Being Me (Inside Out #2)(37)

We enter the building and Jacob is at the front desk. I manage a nod and a small greeting. Chris and I step into the elevator side by side, and face forward, only inches separating us. The air is thick with unspoken words, the tension certain to snap any second.

Without making a conscious decision to act, that second comes for me when the doors slide closed. I whirl on Chris and shove the journal at his chest. “Mark gave this to me today. It’s Rebecca’s business notes. I told you I locked up the damn journals, and I did.”

He shackles my wrist and pulls me close. The journal lodges between us. “Do you know how much I don’t want to hear Mark’s name right now? He shouldn’t have let you go to Alvarez’s alone.”

His words are tight, laced with the anger he’d confessed back at Alvarez’s house, and I now realize he’s been carefully controlling his fury. I feel it in the tightness of his body against mine, see it in the hard glint in his eyes. Everything about Chris is wrapped around control and I forget too easily.

“He’s my boss.” My bottom lip trembles with the words. “He’s not my keeper, and for that matter neither are you.”

His green eyes glint with amber blades of pure steel. “I told you, Sara. I will keep you safe.”

There is a possessive absoluteness to his words that both arouses and infuriates me. I am once again struck by how little I seem to know about myself and why I respond to this side of Chris. “The line between protecting me and controlling me, Chris, is my job.”

“Ask me if I care about the lines right now, Sara. Ask me if I have any intention of ever living the hell I lived tonight when you wouldn’t answer the phone.”

I am taken aback by the deep, vehement reply that is laced with a threat I do not understand. “What does that mean?”

His fingers twine into my hair and he pulls my mouth just beyond his, so close I can almost taste the control he holds so easily. “It means,” he rasps, “that tonight, Sara, I’m not pink paddles and fluff, and neither are you.”





Thirteen




The elevator door dings open, and Chris grabs my hand and pulls me into his apartment. Before I can blink, I’m facing the entry room wall, one hand clutching the journal, the other flat on the surface in front of me. Chris steps behind me, framing my body with his bigger one, and I feel the hardness of his body as intensely as I feel the hardness of his mood.

His hand settles on the center of my back, branding me, controlling me, and he pulls my bag and purse from my shoulder and dumps it on the floor. I feel him shrug away his jacket and he reaches for mine. It catches on the journal and his hand closes around it.

The air seems to thicken and for several seconds we hold the journal, both our fingers gripping the red leather. Erotic images created by Rebecca’s words play in my mind and I remember reading one of the entries with Chris. I wonder if he is thinking about that day, too, or something completely different. About Rebecca perhaps? I want to ask, but there is this sharp pinch in my chest that holds me back.

Chris takes the journal from me and I have no idea where he puts it. It is gone and my jacket follows. He steps behind me, and I forget everything but him. His hands settle possessively on my hips, and his mouth, that delicious, sometimes brutal mouth, brushes my ear. “You want pain and darkness, baby, you got it.”

Shock slides through me at the unexpected promise and I think of us holding the journal, and of the dark entries inside that terrify and intrigue me. “What happened to me not being able to handle this part of you, Chris?” I ask, and my voice trembles with the question.

“Tonight happened,” he replies and there is nothing unsure about his voice, just hard steel and more anger. “And I damn sure want to give you a reason to think twice before it repeats.”

Conflicting emotions overcome me. I crave and resist the possessiveness I sense in him. I’m jerked out of this thought when Chris yanks my dress up my hips, exposing my backside. I hear the silk of my panties tear before I feel the bite of the material ripping from my body. His hands caress my backside, and the edgy tension in him is like a wave crashing into me.

He leans in, his lips brushing my ear, hot breath fanning my skin, promising delicious, forbidden fantasies only Chris can fulfill. “I’m going to spank you before this night is over, Sara.”

His words are a velvety seduction and taut threat and I cannot catch my breath, let alone form a coherent reply. Chris turns me to face him, shoving my hands over my head and shackling them with one of his. “But first, I’m going to take you to the edge of bliss and pull you back so many times, you’ll think you’re going insane, just like I was when you didn’t answer your phone.” He tugs down the front zipper of my dress to my waist, unhooks my bra, and begins to tease one of my nipples. “Any objections?”

“Would they matter?” I whisper, waves of pleasure washing over my body.

“Not unless you tell me to stop what I’m doing.” He leans in and nips my lip as he had the night before, laving the bite with his tongue. “But if you say stop, Sara, make damn sure you mean it because I will stop. Understand?”

“Chris—”

“Answer, Sara.” His fingers slide between my thighs, spreading the slick heat of my sensitive flesh, and leaving my nipples aching for more. I have the distinct impression he’s reminding me why stop is a bad word.