Chapter 8 Lust
BECCA'S POV
He turned, and Christ, his eyes.
It was like looking straight into a wreck. All that anguish, the confusion, and underneath it.
My stomach dropped.
“I have been trying to get to you.” The words came out of him rough.
He took a step closer. My pulse kicked against my throat.
“All damn day. Every time I’m close, something… comes up…a call. A meeting. My sister.” Another step closer still talking.
The air got thick, it was hard to breathe. “The universe wasn't even helping.”
“Mark,”
“I know you’re angry. I know you don't trust me right now.”
All I could hear was him standing right next to me.
I could smell the clean sweat on his skin, the expensive scent of his cologne.
“Saturday. That wasn’t a mistake for me. It was… it was the only real thing I’ve had in forever.” Exhaustion carved into the lines around his mouth.
Gosh!!!! He was yearning for me; a yearning man, just my typeeee…
My brain fogged with him.
The photos.
He hadn’t mentioned the photos. A jagged slice of hope. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
“Mark, listen to me. I heard them. Carmen and Olivia…"
“My turn.” His hand came up, his fingers hovering near my jaw.
He wouldn't let me speak or maybe it was his presence that got me silent.
I could feel the heat coming off his skin. A tiny muscle in his forearm was twitching. “I haven’t been… clear. There’s business. Messy shit with my friends. Complicated. But it doesn’t touch this. It doesn’t touch what matters.”
“What matters?” I was damn curious.
BECCA FOCUS ON WHAT'S IMPORTANT!!! My mind yelled at me.
His palm settled against my cheek. So damn gentle it made my chest ache.
“This. How I feel about you. I’m scared, Becca. Really scared. I’ve never wanted anyone like this. And I’m terrified that if I tell you all of it, you’ll leave. And I’ll have lost you before I even got to have you.”
The air stuck in my lungs.
STICK TO THE PLAN BECCA,
“Mark, please, this is serious. Carmen…”
“I don’t care about Carmen.” His thumb stroked my cheekbone, a slow, devastating sweep that sent a jolt straight through me.
“I care about this… this current. This live wire between us. Tell me you feel it. Tell me I’m not insane.”
“I feel it,” I whispered. It was a confession, a surrender.
“Then nothing else matters,” he said, and his mouth crashed down on mine.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a demolition. Every sane thought in my head got blasted to dust.
I tried to hold onto the warning, Carmen, the photos, the trap; but my body was a traitor.
My hands fisted in his shirt, crumpling the starched cotton, pulling him into me until I could feel every hard line of him.
He groaned, a low, desperate sound.
He walked me backward until the conference table’s edge dug into my thighs. His hands slid down my sides, gripped my waist, and lifted me onto the cold, polished wood. The shock of the cold through my skirt made me gasp.
“Tell me to stop,” he rasped against my neck, his teeth scraping over my hammering pulse. His breath was hot. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
I should have. God knows I should have.
But the only thing that came out was a broken, “Don’t you dare.”
That was it. The last piece of his control shattered.
He kissed me like a man starved. His hands were everywhere, my thighs, my hips, sliding up under my blouse to play with my bare back.
His skin was furnace-hot. Every touch was a brand.
I yanked at his tie, my fingers clumsy, fighting the knot. I tore at the buttons of his shirt until I could get my hands on him.
His perfect abs
“Becca,” he groaned, his mouth trailing a burning path down my throat. “Angel, I need you. I’ve been losing my mind since you walked out that door.”
His hands found the zip of my skirt, pushing it up, his fingers digging into the soft skin of my thighs. I hooked my legs around his waist, locked my ankles, and pulled him hard against me. The feel of him, rigid and straining against his slacks, made us both gasp against each other’s mouths.
“Mark,” I breathed, my head falling back as he kissed a hot trail along my collarbone. “We can’t… here…”
“I know.” But he didn’t stop. His hands slid higher, his thumbs brushing the insanely sensitive skin of my inner thighs. I almost came right there.
He crushed his mouth to mine again, deep and consuming. One hand was tangled in my hair, pulling just enough to sting. The other gripped my hip like I was the only thing keeping him from flying apart.
The world narrowed to this: the taste of coffee and him.
Then his phone rang.
We froze. The sound was a shriek in the quiet.
It rang again. The caller was insistent I must say…
“Ignore it,” I whispered, even as the real world started to bleed back in.
He rested his forehead against mine, his eyes squeezed shut, his breath coming in ragged gulps. “I can’t,” he gritted out, the words full of a kind of agony.
Reality crashed over us, cold and brutal.
We were in a goddamn conference room. At work. My blouse was open, his was half-off, and we looked like we’d just been through a war.
I slid off the table, my legs wobbly as hell. I smoothed my skirt down with shaking hands while he turned away, answering the phone with a voice that was suddenly clipped and professional, a brutal contrast to the man who’d just been falling apart in my arms.
I fumbled with my buttons, my fingers feeling thick and stupid. I tucked my blouse in, tried to pat my hopelessly wrecked hair into some kind of order.
He ended the call. The silence was heavy. He turned back, and his face was a mess of frustration and lingering need.
“Becca…”
“Mark, about Carmen, I need,”
“Later.” The word was soft, but it felt final.
“We’ll talk later. I have to go. But tonight. Dinner. You and me. Please.”
I hesitated. There were a lot of unsaid things but then he wasn't available.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Tonight.”
Relief washed over him, softening the hard lines of his face. He leaned in, kissed me once more, softer this time, “Tonight.”
Then he was gone. The door clicked shut.
The air in the room was still charged, thick with the scent of sex and poor decisions.
My lips felt bruised. My body was a live wire. And a cold, heavy stone of dread settled deep in my gut, a counterweight to all the heat.
I should have told him. I should have shoved the words down his throat.
But I didn’t. And now it was too late.
Back at my desk, I stared at the screen, the numbers and letters just blurring into nonsense.
My mind was a reel of sensation, his touch. He was a master of the craft. He had a way of making me yearn too. But then it was tangled with the sharp, poisonous memory of Carmen’s laugh in the breakroom.
At 3:15, my door burst open.
Mark stood there. His face was a cold, hard mask. In his hand, a manila envelope.
My heart didn’t sink. It just stopped.
“Mark,”
He didn’t say a word. He just threw the envelope.
It skidded across the desk, spilling its guts. Photos. Me and Asher.
His arm, a casual sling around my waist. His lips, pressed to my temple. Us, laughing like idiots.
Every one of them time-stamped from last week.
His voice was quiet, deadlier than any scream. “Care to explain these?”