Seducing The Boss (Pulse #2) - Mari Carr Page 0,19
shirt.”
“When you’re in my house, you belong to me.”
Her frown wasn’t unexpected, and Kellan instantly regretted the comment.
“Excuse me?”
He grasped quickly for a save. “You’re my prisoner, remember?”
Mercifully, she accepted this words at face value, her expression letting him know how much she’d enjoyed that role.
“Am I going to be your captive all weekend?”
He nodded, and they continued eating as Kellan tried to get a handle on his emotions. He was all over the fucking place this morning.
Sara was seeking a vanilla existence—the type of lifestyle that made him shudder. Marriage, kids, a house, and a minivan. His happy ending looked a hell of a lot different. She was messing up his head with all this domestic stuff.
Sex. He needed to guide them back to safer waters. “Unless there’s another fantasy you want to play out.”
“Seriously?” Her face lit up, and he was struck once more by the ignorance of the men she’d dated in the past. How had they not seen this playful, sexy side of her?
“What happened between you and David?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you break up?”
She gave him the side-eye, obviously surprised by his abrupt about face as far as conversations went. “Talk about a buzzkill.”
He casually shrugged, trying to play off his question. The truth was, the more time he spent with her, the less he could understand why any guy would dump her. “You never really said. Just gave me that bullshit about the two of you growing apart.”
“What makes you think that’s bullshit?”
“Isn’t it?”
She grimaced. “Yeah. It is. I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall with him right from the beginning. I mean the sex was always lukewarm, but we were such good friends. We had a ton of things in common, we never fought, we had a good time together. It was easy to be with him. No work at all.”
His questions about her breakup with David weren’t new. She always just said they drifted apart, and he’d let that answer ride, partly because he didn’t want to pry, and partly because breaking up felt like the natural ending to all relationships. At least to him.
“That lifestyle sounds like hell on earth to me, but it seems a lot like what you’ve always wanted, Scrubs.”
“I’d be pissed off about that observation if it weren’t also true. Kill me if I ever get into another relationship like that, all right?”
“What happened?”
“He had an affair with his secretary.”
Of all the answers he’d been expecting, that one had never occurred to him. “You’re kidding.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “I’ve never told anyone that. I was embarrassed and then, sort of ashamed. Like maybe it was my fault he’d gone out looking for someone else.”
“That’s crap, and you know it. The guy cheated on you. That’s on him.”
“Yeah. I get that. It hurt like hell when I first found out. Nothing like having your life tossed on its ear by such a cliché. But now…”
He waited for her to fill in the blanks. When it became obvious she wasn’t going to, he prodded. “But now?”
“I feel like I dodged a bullet. Despite giving your too-healthy ego a boost, last night proved to me I want more from a relationship than just companionship.”
“Oh yeah?” He grinned widely, prompting her eye roll.
“Yeah, you arrogant asshole. I want hot sex and passion and knock down, drag out fights over stupid shit, and a relationship that’s so good, it’s worth putting a little work into.”
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there without responding. Truth was he didn’t know what to say. Last night had opened his eyes to some stuff he’d just as soon not see.
She rose from the table, intent on clearing the table. “Don’t look so panic stricken, Kell. I sure as hell don’t want any of that with you.”
He gripped her upper arm, catching her by surprise, trying to ignore the way her easy dismissal of him as a candidate pissed him off. He didn’t want what she claimed to desire, but that didn’t stop his irrational pride from rearing its ugly head.
Sara liked to refer to herself as vertically challenged. What that meant was it took very little effort on his part to tug her five-foot-four frame facedown across his lap. “Actually, there is one part of that you do want from me. After all, our entire plan for this weekend is hot sex, right?”
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, trying to get up.
“Punishing you.”
She stilled. “What the