“Who said anything about sex?”
Lexi froze. Curtis’ fingers swept over her bare arm. The hair stood up, mirroring the blazing path of fiery warmth his finger traversed.
“It’s a one off,” she went on. She should shut her mouth, but for some reason, the words just kept falling out of it. “I’m going to take that job in marketing if it happens, just so I never have to see you again. I- I want your promise that if we do this, uh- any of this, that I won’t be fired.”
“Of course you won’t be fired.”
“It’s not logical,” Lexi argued, probably just with herself. “I don’t even like you. You’re not a nice person. I- you- you have too much money. You don’t have an appreciation for how real people live. For the struggles the rest of us go through.”
“You’re right,” Curtis pursed under his breath. He was so close. His face mere inches away. “I know nothing about what it means to be real. I don’t know what it’s like to lose loved ones or hurt or be lonely or what it’s like to be used. I don’t know what it is to truly want a beautiful woman who likes to pretend that she doesn’t want me too. I don’t know anything about the pains and stings of unrequited love. I don’t know anything about wanting a particular woman, thinking about her day and night, and the pain of understanding that she hates me unjustly.”
“Love?” Lexi scoffed.
Curtis’ lips curled just a little and she breathed out a harsh breath of relief. He was using that word lightly, the way she would. The way anyone would if they didn’t know what it truly meant to feel it.
“Substitute any word you’d like. It doesn’t change that we’re here. That we’re here right now. That you agreed to come.”
“I was forced into it.”
“Were you?” His brow quirked. He was toying with her. He was enjoying himself. He was also far too close. So close that it was hard for her lungs to expand and contract to draw in enough breath to sustain her. Maybe that’s why there were suddenly black spots dancing in front of her eyes.
“We both know that’s not the truth. So what if I’m your boss. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a mess. Maybe we could both be professional after. Maybe you’d enjoy it. Maybe you’d want a repeat. Maybe you’d let go of the notion that I don’t have a heart or feelings.”
“I’m very well aware that you have a heart,” Lexi sniffed. She couldn’t let Curtis get in, under her skin. He was dangerous. So. Freaking. Lethal. It was like he was a snake and he’d bitten her. The venom was spreading through her veins and she didn’t have the anti-venom to save herself. “You do have a heart. It’s black and metallic and cold.”
Before she knew what he was doing, Curtis’ hand gripped hers. He captured her fingers and brought her palm up. She was too stunned to pull it away when he set it on his chest. His. Chest. His warm, cotton clad, muscular, hard, slightly damp, very alive, incredibly sensual, chest. He set her fingertips right over his heart. She knew that her face must be scarlet, but she couldn’t look away any more than she could tear her hand away from that furious beating. It was rapid and it was there, very much alive.
“I think if you gave it a chance, you’d find that it’s not any of those things.”
“I think if I gave you a chance, I’d find that you’re even more of an asshole beneath the surface. We’re from different worlds. You’re my boss. You’re-”
“You’re making this so much more difficult than it has to be. Really, it’s quite simple. We’re two people who want each other and we’re here. Alone.”
“Because you made it, very conveniently, happen that way,” Lexi hissed. Curtis’s heart beat on below her fingertips.
Curtis looked like he was enraptured by the beauty of the sunset, but he wasn’t looking at the sunset. He was staring at her. She was staring back since she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
“This is going to happen,” he said softly. His usual mask of professionalism and indifference slid away and there was something there she’d rarely glimpsed before. Vulnerability. He’d let her peek into it, behind that steel façade before, but never like he did at this moment. He was so painfully… human, that it stole her breath all over again. “We both knew that. We both know it.”
Lexi’s heart went wild, thumping and beating furiously out of her chest as Curtis angled his head. He tilted his face, titled it down. Angled it towards hers. Lexi knew that he was going to kiss her. She couldn’t pull away, but she made one last feeble attempt at defending her heart, which Curtis had so effortlessly stripped bare. He’d disarmed her in one single day. No, not a single day. He’d been waging war against her defenses for years. It didn’t help that she’d been waiting in her high tower, just waiting to wave that white flag, even if she’d deny it to her dying breath.