Page 57 of Nine Months to Bear

I keep replaying our little encounter on a mortifying mental loop. He looked at me in a way no man should ever look at a woman he doesn’t intend either to marry or kill. So all-consuming, so sexual, so dominant.

Even when he wasn’t meeting my eyes, he was looking around the room like he was mentally deciding which surface to bend me over first.

To be sickeningly honest, I was thinking the same thing. It was like he was leaking pheromones into the air or something. My thoughts went hazy and sexual the second he shut the door behind him. I couldn’tnotthink of sex, of his body. There was no way to avoid looking at those hands and remembering just what they were capable of.

But it didn’t happen. Not because I wasn’t a strong wind away from melting into his arms—I was—but because of what came out of his mouth when he finally opened it.

He’d basically accused me of sleeping around and trying to con him out of child support money. As if I’d enter this agreement with him and risk my medical license for… what? Spite? A chance at a ride on his magic dick?

Fuck. That.

I should’ve been furious. Hell, Iwasfurious. But then I saw that he was bleeding, and it all went sideways on me. My stupid fingers wrapped around his injured knuckles to check the damage, and something zapped between us that stole all my righteous anger and replaced it with something hot and liquid and shameful.

Those knuckles, all scraped up and raw, skin split across the ridges… I’m not an idiot. Those weren’t paper cuts or an“accident,” like he said.

He hurt someone. Recently.

Under normal circumstances, that’s a five-alarm fire.Don’t treat the violent bastard—call the cops on him!

Instead, my twisted brain found ithot. What the hell is wrong with me?

I’ve dated nice, normal doctors and lawyers my entire adult life. Men who would never show up at my office with bloodstains still fresh on their hands. Men who wouldn’t make me fantasize about those hands pinning me against my filing cabinet and taking me over the protest of my weak and untruthfulNo, no, don’t… Don’t stop.

He’d do it, too—not because he’s a rapist, but because he’d know damn well I was lying. One sweep of those eyes and he’d be able to guess the exact details of every filthy fantasy that refused to leave me alone.

Fuck me against the filing cabinets.

Rip my skirt off and lick me until I scream.

I’m yours, Stefan, I’m yours however you want me—just please, for the love of God, TAKE ME.

I press my palms against my eyes. Wishing the images away hasn’t worked, so maybe I can physically push them out of my brain.

Get it together, Olivia.

Suddenly, the door to my office flies open without warning, and Camille breezes in. Her victory-rolled hair bounces with each step, red lips already curved in thatI-know-something-you-don’t-want-me-to-knowsmirk.

“So, Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Dangerous finally showed his face here. And you didn’t think to warn me he was coming?” Her grin widens to wolfish proportions. “I nearly choked on my coffee when he walked in! Men who look like that should come with a Parental Advisory sticker.”

I focus intently on realigning pens that do not need realigning. “I didn’t know he was going to be here. But it was strictly professional,” I insist.

But I can feel Camille’s disbelief boring holes through my forehead. “Professional like a business transaction, or professional like the porn category?” She sits down on my desk, crumpling Stefan’s contract with one butt cheek. “Because that man looks at you like he’s dreaming up many, many ways to fill said category.”

I avoid her gaze. But the embarrassed flush creeping up my neck is all the proof Camille needs to confirm her wildest suspicions.

“Holy shit. You slept with him already!”

“Keep your voice down!” I hiss. My body betrays me with a shiver. “And no, I did not sleep with him. I mean, not today…”

Camille cackles. “But you wanted to.”

“No, I—” I sit tall and tug the contract out from under her ass, then smooth out the creases. “He came to discuss paternity verification procedures. I told him he was being insulting and he left. That was it, I swear.”

Camille’s raised brow calls me a liar without her saying a word.

“Fine. Fine! There was a… moment. Only one. And I didn’t act on it.”

“Maybe you should have.” Camille nods sagely. “You’ve spent your entire life being perfect little Olivia, following every rule to the letter. But every good woman needs a bad boy.”