Beneath These Scars (Beneath #4)(44)

Yve’s husky laugh filled the small store. “And I want you to help me move this armoire to the other side of the room so I can put together a new display tomorrow.” She waved her hand from one side of the room to the other.

“What?”

“You think I’d really pick my store for a one-night stand? Come on, Titan. I’m a businesswoman, not an idiot.”

I jammed a hand into my hair, wondering how I’d gotten this so wrong. “It’s midnight.”

She smiled. “Just wanted to see if you’d really come.” She tilted her head with a mischievous smile.

“So this was . . .” I didn’t even have words. I’d been played. Lucas Titan doesn’t get played.

“A whim,” she said with a wink. “Now come on and help me move this.”

“You’ve got to be joking.” I stared at the huge piece of furniture. It looked antique—and heavy.

Yve propped her hands on her hips. “What? Don’t think you’re strong and manly enough to do it? At least you can follow orders. By the way, you don’t look too bad out of a suit. I think you look better in one, though.”

I looked down at my cargo shorts and Stanford T-shirt. “You’re hell on a man’s ego, aren’t you?”

Yve tossed her head back and laughed. “I think you’ve got plenty of ego to spare. Now, grab that side of it and lift. Remember—use your knees, not your back. I don’t want to hear how badly a billionaire whines when he gets hurt.”

With every word out of her sassy little mouth, I vowed that I’d make her beg longer to come. Keep her on the edge until she was screaming for it, willing to agree to anything. It was only fair.

I grabbed the one side and began to lift to test the weight. It was heavy. I stopped immediately. “There’s no way you’re helping me move this. I’ll get someone in here in the morning to do it.”

“Thanks for the concern, but you don’t need to go all He-man on it. I’ve got a dolly. I just need help with that part.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Fine. Let’s do this.”





WATCHING LUCAS TITAN HELP ME move furniture at midnight was up there with seeing the Northern Lights in Louisiana or finding a winning million-dollar lottery ticket on the sidewalk—impossible to believe. But it was happening.

We set the armoire into place and he tugged the dolly out from beneath it.

“There.”

I studied it and nodded. “Perfect.”

“Now, strip.”

I whirled around to face him. “Excuse me?”

“You knew what would happen when you sent that text message. You knew what I’d think showing up here. Don’t tell me this was all a game, Yve.”

Heat slid through me as he watched me with those predator’s eyes. Green and sharp and missing nothing.

“It was a little bit of a game,” I admitted. “But not the way you think.” Why was my mouth dry and the words almost sticking inside?

Titan took a step toward me. “Then tell me. And do it while you take your clothes off.”

“You’re so damn bossy,” I sputtered.

Another step closer. He lifted his hand and pushed a curl that had escaped from my messy bun out of my face. “Because I’m the boss. Now strip. I want to see you naked. I’m not a patient man.”

My hands couldn’t decide whether to follow my brain—which was telling them to shoot him the middle finger, or to follow the lust flooding my system—which said to strip and then tear all the clothes off his body. It was a dilemma.

Screw it.

“There’s a perfectly good counter right—”

I didn’t even get the words out before Titan’s hands dropped to the hem of my tank top and tore it over my head.

“No bra? Jesus. You’ve been prancing around here with no bra on and I didn’t even realize it.”

My breasts—sans bra as Titan had pointed out—were high and firm and didn’t need much more support than the shelf built into my tank. And they were also covered by his hands. His big, clever hands. A low moan rose in my throat as he rolled my nipples between his fingers and tugged.

“You have the sexiest damn nipples. So responsive. You love when I play with them, don’t you?”

Loath to admit I liked anything about Titan, I refused to respond. Instead, I let my hips rock toward him.

“Answer me, Yve, or I’ll stop.”

“Shut it, Titan. Don’t ruin this.”

His eyes lit with challenge. “You’re going to beg me. I swear it.”

“I guess we’ll see about that.”

“You will if you want to come,” he promised as he released my breasts and gripped my waist.

I didn’t even have time to open my mouth before I was seated on the counter next to the register. If I hadn’t known how solid the thing was, I might have protested that I’d crack it with my weight.

Titan was unbuttoning my shorts and tugging them off before my brain had caught up with the situation. And I didn’t care. I let my brain turn off, deciding that thinking was definitely overrated in this situation. I was going on age-old instinct here.

“Get on your knees,” I ordered him.

“Excuse me?” Titan asked, spreading my knees and stepping between them. His fingers caught in the thin waistband of my thong and stretched it.