silence of the car. ‘Not if you’re not ready to face the consequences.’
‘What consequences?’ Her hands were curled around the steering wheel, making me think of how it might feel to have those delicate fingers wrapped around my cock.
Did she really have
no idea? Could she not feel this tension between us? Static, she’d said back at the hotel, a response that had seemed genuine. Which meant she was probably inexperienced.
Yet another reason for me to get the fuck out of the car and not sit here like a bloody fool, staring into her pretty gold eyes.
‘What consequences do you think?’ I snapped, my temper getting a mean edge. ‘I don’t want to fire you, Miss Little. I want to fuck you.’
Shock flickered over her face. ‘What?’
‘Don’t act so surprised. Did you really think those little glances you kept stealing wouldn’t get me as hard as a rock?’
She blinked rapidly. ‘Uh... Are you sure you’re not talking about the blonde chick? I mean, she was the one who had her hand on...um...you.’
Was she serious? Or was she playing with me? Some women liked that kind of game, but I didn’t. I preferred straight-up honesty, especially when it came to sex.
However, there was no doubting the surprise in Ellie’s eyes: she really had thought it was the blonde.
‘No, I’m not talking about the “blonde chick”,’ I said, increasingly annoyed at the hard-on in my jeans and my apparent inability to get the fuck out of the car and away from her. ‘You kept looking at me like you wanted to join in.’
Her cheeks turned an even deeper red. ‘I didn’t want to join in.’
‘No? Then why did you keep staring?’
‘I...’ She looked away. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. That wasn’t very professional.’
‘Screw being professional. Just answer the bloody question. And look at me when I’m talking to you.’
She stiffened then abruptly twisted around in her seat so she was facing me, the dusting of freckles across her nose even more fascinating close up without the distancing effect of the mirror.
Gone was the cheerful smile. Green sparks of anger danced in her eyes instead and they were every bit as interesting as her freckles.
‘Look, you’re being a bit bloody rude,’ she said flatly. ‘I’d heard of your reputation, but seriously, mate, you need to tone it down. I’m just doing my job.’
Mate? She’d really just called me ‘mate’?
This pretty little thing in her chauffeur’s cap, who didn’t know what the hell she was getting into, thought she could talk to me like that? Because if so, she really did have no idea what she was doing.
I was a man who liked a fight, who was all about the challenge. And if that challenge was a pretty woman I could get down and dirty and sweaty and raw with? Who I could take apart with pleasure, make her beg, make her want all kinds of filthy things?