Page 11 of A Dark Fall

Then, when I think he’s going to move forward and kiss me again, there’s a loud knock at the office door. I nearly jump out my skin at the interruption, but Jake doesn’t flinch. Neither does he move to get the door. He continues to stare at me until there’s another knock, louder this time, accompanied by the sound of a girl calling his name from the other side. He curses under his breath, spins on his heel, and stalks over to open it, revealing a tanned pretty thing with dark hair and big blue eyes who beams up at him.

“Hey, Jake, sorry,” she says, waiting for him to forgive the interruption. He doesn’t. She glances behind Jake and then at me, and I see something harden her pretty features. “So, um ... so, they called to say Aleska is caught in traffic—Knightsbridge, they said—but he should be here in the next thirty minutes. I’ve stocked the dressing room, but the bar needs you to sign this off.” She hands him a tablet, which he grabs, signs quickly with his finger, and hands back to her.

While Jake’s head is down, she throws another stare in my direction, and it’s the same look: resentment. The fact I’m clearly stepping on someone’s toes being in his office makes me feel like even more of a hussy.

As he goes to close the door, she steps forward and says quietly, though not quietly enough, “See you later then?” There’s a hopeful lilt to her voice.

I tense, looking away. So, he sleeps with his staff. What a gentleman.

“Just get back to work, Gemma, yeah?” he says brusquely and closes the door in her face.

I feel sorry for her. Whatever they had going clearly meant more to her than it did to him. I glance toward the leather sofa and desk, and a myriad of sleazy thoughts go through my head. Namely: I wonder how many girls he’s had in here. I was nearly another one. Though, I suppose, since it’s the opening night ...

How depressing. Great. Now I feel cheap. Drunk and cheap.

I really have to get out of here.

“Well, thank you, Jake,” I say, moving toward the door. “Again, thanks for inviting us. The hospitality really has been lovely.” Too late, I realize that sounds like an innuendo. As though him kissing and groping me is part of the hospitality. Christ. Go, Alex. Now. Leave. “It’s a really great place, and I’m sure it’ll do really well. Good luck with ... everything.” I’m jabbering now, which must be really sexy. I get to the door, but suddenly, he’s beside me, close and hot. He puts his foot against it to stop me from opening it.

“I want to see you again,” he says. It sounds like a demand, his whole persona that of someone who isn’t defied often.

See him again. Of course, my sensible head knows it’s a bad idea. Warning after warning flashes loud and bloody clear. He’s dangerous and seductive, and he sleeps with his staff. However, my body thinks it’s a fabulous idea, especially the part between my legs. It’s pretty much screaming, “Yes!” and asking when.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say, hoping my body gets the picture too. But when I look up into his eyes, I can’t think straight. Again. All the warnings would be so much easier to heed if not for his eyes and his mouth and his smell ...

Christ, what are the warnings again? I shake my head to clear it. If I can just get out of this room and away from him, it’ll be fine. He’s distracting me from the obvious, and I’m too hot. It’s so hot in here. Why doesn’t he have air-conditioning in his bloody office?

His head tilts to the side, studying me, a lazy half-smile on his lips. “That’s not a no, Alex,” he points out, reaching up to brush a strand of hair away from my face.

Was it not a no? God, that’s not even proper English.

“I’ve thought about you a lot since that night, Doctor,” he continues in the low, soft, rough-edged tone, reaching out to skim his finger softly across my jaw. “I thought about what I’d do if you came here tonight and I saw you again.”

His eyes are piercing. So piercing. He thought about me a lot?

“And what was that?’ I ask in a soft voice I don’t even recognize. God only knows how I’m able to speak because I’m barely breathing.

He grins again, slow and lazy. “First, I told myself I’d kiss you.” He leans in, and I think he’s going to kiss me on the mouth again, but he doesn’t. Instead, he brings his head to my neck and takes a deep breath of me there. “Then I told myself I’d find out how you smelled right here ...” His voice is barely audible, so low and gravelly my nipples harden and I have to bite back the moan that catches in my throat. I can’t breathe. “I also thought about fucking you.”

I gasp. An image of his strong, tattooed body thrusting into me without any tenderness or care explodes into my mind, and I feel another surge of something hot and damp rush between my legs. He makes an almost pained noise. Soft, growling. It vibrates over my entire body.

“Are you thinking about it now? Wondering how good I’d feel inside you?” His voice tickles my tender skin, hot and deep. “I’d feel good, Alex. You can trust me on that.”

I turn my head slightly to meet his eye, our lips so close I feel the heat of his breath on mine.He looks confident. He would feel good inside me. How on earth is it that he’s so confident? Sexual arrogance. Is that even a thing? Because there’s only one way a person would know they’re good at being inside someone, and that’s from experience.

His sexual experience is another warning I should heed.

“I really have to go,” I plead in my unsteady voice, which I realize still isn’t saying no. I need to get away from him and back to the safety of Rob and the girls, where I can think straight. Where it isn’t so warm and intoxicating.

When I pull on the handle, he shifts his foot, and though his stare never leaves me, he lets me pull open the door. Squeezing myself through the gap into the cool air of the hallway, I scurry away from him like the coward I am.

I look back only when I reach the top of the stairs, and it’s mainly to check he isn’t following me. He’s not. He’s standing in the doorway, arm stretched up against the frame, watching me retreat with a small, sexy smile on his face. He nods once, sort of like he’s accepted a challenge. A challenge he knows he’ll win hands bloody down.

I scuttle back along the bridge to our table with all the grace of a criminal fleeing the scene of a crime, checking behind me now and then to make sure he hasn’t decided to follow me after all. Our table now seems to have merged with the one next door—a small crowd of good-looking guys dressed in smart shirts and smelling of too much cologne. I say “good-looking,” but my barometer of good-looking has gone up a notch or ten, and so, really, they all look pretty average to me.

“God, Alex, where the hell have you been!” Robyn exclaims.

“Sorry. I got a bit lost,” I explain. I’m still lost. What day is it?