Corrupted Chaos (Tarnished Empire)(11)

“Probably the same thing every guy wants. A quick hook up in an elevator to check off your list.”

“Nothing about us will ever be quick, Harley Quinn,” he admitted. “I’ve been dealing with your shit for years now, and even having moved you, I’m beginning to think it won’t help. So I intend to terrorize you for a very long time.”

“Good luck, asshole. I’ll quit Stonewood Enterprises.” I breathed fast as his hand crept from my waist to my stomach and started to inch up the skin under my shirt. If he touched me for much longer, I wouldn’t be able to stop what was about to happen.

“Do you like throwing your anger at me yet? Don’t you see I deserve it, and I’ll make you feel good while you do it? Gerald could never do that,” he murmured as his hand traced my lace bra.

“You’re deranged.” I shook my head, not sure I could see past anything but him this close to me now, how the adrenaline was pumping through me, how my body wanted him more than I’d ever wanted Gerald.

Forget butterflies—there was thunder and lightning and a goddamn electrical storm pulsing through me.

“I am. Which means you’d better leash your attitude or know I’ll be coming for it.”

“You show up after a year and expect me to instantly comply with you ordering me around?” I knew I was taunting him, but as I rolled my hips into his hard length, I also knew his cock was so big it’d put most men I’d been with to shame.

It didn’t matter—we couldn’t do this. We were toeing a dangerous, unspoken line. Tonight, I was too far into my own feelings, barreling toward self-destruction in a new way. And he was . . . well, he was Cade.

“Not like you would listen anyway. You never do.”

That pissed me off, because I actually took the team lead’s workload half the time. “I always listen to Juda’s orders. I’m helping him most of the time.”

“Do your job, stop doing other people’s.”

“You have some input all of a sudden? Let’s be candid here. Juda tells us what to do, not you.”

He hummed low. “You think because I’m not around, I can’t make you bend to my will?”

Could he? I felt the pull to him, felt my body surrendering itself even before his hand slid to my lower stomach and hovered over the button of my shorts. I couldn’t help my whimper as he waited there, like he was silently hoping I would stop him. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t.

“You’re not around enough to do so. We barely know you, Cade. You can’t make someone bend to your will when you don’t know a thing about them.”

“You think I don’t know a thing about you?”

I looked over my shoulder. His eyebrow quirked up a notch. Was I that easy of a study to him? Maybe I’d become boring. Quite frankly, I’d settled for Gerald, and he’d gone and found someone more fun than me.

Maybe I was sick of sitting in my neat little box and not doing what I wanted to. Or maybe tonight, I just lost my mind a little. Because I did the stupidest thing I could imagine next. I let my hand fall from where I’d been bracing myself against the elevator door and unbuttoned my shorts slowly as I tossed a glare over my shoulder, daring him to go there. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

He searched my face, those amber eyes of his staring at my lips, then back to catch my gaze like he was debating something. “Noted, dollface. Guess I’ll have to be around more to figure you out.” With that, he smiled and dipped his hand into my panties. His fingers slid over my clit fast. He didn’t waste time warming me up.

He didn’t have to.

His touch was rough, dominant, and wild like he knew exactly what I needed. He sucked on my neck while he pushed his middle finger inside me, and I gasped, letting him, bearing down on him, wanting to feel him more than I should have. “Guess I’ll have to be close enough for you to feel me near you, on you, and in you, huh?”

I tried to catch my breath as I rode his hand. I’d needed to get laid, sure, but not by him. Not by the man I despised. Yet, he was so different from Gerald; so hard where Gerald was soft, so demanding where Gerald was acquiescent. And so ready to fuck me even though he hated me as much I hated him. We both felt a desire stronger than our hate. Or maybe our hate fueled it.

I wasn’t sure anymore.

But the need to have his fingers bring me to the brink was stronger than most highs I’d ever chased in my life. Maybe Cade had always thought I was weak, that I could be pushed around. I’d taken the job without much of a fight last year. I’d stayed in my lane. I hadn’t directly rebelled or protested.

I wanted to be good. I did, but something in me needed to be bad with him. He pushed me toward an edge that was raw, jagged, and full of unknown parts of me I’d kept locked away.

So I did what I shouldn’t have. I widened my legs, grabbed his wrist, and pushed his fingers farther in me. “I don’t need to feel you anywhere after this. I’d rather you go away.”

“Really?” His voice held humor. “You don’t want me near you but you’re dripping all over my hand while my fingers are in you, huh? Is this how wet you got for your ex, dollface, or is it just me?”

“Go to hell, Cade,” I whimpered, knowing this was wrong, but his fingers inside me felt more than right. I felt more alive than I had in years, like I was waking up from hibernation, like I’d been locked away and his fingers inside my pussy were the keys unlocking something in me.