My head shook. “Okay, so you’re Everett Ramses, and that’s how you knew about the business meeting.”
“Correct,” he said, drizzling lemon juice over an oyster before sliding it from its shell onto a thin cracker and eating it.
I stared for a minute, my gaze volleying between the man at the end of the table and my still-untouched food.
How did I get here...to a private dining room with him, the man Ross has been talking about nonstop?
The only one who could answer my question was Ross.
I pushed my chair away from the table and stood. “Thank you for the invitation. I must bid you goodbye, Mr. Ramses. This has been…interesting; however, I believe—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Rett was out of his seat and in front of me.
Perhaps it was the length of his legs or maybe he had been a track star in an earlier life. I wasn’t certain how he’d moved as quickly and yet as gracefully as he did. Much like a panther threatening its prey, Rett had me blocked. The door was beyond him.
I took a step to the side and then another in the other direction. Forward wasn’t an option.
I sucked in a breath as my neck and shoulders straightened.
Instead of toward the door, I stepped backward—the two of us moving in sync—away from my escape. Our unchoreographed dance continued until my shoulders collided with the wall, and I was sandwiched between the carved-wood paneling and over six feet of solid man.
“Emma, you don’t understand.”
My breathing quickened, yet I wasn’t inhaling, not in a way that brought the needed oxygen to my rushing bloodstream. The result was a tingling in my extremities.
Rett—no, Mr. Ramses—was so close.
I inhaled the mix of garlic and wine on his warm breath, as well as his rich, spicy cologne. Warmth radiated from his solid body. I placed my palms against his chest, feeling the rhythm of his heart beneath. My head shook. “I don’t. You’re right. I don’t understand—any of this.”
Reaching for my hands before a protest came to my lips, he lifted both of them over my head, pinning them to the wall. The move caused my back to arch, pushing my breasts forward. He stared, scanning me down and back up. No longer did the candles flicker in the dark orbs, but something more unnerving. As his gaze lingered, physical changes occurred within me. My insides twisted, no longer from hunger for food, but with an appetite for something I shouldn’t want.
What is it about this man that speaks to me, not with his voice but with his mere presence?
Never in my life had I felt such an attraction, as if I wasn’t in control of my body’s reactions. I’d turned down men like him in the past, men who oozed power and dominance. I’d walked away with my head held high. And yet with Rett, in a matter of maybe an hour, I was putty in his hands.
It was more than the way he commanded the situation; it was also the lustful desire in his eyes. I saw it in his stare, the way the dark now swirled with more. The throbbing of my core caused my high heels to shift upon the floor as my desire grew.
As he leaned closer, I knew for sure that it wasn’t just me.
A hardening erection against my tummy alerted me that he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
Holding my hands in place above my head with one hand, Rett teased a stray strand of my golden hair away from my cheek with his other. He then traced my lower lip with his thumb. A tug and my mouth opened with a softpop. Without instruction, I allowed his thumb to enter. Closing my lips, I sucked, tasting the saltiness of his oyster.
My eyes fluttered shut as a moan bubbled within me. It was as I opened my eyes that I saw it. Similar to a spark to dry kindling, what had previously been flickers in his eyes had combusted to a raging fire.
Rett removed his thumb, again tracing my lip. “Emma, the business deal is complete. Your little project is funded.”
His proximity and the way he was touching me had me distracted, but I knew what he was saying deserved my attention. “It is? You agreed to partner—”
He held my lips with the pressure of his finger, stopping my question and interrupting. “I didn’t agree to be a partner.”
My breasts heaved as he leaned closer, his rigid, toned body pressing me tighter against the wall. The pressure painfully stretched my upheld arms, while at the same time, Rett wordlessly informed me by the rock hardness of his erection that I was truly desired.
“I agreed to a deal,” he said definitively.
Chapter Six
Rett’s deep voice had my full attention. “I was contacted a while ago, informed of your true identity.”