Wherever It Leads(12)

He takes another step to me until our bodies are nearly touching. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m being obliterated by everything about this man and his proximity. He knows it. He’s using it to his advantage.

“Just come, Brynne,” he says huskily.

“I have to work.”

“I’ll pay you more than you’d make all month to call in sick and go with me.”

His words shock me back to the present. It sounds so cheap. So immoral. So hot, yes, but still.

“Listen, if I didn’t just get that call, you and I both know what would’ve happened after dinner.” His eyelids hood, his lips pressing together in an undeniable smirk. He leans in, his breath glancing my skin. “And you’d’ve loved every f*cking second of it. I promise.”

I gasp, more from his bluntness than it being some revelation. Because what he said is true. Or I hope it would’ve been true. I think. Maybe.

Shit.

Heat pools between my legs. I clench my thighs together to try to ease the ache that’s growing out of control. The way he’s looking at me only intensifies the throb—like he’s going to devour me.

Please. Do.

“Am I wrong?” His question is more of a taunt than an actual inquiry. And one that I don’t feel needs answered because it’s pretty self-explanatory by the energy between us right now. I know his cock is hard for me; I saw him adjust it. So of course he isn’t freaking wrong.

“Are you serious right now?” I ask.

“Serious as a heart attack, rudo.”

His fingertips find the side of my face. They lazily draw from my temple down my cheek, across my jaw, and down my neck. My skin feels like it’s on fire, my entire body heated to the point of explosion. He pins me in place with his grey eyes.

“Are you denying it? You think you wouldn’t go home with me tonight? Do you want to pretend you’re not wondering what I’d feel like slipping inside you? Because I know you are. You want me so badly you can’t think of anything else. And right now, my cock is so f*cking hard for you I’m tempted to toss you across that chair over there and indulge.”

I gasp.

He snickers.

“Go with me,” he whispers.

“As what? A f*ck buddy?”

He watches me carefully, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t think of it like that.”

“But that’s what it is, isn’t it?”

“I despise that term.” He leans back and changes tactics. “Our timing tonight is terrible and I have a trip this week anyway. So why not use it to spend time together.”

If his phone hadn’t rung and the night had played out, I would’ve gone home with him, for free, if he offered. Hell, I’d probably have skipped all the way there. And as I look him in the face, see the desire laced wickedly through the grey specks of his irises, I feel my resolve wane.

“Think of it this way,” he says, taking a different approach. “I’m simply acknowledging your time is valuable and that you’ll be missing work. Your presence is worth it, a commodity, of sorts.”

“So I’m your secretary, for lack of a better word?”

“Sure,” he shrugs. “You’re my employee for the week. Your job is to entertain yourself while I’m working during the day and entertain me when I’m not.”

Every synapse in my brain misfires, wetness pooling between my legs. He watches me try to rein it in, his lips pursed together in a “job well done” sort of way. I can’t even smart something off because I can’t think about anything other than him touching me, kissing me, his cock driving inside me.

“So that’s a yes?”

I want to agree. I desperately want to agree. But as I shake my head, the fog lifts just enough for me to realize the potential problems with this situation . . . and the possibility that I may not be as willing to go away with a stranger when I’m not standing in front of him so keyed up. I have to be smart. As impossible, and stupid, as it seems, I have to say no.

“No, Fenton. That’s a no.”

He steps back, a look of disbelief on his face. “What?”

“I can’t go with you. I’m sorry.”

Turning on my heel, I head to the door. I have to get away, get some air, before I succumb to him. I’m just a hairbreadth away now. One touch from him and I’ll be a goner, agreeing to everything he says, complying with everything he asks.

My hand is on the door when his voice rings through the air. “Brynne?”

“Yeah?”

“When you change your mind, call me.”





“Are you nuts?” Presley stands in the doorway to my room, her hands on her hips. “Seriously, Brynne. You told him no?”

“Yes, I told him no,” I hiss, my unrelieved sexual tension starting to get the best of me. “What was I supposed to do? Agree to basically be a prostitute? Yeah—no, thanks.”

I take off the heels and toss them in Presley’s direction. They land with an unceremonious thud.

“While I respect your sudden bout of ethics,” Presley exaggerates, “I really think you’re overthinking this.”

Catching her eye in the mirror over my bureau, I scoff. “I’m sure you do.”