Page 94 of Nine Months to Bear

A flash of rage ripples through me, white-hot and immediate. The fury I couldn’t summon for my vandalized property surges now in full force.

I look down to see my fingers curled into a fist.

Mikayla:This has Walsh’s fingerprints. Want me to handle it?

I take a controlled breath, ironing out the tension from my shoulders, leashing down the impulse to call Walsh’s clinic myself.

STEFAN:Monitor only. Track any escalation. If it’s Walsh, I’ll handle it myself.

Just as I’m hitting send and imagining violent scenarios of setting fire to Walsh and her offices, a sound at the door draws my attention.

“Good morning.” Olivia’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Working hard or hardly working?”

I glance up and my mouth goes dry. She stands in my doorway, one hand resting on the frame, the other on her hip. Her blouse has an extra button undone, revealing a hint of lace beneath. The same kind of pencil skirt I’ve seen on her a dozen times before somehow looks different today—tighter, shorter, or maybe it’s just the way she’s standing, hip cocked to one side.

With her looking like that, I’m working hard, alright.Rockhard.

“Busy.” I look down at the papers on my desk. Anyone with half a brain could tell it’s a silent dismissal, but she ignores it.

Not only does she ignore it, but she ventures closer. The way she does it makes my eyebrows raise. Is she jutting her hips out more? Bending over farther than she needs to as she approaches? Is shegnawing at her bottom lip?

She perches on the edge of my desk, close enough that the heat of her thigh radiates against my hand. The scent of her wafts around me.Blyat’,I’ll have to burn my sheets to get rid of the smell. Might have to burn my desk, too.

I raise my head slowly as she toys coquettishly with the ends of her hair. “This act doesn’t suit you,” I remark.

She shrugs and shifts. Her skirt rides up her thigh. My eyes snap to the flash of skin before I can jerk them away.

The small smirk on her mouth tells me she caught it all.

“I don’t know what you mean.” She crosses her legs, sending the skirt even higher. One shove and it could be bunched around her hips. I could lay her out flat, fall to my knees, and?—

“I wanted to thank you for last night,” she continues in a purr.

“Which part?”

“All of it.” A faint blush creeps up her neck and she trails it with her finger, dragging her nail along a pale purple bruise on her collarbone. “A man has never…claimed melike that. The way you touched me… the way you made me… Well, I’ve never?—”

“I remember what I did.”

She leans forward, her blouse billowing open to reveal the edge of her bra. “And the donation to the clinic. That was… unexpected.”

“That had nothing to do with last night,” I grit out. “It wasn’t a fucking payout.”

She reaches out to touch the back of my hand where it rests on the desk. “I know. It just shows how well this arrangement is working. How much we trust each other.”

“Trust,” I repeat.

If she had any idea what was going on in my head right now, she wouldn’t trust me enough to be sitting this close.

What’s that thing Mikayla was talking about the other week? How some poll said that women lost in the woods would rather come across a bear than a man?

Well, right now, I’m the fucking bear.

She nods, eyes bright, lip full. “We have a mutually beneficial arrangement. A perfect understanding.” Her tongue darts out, pink and playful.

“Cut the fucking act, Olivia. What do you want?”

She doesn’t flinch at my tone—another warning sign. The Olivia I’ve come to know would have bitten back.