Talking Dirty with the CEO - By Jackie Ashenden Page 0,61

didn’t look up, his attention on his phone. “Whatever. Make an appointment next time, okay?” Then he turned back to the windows, raising his phone to his ear, making another call.

An appointment. He wanted her to make an appointment. As though she was a stranger who wanted to talk to him about business. Not someone he’d held in his arms. Not someone he’d made love to.

Ice began to creep through her veins. She felt dismissed. Like a child told off by the headmaster, then expected to make her way back to the classroom.

She took a breath, wanting to say something snarky and sarcastic. Then leave, slamming the door behind her.

But a tiny, hard lump of pride stopped her.

How dare he do this to her? As if their time together had meant nothing.

Because it hadn’t meant nothing. She was in love with him. Freaking love.

She straightened as the spark of anger became a flame, licking up inside her. She’d been dismissed many times in her life, but to have this man do it to her was the one thing she just couldn’t bear. And she knew if she let him she’d regret it. Forever. She knew it as surely as she knew the layout of Zombie Force level one.

Her hands curled into fists as she strode over to where Joseph stood with his stupid phone. “I want to talk to you,” she said. Loudly.

He frowned, not bothering to look at her, talking to whoever was on the other end.

“I want to talk to you now,” she insisted.

Joseph shook his head as if he was shaking off an annoying insect, beginning to turn away from her again.

Christie lost her temper. “Now, Joseph!” She whipped his phone out of his hand and stabbed the disconnect button before he could do anything about it.

“What the hell are you doing?” he growled, making a grab at the phone.

She chucked it onto the couch, out of his reach, and stood in front of him, adrenaline pumping through her, shaking with a strange combination of rage and fear and—weirdly—excitement. He glared at her, eyes glittering in the light, anger stamped on his handsome face.

And had she been the Christie of three weeks ago, she would have run. Would have turned tail and vanished out the door.

But she wasn’t that Christie any more.

She was strong. She was beautiful. She was brave.

And she was in love with him.

“What do you want?” he demanded. “I’m extremely busy.”

Behind her, his phone chirped happily and his gaze flicked to where it sat on the couch.

Damn him. Fueled by an assertiveness she hadn’t known she possessed, Christie reached up and grabbed his chin, forcing his gaze back to hers again. His eyes widened as they met hers.

“Don’t dismiss me like a child, Joseph Ashton,” she said. “I want to talk to you.” Beneath her fingers his skin felt warm, rough with stubble.

He stared at her, his focus sharpening. “What about?” He didn’t pull away, letting her hold him, and she couldn’t help moving her thumb over his skin, couldn’t help brushing it over his lower lip, the softness in contrast to the roughness of his jaw.

His breath caught. She heard it. And it made the anger inside her, the fear, the doubt, turn into something else.

“What about, Christie?” he repeated, a rough edge to his voice, his gaze dropping to her mouth.

“About the little fact that you walked out on me three days ago without a bloody word. And now you won’t answer my calls or my texts. What the hell is going on?”

…

Joseph stared down at her, looking into big green eyes full of anger and, underneath it, a fearful kind of hope. Her fingers on his jaw sent sparks of electricity through him, his body tightening, ignoring the brain that told it their little affair was over. Oh, no, his body disagreed most strenuously.

And that only added to his temper.

The fact she was even here, filling up his office with her scent and her passionate, stubborn presence, making him want all the things he knew he couldn’t give her, pissed him off so much he could barely speak.

Since he’d left Jude’s apartment three days ago he’d been trying to think of what he wanted to say to Christie. How he would end it between them. And every time he thought he knew, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Couldn’t bring himself to make the move that would let her go.

Procrastination when it came to things that were emotionally difficult for him