One Bossy Offer (65)

I’m floating.

On the verge of leaving my body.

My tongue skims my lips, which suddenly feel so parched. “The kiss you ran away from like it was poison, you mean? The one you never mentioned again?”

His eyes sharpen, turning back into razors.

“The kiss I dream about every damn night? The kiss that keeps invading my head every damn hour, leaving me so brainless I can barely function?” With his teeth bared, he closes in, stopping with his lips just inches from mine. “The kiss I’ve stroked myself off to twenty times this past week, every orgasm coming like a fever, so impossible to break I can’t even breathe?”

Oh God Oh God Oh God.

My lungs won’t work.

“Yeah, kitten. I remember that kiss,” he whispers. “It’s hardwired into my head so deeply I’ll take that shit to my grave.” His words fall against my mouth in hot waves. “For the record, I tried to apologize.”

“Y-yeah. And maybe I just didn’t want an apology,” I whisper.

I didn’t want that kiss to end, especially not the way it did.

“I owed you one. It was inappropriate as hell and you work for me. I just don’t regret that it happened—even if we weren’t alone. I regret that I tore myself away.”

“I still work with you, Miles—” I swallow harshly.

“And now we’re alone and I still want to taste you.”

He’s. Killing. Me.

Especially when he closes his eyes and releases a slow breath so hot it burns my skin.

“Aren’t you tired of this song and dance, kitten? This lie? I can’t keep away from you. The jaws of life couldn’t pry these thoughts out of my head, everything I’m aching to do to you. Simone may have brought me back to Seattle—but you’re the real reason. I had to see you again.”

My toes scrunch in my shoes and my knees work overtime to hold me up.

“Big words for a big man who only has one real passion.” I nod at the paintings hanging over his desk.

His eyes move in the direction of my nod.

“Yeah, and you’re the reason I can’t even do that anymore. If I’m the scary, single-minded asshole you think I am—I’ve made my choice, Jenn. I choose this.”

I’m so completely gone as he bends, his breath more teasing than ever. My head dips back as my body tilts toward him with this wild magnetism I still can’t comprehend.

But it rules me.

It makes me his prisoner.

Before I can mewl out another word of protest, he’s reaching for my glasses, jerking them off my nose, and staring straight into my eyes.

“I like this better, kitten. Nothing in the way,” he whispers.

For a split second, I shudder, right down to my toes.

Then his lips bury me alive.

He clasps my waist, pulling me closer, ravishing me.

He’s all man, this brazen bull, backing me against the wall.

The next time I breathe, I’m trapped between the surface and muscle I can’t resist digging my fingers into.

I hold on so tight as he robs the air from my lungs.

As he burns me down with lust.

As he turns me into trembling ash.

As each growling kiss makes me delirious.

My fingers tremble, tracing his jawline, admiring him like I’ve always wanted to.

My leg curls around his, refusing to let go, overriding the last snapping denial in my head.

“Kitten, fuck,” he whispers, moving a possessive hand from my waist.

He takes my chin, gently but firmly, holding my face up to meet his eyes.

His whole gaze is an invisible thrust, splitting me open, naked and wet and fully surrendered.

Sighing, I wrap my arms around his neck and brush my other leg against his. I curl my ankle around his shin and slide it up his leg.

His hand falls to my bare thigh, and he hikes up my skirt in one rough jerk. His hands find my ass and his fingers dig in, holding me up, quickening the wet heat in my core.

This is my new reality.

Up against the wall with a boss I’m supposed to hate, tangled and clinging to him for dear life. A man who always soothes my dogs, who I also work for, and who still wants my land.

It’s as ludicrous as it sounds, and yet, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Even through our layered clothes, the hard, thick ridge moving against my softness is an invitation to heaven.

But he breaks our kiss with a ragged breath a second later.

“Jenn, if you don’t listen to anything else I say tonight—” His lips sear my chin and then my lips again. “Stay away from her.” His lips press mine again and his teeth come out before his tongue dips into my mouth, angry and searching. “Stay the fuck away from Simone Niehaus. You have no idea what you’re getting into. Please trust me.”

I try to nod, but I can’t.

“Promise me,” he commands, pulling back, laying his forehead against mine.

Holy hell.

I think I’d promise him the Taj Mahal right now.

“Y-yes. I promise,” I stammer, sliding my hands from the back of his neck and then down his chest.

Miles ripples under my hands, all defined strength and corded muscle. My fingers dip under his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders.

He shifts his weight, allowing me to remove the jacket one arm at a time.