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Knowing how my praise affects her, right on cue, she shivers and bites her bottom lip between her teeth.
She places the palm of her hand on my shirt, and her touch has me reconsidering my next admission, although now is the time to set the record straight. My mouth hovers over her tempting pillowy lips. “I don’t date staff.”
A faint “I understand” falls out of her mouth, and her sweet breath dusting my skin makes me want to claim her in the same way I did the other night.
“And that’s why nothing can happen between us again.” My hands drop away from her face, and I immediately regret stepping away from her when I watch her face falling in disappointment.
Believe me, baby, no one’s more frustrated about this than I am.
I smooth down my tie, tighten the knot around my neck and jut my chin. “Welcome to Hart Law, Ms. Donovan,” I say, before abruptly storming out of the boardroom.
“Meeting cancelled,” I announce as I race past my stupid grinning brothers who are standing in the corridor. “Assholes,” I mutter under my breath. “Sorry, everyone.” I apologize to my colleagues, who look confused. “I’ll have my new secretary, Ms. Donovan, reschedule.”
Arianna Donovan.
The woman who has consumed every thought I’ve had since she left my apartment.
Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing to me?
Let’s hope she only lasts the week.
Why is that suddenly not what I want either?
9
ARI
I proved Nathan wrong.
Three weeks later and I’m still here.
He set me a challenge, and that’s why I tore up my one-week tolerating plan at Hart Law into shreds, and it’s now burning in the fires of hell.
Which is what the last three weeks have felt like. Hell.
Truth be told, it’s been three weeks of suffering the insufferable man I’m unable to stop staring at or fantasizing over, recalling our first night together.
It’s the worst kind of torture imaginable.
I stare at the screen of my laptop and let my mind wander, remembering the way he touched me, kissed me, and how he made love to me. It wasn’t love, it was sex, but at some points that night, it sure felt like he was making love to me and held intense eye contact with me, as if he could see deep into my soul. I can still feel his hands on me, everywhere.
I snap myself out of my memories of him as heat pools at the apex of my thighs, which is becoming a ridiculous reoccurring problem, and return to reorganizing Nathan’s schedule, which I’ve spent the last half an hour rearranging.
Something he asked me to drop everything for and do urgently.
He’s so demanding.
And annoyingly sexy.
Clever, and I’m learning so much from him.
He’s also headstrong and… powerful, bossy… and I hate that I find myself drawn to him and utterly addicted to his crankiness.
I find it amusing.
If I didn’t, I don’t think I would have lasted this long.
The bottom line is, if I didn’thaveto be here, I would have told Nathan Hart where to stick his job because sometimes his abrupt nature comes across as hurtful. But having watched him work for the last few weeks, I’ve seen another side I didn’t think Hart men were capable of. I know he’s on edge ninety-nine percent of the time and it’s only because he’s hard-working and fights for the justice of his clients. He’s under a lot of stress and pressure as the court date looms closer on a high-profile case he’s been preparing for months, and the weight of public scrutiny and the stakes involved are starting to take their toll.