Page 47 of Naughty or Nice

I flex my hand around the beer bottle, keeping my face expressionless.

Her silence extends and she wets her lips. ‘I get that... No, I know... Yes, I’ll call you... Bye.’

She hangs up and pockets the phone, her eyes coming back to me, shadowed. ‘Thank you for telling me the truth.’

‘So I’m no one you know?’ Anger at her lie heats my words, my body, my blood.

‘What did you expect me to say?’

‘I don’t know.’ I get to my feet. ‘I’m not sure where I fall. Am I the guy you’re fucking, or the guy you’re going into business with?’

She swallows hard. ‘Neither.’

My laugh is harsh. ‘Well, your state of undress places me in the former camp, for sure.’

She tugs at the hem of my tee and her cheeks heat. ‘We were fucking—now I have no idea what we’re doing.’

‘No? Want me to help with that?’

I walk towards her and she backs into the counter. Perhaps a revenge fuck will kill off this insane sea of emotion. Something has to.

‘No. I can’t do this.’ She raises her palm to me even as her nipples bead against the tee. Air rasps from her lungs. ‘I need time to think about what you’ve said. It changes so much and yet changes nothing.’

I stop walking and my smile is tight. ‘Okay, and while you’re thinking it through can I take it that my business proposition meets with your approval?’

She starts moving towards my bedroom, her coat hooked over her arm. ‘We need to talk about that.’

‘Talk?’

I follow her. She’s looking for her clothes, dipping and ben

ding as she collects each item from its place on the floor. If not for the edge to her voice I’d be all over the sight of her bare arse each time my tee lifts.

‘You say we need to talk like it’s a way off?’

She dumps her clothing on the bed and with her back to me pulls my T-shirt over her head. My pulse leaps, heat streaks to my groin and I pocket my fists. She’s not making this easy.

‘I have concerns.’

She steps into her thong and shimmies it up her legs, her hips, over her perfect round arse. Christ.

‘What kind of concerns?’

‘Like how you can do it so cheap.’ She dons her bra, the cups facing me momentarily before she tugs it around to the front and slips her arms in.

Effortless, easy...so sexy even in reverse.

‘I care about my workforce, whether they work for me or my suppliers. I need to know you’re not crossing any human rights lines.’

She bends forward to step into her skirt but all I hear are the last three words. ‘Human rights lines? Who do you think I am?’

She looks at me over her shoulder as she fastens her skirt. ‘Don’t act so defensive. You wouldn’t be the first company to present me with a proposal that takes advantage of child labour and suchlike.’

‘Child labour...’ I choke the words out—is she kidding me?

She’s not looking at me now. She’s thrusting her arms into her blouse and fastening it up, acting as if she has no awareness of how deep her words cut.

‘Anyway, I don’t want to discuss it now.’