Page 28

“Yes, I know, but I wouldn’t want to give you a reason to actually mean it, for once.”

I glare at him. “You don’t think I mean it?”

“I think youwantto mean it, Dani,” he laughs. “But no, I don’t think you actually do.”

“The sun doesn’t rise and set on your dick, Ezra,” I scoff. “I think you’re putting too much stock into it.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs one shoulder with a sly grin. “I’d much rather be putting it somewhere else.”

I groan. “Does that actually work for you?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes flick down the length of me with heat in them that has me suppressing a shiver. “You tell me.”

I hate that it does.Hateit. There’s no good reason for warmthto be filling my chest, no reason for me to be getting wet from such a stupid come-on. So why am I?

Why him?I ask my body for the thousandth time.Why does it have to be him?

I take a step forward, pressing my fingers into his chest with every intention of telling him off and booting him out of my office. “Listen here—”

His hand lifts to cover mine, his thumb rubbing lightly across my knuckles, sending a jolt of electricity down my spine. “Yes?”

“I…” My eyes drop to where his fingers graze the back of my hand in light touches, my mouth going dry. “You’re…”

His voice feels closer now, and I can smell the mint of his toothpaste as his breath hits my cheek. “What am I, Dani?”

“Infuriating,” I mumble as his lips graze my throat.

I can feel his laugh against my skin. “I think you like it more than you pretend.”

“I’m not pretending anything.”

“You’re not?” I feel the warm weight of his palms sliding over my hips in a featherlight hold. “Then tell me to stop. Tell me not to touch you, and I won’t.”

Just say it,I chide myself.Tell him to stop touching you.

But I don’t do that. Why don’t I do that?

“Come on, Dani.” His hands move slowly to slide against the fabric of my skirt, a barely there touch on my ass where he cups me. “Tell me you don’t want me to touch you.”

“I hate you,” I groan instead.

His teeth nip gently at the sensitive skin below my ear, and much to my displeasure (figuratively, at least), a tiny moan escapes me.

“I know,” he says.

I don’tmeanto press my hips further into his. I don’tmeanto zipper my body to the front of Ezra’s like I’m trying to wear him. At least, I think I don’t. My head is a little fuzzy right now. It’s like when Ezra touches me, all the stress and the worry that is my life melts away, allowing me to focus on nothing else but his hands and his body and the sizzle of irritating pleasure he brings.

“You always smell so good,” he murmurs, his nose skimming along the length of my throat. “But you feel better.”

I gasp when he rolls his hips, feeling the hard length of him even through the layers of his dress pants and my skirt. Even with the way that little part of my brain is still screaming at me for giving in to thisagain—my body lights up like a Christmas tree at even this. He says that I feel good, but it should beillegal, how he feels. It should be a goddamned crime.

“I think about fucking you over this desk,” he tells me roughly, nibbling on my earlobe as I shiver. “Or maybe mine. Every time I see you in one of these fucking skirts, making your ass look like a fuckinggift—I think about inching it up over those pretty thighs of yours and filling you up.”

He squeezes my ass for good measure, and an irrational urge to turn my face and press my mouth to his floods me, but I hold it back. Even if it’s something I can’t stop thinking about when he’s this close.

“I could have you right now,” he rasps, pulling me closer to the throbbing heat between his legs that I know will feel incredible inside me. “It would be so easy. So fucking easy.” My head falls back at the soft kiss below my jaw. “And you’d let me, wouldn’t you, Dani? You’d let me push you over this desk and take what’s mine.”

Everything inside me freezes. Isn’t this the exact thing I saidI shouldn’t be doing? Didn’t Ijustresolve not to let myself get wrapped up in this anymore? That there’s too much at stake to risk doing so?