The Negotiator (Professionals, #7) - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,34

have to listen to me bitch anymore."

"You know I can't do that either."

"I am not an irrational person, Mr. Adamos," she told me, following closely behind as I made my way through the house. "Give me a reason why you can walk around as freely as you choose while I can't, and I will accept it."

"No, you won't," I said, a chuckle in my voice because she simply was not the kind of woman to let something go if she had her mind made up about it. It was a quality I respected, even when she was using it against me.

"Is it because I am a woman?" she asked, reaching to grab my arm, trying to stop me before I could storm outside and way from her, knowing my men would stop her and haul her back into the house. "That's the reason isn't it?" she demanded, voice getting louder.

"Yes!" I shouted back, turning suddenly, making her step back so she could crane her head up to look me in the face, making her back press up against the wall. "Yes, it is because you are a woman," I told her. "I don't care if you don't like that explanation, but it is the truth. You are a woman. And if you knew what Chernev did to women, you would be falling on your knees thanking me for my protection."

It was when I finished speaking that I realized I had kept moving forward while I spoke, the urge to make her understand just how dangerous an adversary he was had pushed me into her personal space, my chest against hers, trapping her to the wall.

I could feel the breath expanding her chest, pressing her breasts against me as she slowly sucked it in.

"You could have told me that," she said, her calm, almost soft voice in complete contrast to the loud, passionate one I had used on her.

"You could have trusted me," I responded, voice going lower as well.

"You have to give people reasons to trust you, Mr. Adamos."

"I have given you shelter. Food. Protection. Half the items on your ridiculous list." The others I was still working on tracking down.

"You gain trust by sharing with people, not by expecting it in return for physical things."

"It was ugly information," I told her, momentarily distracted by the way her throat moved as she swallowed.

"I am used to living in an ugly world."

"You shouldn't have to," I told her, my eyes finding hers.

"You don't get to make that decision," she told me, voice going even softer.

"If I gave you the information, would you have stayed willingly?"

"I don't know," she admitted.

"I do. You would have gone. You would have been at risk. And if you had been hurt, I couldn't have lived with that."

"It wouldn't have been your fault."

"I brought you here. I put you in this situation. It would have been my fault."

"I'm a grown woman, Christopher," she insisted.

It was the name that did it.

Ripped away the small bit of control I'd had left.

She never called me by my name, save for that one time while arguing with me. It was always Mr. Adamos. Which, after a while, became sexy in and of itself.

But hearing my name in that soft, sweet voice, feeling that wall of formality drop, it just became impossible to hold myself back.

"I see that," I agreed, my hand raising, tracing up her shoulder, over her clavicle, slipping up the side of her neck, fingers reaching outward to frame her face.

Her eyelids got heavy, her breathing immediately quickening.

Her lips parted for a long moment before words came out.

"I don't think—" she started.

"Don't think," I demanded, my lips claiming hers.

There was no hesitation, no resistance.

All the tension that had been in her body disappeared, making her soft and responsive. Her arms raised, grabbing my upper arms, curling in, holding on as her lips pressed harder to mine, demanded more.

A low, throaty whimper escaped her lips, vibrated against mine when my tongue moved out, teasing the seam of her lips, seeking entrance.

Gaining it, I felt a shiver course through her as my hand slid back, fingers slipping up, curling into her hair.

Her hands rose, going around my neck, forcing her up on her tiptoes, crushing her breasts to my chest, making my cock strain. Desire was a live wire through my system, begging me to lift her off her feet, to carry her down the hall, to drop her down in my bed, to run my lips and tongue over every