From Sanctum with Love (Masters and Mercenaries #10)(47)

“I’m not cool. There is nothing cool about me right now. I need to make some rules. Rule number one is when I give you a mind-blowing orgasm, you have to at least stay around long enough to kiss me.”

Her first thought was—what? Kiss him? Her second was a little easier to handle. The arrogance of that man. “Mind blowing? How do you know it was mind blowing?”

His lips curled up in the wickedest smile. “I think it was the way your * clenched around my thumb and how you screamed. Do you want to tell me you faked that? Because I won’t believe you and I might have to prove it to you all over again. This time we’ll be in private and I can show you exactly how nasty I can be.”

“What are you doing?” She realized with dawning horror that her nipples had gone hard, like they were saluting the Master.

“Like I said, I’m making some rules. Are you going to follow them or not?”

She couldn’t think long enough to follow them. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. Kai, we still work together. Unless you fired me. Did you fire me?”

He reached out and brushed her hair off her shoulder. The minute his fingers brushed her skin it was like she was back on that stage waiting for him to smack her ass hard. Her whole body had softened the minute he touched her. Except for her nipples, which still stood in a full-on salute, and the thin material of her tank wasn’t helping.

“I would never fire you. I would be lost without you. Which is precisely why we need rules.”

“I thought one of the rules was we didn’t play together because we work together.” She’d thought friendly Kai was dangerous. Who the hell was this guy?

“We broke that tonight and now we need new rules.”

“Or we could forgive ourselves and go back to the old rules.”

He stopped, his stare pinning her to the wall. “Are you afraid of me?”

Yes. She was terrified of him. He was everything she couldn’t have, and he knew exactly how to work her because she wasn’t about to tell him that. “Of course not.”

“Are you embarrassed by what happened?”

“Not particularly.” She was only worried about how it affected her relationship with Kai. Because Kai was too important to her. “I’m not willing to risk our friendship, Kai.”

“By adding to it?” He took a step back and some of the tension seemed to go out of the room. “We shouldn’t talk about this tonight. I’m too tired to be rational.”

Thank god. She had no idea how to respond to him. Well, she did. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to do what he wanted. Rule number one—she owed him a kiss. A kiss. She could have gone up on her toes and brushed her lips against his and then she would know what it felt like to kiss Kai Ferguson. Somehow it seemed more intimate than what they’d done in the club. It was sweeter. If she kissed Kai she couldn’t say they’d only been performing a scene for Jared’s sake. Jared. She latched on to that question. “Shouldn’t you be with your brother?”

He turned away and walked over to the couch. “Yeah, that’s kind of why I’m here. He’s apparently gotten extremely good at breaking and entering and he took over the guest room. Hell, the way he’s going he might have moved into my room, lock, stock, and entourage. He’s going to some nightclub but he’s planning on coming back to my place. I can’t get a full set of those laser things that chop off arms and stuff until tomorrow.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “You are not wiring our office with lasers to keep your brother out.”

“Okay, how about we go tomorrow morning, pick up three Dobermans and train them to eat anything that smells like Axe body spray.”

“We’re not killing your brother. Can you imagine the public mourning of his abs? You would have women from all over the planet showing up with wreaths and teddy bears, laying them out as a shrine to your brother’s hot bod.”

Kai made a gagging sound. “Don’t forget the gay guys. I was told Jared doesn’t discriminate against any gender that wants to worship him. I don’t want to go home.”

Something about the slump of his shoulders made her heart nearly break. This was Kai. He was always strong, always resilient. He was the one everyone came to for advice or help and he gave it immediately, even to people she knew he didn’t like. “Where would you go?”

“This couch looks comfy,” he said quietly.

“That couch is more of a love seat, and there’s zero chance of your six-foot-two-inch body fitting onto it.” He would have to bend that body in half to fit on it or most of his legs would be hanging off. Either way, she couldn’t imagine he would be comfortable.

He still didn’t turn, as though he wasn’t ready to face her. “Okay. I can sleep on the floor. I’ve slept in worse places.”

“You want to avoid your brother that much?” It wasn’t like she didn’t understand. Her sister had shown up in Dallas a few months before, wreaking havoc on Kori’s existence. She’d been high and angry, and who had Kori turned to when her sister got to be too much to deal with? Yeah, Kai had gotten Shawna into a rehab center. Kai was the one who traveled with Kori on family visitation days. Kai was the one who was going to help Shawna transition when she completed the course. Kai was the one who helped Kori finance it all.