Last Name - Dr. Rebecca Sharp Page 0,36

I can’t stop thinking about you. About your smile. Your laugh. About the way your mouth feels when it moans under mine or the way your tits fill my hands—”

“James,” I hissed with something that bordered between pleasure and pain. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh.” He smirked deviously. “You meant the situation where you want me, too. The way your eyes darken with desire when you see me or the way your legs cross every time I stop in your office.”

Heat rushed to my face just as quickly as it flooded between my thighs.

His words were sweet and dirty. They were wrong, but also right. They were a contradiction, just like he was—the hero who wanted no thanks. They were a contradiction, just like we were—tied together but coming undone.

“Or how about the way you came all over my cock wedged against a glorified outhouse moaning my name into the woods?” he growled. My eyes snapped open and I realized his face was a breath from mine—and a breath from disaster. “Because the only situation I see is the one where you are trying to stop something that can’t be stopped—the one where you’re betting against the house. And I can promise you, Carrie, in the end, the house always wins.”

The very last of his words were said right on top of my lips, the lightest, most tempting brush of his firm promise against my soft skin made my knees weak and my heart race.

“Mr. Arden?”

I jumped with a small squeak and darted away from the door, covering my face with my hands while James took a second to compose himself before answering the call of his secretary from the other side of the door.

“Yes, Lucy?”

“Mr. Hughes is on the phone for you.”

He looked at me as he replied, “Thank you. Tell him I’ll be with him in a minute.”

“Of course.”

There were a few seconds of silence as we stared each other down, processing what was said… what was meant.

“That’s not what I meant,” I repeated quietly. “But I should get going.”

“Doesn’t change that it’s the truth, gorgeous.”

I shivered, that endearment from those lips would always do something to me that felt too good to be normal.

“Vegas was supposed to be just a fling, James,” I told him, forcing the bitter ball in my throat back down. “I can’t continue a fling with my boss.”

“This is more than just a fling, Carrie.” His jaw tensed as he stood imposingly by the door as I approached it. “And I’m more than just your boss. I’m—”

“Don’t say it,” I pleaded.

I braced myself as he continued, but he didn’t say the word I was expecting. No, what he said was worse.

“I’m the man who will continue to fight to have a chance with you because you are what I want—you are everything I want. You are worth fighting for.”

“James,” I choked out his name.

“And you, Mrs. Arden.” He leaned in, his hand covering mine where it rested on the doorknob. “You want me, too.” His lips moved right by the shell of my ear. “It’s okay to want this. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

And I believed him. Dangerously. Irrevocably.

And as I walked back to the stairwell, I wished he would’ve just said he was my husband. Ironically, that would’ve felt less unnerving than to hear he was the man who would do anything for a chance to win my heart—a heart that was losing its reasons left and right for why I needed to keep my distance.

“Suz said you weren’t coming.” Lynn’s shrill voice broke through the tranquility of Emerald Bay.

The vibrant teal water topped with bright blue skies was bordered by rich evergreen trees—a peaceful encapsulation of part of the lake on the western, California side of Lake Tahoe.

Carrie said it was one of the most beautiful sights around the lake and, without her here to knock the view down to the second most-beautiful sight, I had to agree.

“Whether I’m here or not shouldn’t matter to you, Lynn,” I turned and told my ex as she approached me on the narrow shore. She was wearing a skin-tight black dress over a black bathing suit, her long brown hair draping over her shoulder. More and more, when I looked at her, I saw a spider; I saw someone who liked to lure people into her webbed world, roll them up in it, and then destroy them.

Even Suzanne, who’d been her childhood friend, was starting to see it—and starting to steer clear.

“Oh, James,”