Anger had filled her then, because that fury in his eyes had been completely uncalled for. She’d done exactly what he’d asked, stayed out of his way all this time and okay, she hadn’t today, but that hadn’t been her fault. So when the order had come from Stacey that Lorenzo wanted to see Kira in his office, she’d stormed over there, all her justifications at the ready. Then she’d seen him pacing restlessly in front of his desk. And then his head had come up and the lightning in his eyes had flashed, jagged and hot. And she’d forgotten everything she’d been going to say.
And when he’d begun to come toward her, fluid and fast, she’d forgotten the entire previous week.
He was the gun going off right in front of her.
He was the bullet slamming her against the wall.
Kira gripped him tighter, her head tilting back, gasping as he pushed his tongue deeper into her mouth. He tasted so good. Hot and rich and alcoholic. Like a hit of brandy in a hot chocolate. God, she couldn’t get enough.
He kissed her harder, his teeth grazing her lower lip in a short, sharp bite that sent a shudder of reaction straight through her. She arched helplessly against him, loving the feeling of being crushed between the door and his hard, hot body, kissing him back with as much hunger and desperation as he was kissing her.
She could smell him all around her, sandalwood and musk, and the spicy, masculine scent of his skin. And she felt half out of her mind with the need to touch him, taste him, run her fingers all over him and discover whether his body was as hard and muscled as it felt under those impeccable tailored suits.
You should stop this. You know you shouldn’t be doing this.
Dimly, she knew that. This was a mistake and the last thing she should be doing is making any more mistakes, especially when she’d already made so many. But the hunger had taken hold. The need that had been dogging her for years, and finally he was here. Finally, that cruel, beautiful mouth of his was on hers and she couldn’t let him go, she just couldn’t. And, Jesus, maybe she had to do this. To have him so she could finally exorcise this terrible fascination she had with him.
Maybe if she did this, she could at least be free of it.
She let go of his head, reaching for his tie, clawing at it to unknot the fabric and pull it away, get the buttons of his shirt undone so she could at last touch his bare skin. Put her mouth to his throat and taste him.
And then suddenly, he shifted, knocking her hands away and pressing her harder against the door, pinning her there with the weight of his body so she couldn’t move. Then his hand came up and his fingers closed around her throat, forcing her head back against the door too.
She sucked in a shocked breath, the heat of his palm burning against her neck like a hot coal. His grip wasn’t painful and she could breathe. But it was firm enough that she couldn’t get out of it.
A tremble shook the entire length of her body, the sensation of being pinned somehow intensifying everything, drawing her nipples into tight, hard peaks behind her shirt, and making the ache between her thighs begin to throb insistently.
He leaned in close, the lines of his beautiful face drawn taut with fury and hunger. It glittered in his eyes too, and she couldn’t look away.
She’d never been this close to him before, never been so close that she could see that his irises weren’t just dark charcoal gray but were in fact fractured and crystalline with a much lighter silver. The effect was amazing and with his long, thick black lashes and the straight dark lines of his brows, startlingly beautiful.
“You broke the rules,” he said softly, the cold edge in his voice feathering over her heated skin, making her shiver yet again. “You didn’t do as you were told.”
Kira fought for breath, trying to hold the intensity of his gaze. He may have sounded cold, but there was nothing but furious heat in his eyes. It made her whole body tighten with need. “I . . . didn’t mean to.” Her voice sounded raw and shaky, and she couldn’t seem to make it sound any firmer. “S-Stacey told me—”
“I don’t give a shit what Stacey told you,” he snarled, leaning even closer, the raw anger and white lightning in his eyes swamping her. “You broke the rules. You made me fucking hard in front every single board member in that room. In front of my fucking father.” His thumb at the side of her neck moved slowly up and down, stroking her. The gentleness of the touch was so at odds with the rage in his voice she didn’t know quite how to process it.
Lorenzo leaned further in, putting his mouth near her ear, his breath whispering over the sensitized skin of her neck, raising goose-bumps. “You know that that means, don’t you, Kira?”
The stroking of his thumb was insanely distracting, adding yet another sensation to the mix already flooding her. “N-No,” she whispered raggedly, even though part of her did.
“It means,” he murmured, a note of heat in his cold, dark voice, “that now you have to pay.”
Her breathing hitched audibly, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. She was shaking and she couldn’t seem to make herself stop.
Pay. Yes, you want to pay. You want to show him how good you can be for him. You want to correct your mistake.
She’d been angry before, because it hadn’t been her fault, but now she wasn’t. Now all she was conscious of was a terrible, insatiable need to prove herself to him. To show him that she was capable of being good, that she could follow the rules, that she wouldn’t disappoint him or let him down. And not only that she wanted to, she was desperate for the chance to do so.
So yes, she would take responsibility. She would pay. She would pay whatever price he wanted her to.
She could feel his mouth so close to the delicate skin under her ear, his breath like the touch of a flame. His scent was everywhere and the astonishing heat of his body was making her a little crazy. “How?” she forced out. “Are you g-going to fire me?”
He turned his head a little more, his thumb resuming its stroking movement up the side of her neck to the base of her jaw, then down again. “No,” he said quietly, his mouth so close to her ear she almost felt the touch of it. “I’m not going to fire you.” Another minute shift of his body, his hard, muscular thigh pressing suddenly between hers. “I’m going to fuck you. Right now. Right here. Up against this door.”