the distance between us, dips his chin, and looks out from under his eyelids at whoever is behind me. “If you touch her,” he says in a low growl that rolls over me and raises goosebumps on my skin, “I will break every bone in your body.”
“Sir,” a voice says, and the sound of shuffling feet retreating sends Alexander’s gaze on me.
“My office. Now.”
“Um, gee, let me think… fuck you!”
He hooks my upper arm and drags me through the crowd of suits back in the direction he came.
“Alex, come on! You can’t just walk away from this meeting,” Hayes says to our backs.
“Start without me.” He guides me into a corner office. He doesn’t take his hand off me while he closes the door and flips the lock. He also doesn’t release me when he hits a switch that turns the clear glass walls opaque.
Gently, but with overpowering strength, he pushes my back to the glass. His lips hover so close. “This mouth,” he growls and slams his lips to mine.
I press my hands against his chest and intend to push him away, but as his tongue slides into my mouth, my fingers curl into his lapel. I kiss him back with the force of everything I’m feeling, the yearning and desire mixed with rejection and anger. A dangerous cocktail of emotions that could easily put me right back where I was last night, naked and begging.
No!
I shove him off me, but he stays close, his lips wet and parted. “I’m done.”
He cups my jaw and brushes my cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. “We’re just getting started.”
“Let me go. I’m leaving.”
“No.”
“No?” I reel back, pressing myself into the unforgiving glass in an attempt to put distance between us. “Back off. I’m leaving!”
He cringes slightly, then nods and backs away. “Let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain. Message received loud and clear—”
“I didn’t want you to sign the NDA.”
“Oh, really? So the contract just magically appeared in the getaway car you had waiting for me without your knowledge?”
He licks his lips, and God, I wish he wouldn’t do that. “For the last three nights, I’ve sat outside your restaurant, hoping to see you. My intentions were to ask you to sign the document.”
“You got what you wanted. Goodbye, Alexan—”
“Then, on the third night, I finally saw you. I watched you from my car. Watched you smile, laugh, and chew your lip when you were concentrating.” He clenches his jaw. “I watched men stare at your tits and your ass. That stupid uniform—”
“You were stalking me. You have no room to judge.”
“—and I realized I want you. I don’t want you to sign the NDA because I want to kiss you in front of people. I want people to see us together, to talk about us, to speculate. I want all of that. With you.”
“Wow, Grizzly,” I say dryly. “Forgive me for not swooning at your feet because you’ve decided you’d like to publicly claim me.”
“You’re beautiful.”
My stupid heart melts at the soft sincerity in his voice.
“You’ve made me smile more than I’ve smiled in...” He shakes his head as if he can’t remember the last time. “You’re strong. Brave. Tenacious.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, tilts his head, and the ghost of a smile tilts his lips. “I don’t know a single person who would storm into my building and speak to me the way you did today. And in front of a prospective client.”
Damn… That is kinda messed up. I run my teeth along my lower lip, feeling, well, pretty shitty about that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“Your little outburst could cost me a ten-million-dollar job.”
My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh, God,” I say against my palm.
He smiles, like really smiles.
“This isn’t funny!”
“It’s not, no.”
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because you’re cute.” His expression sobers, and his gaze locks on my lips. “Because I’d give up tens of millions just for the chance to kiss you again.”
I rub my forehead, a headache quickly forming. “I’m so confused. You left me alone in your bed without even saying goodbye. You left me the number to your driver—”
“Is that what you think? I left you alone without saying goodbye?”
“You did!”
He shakes his head, pulls his phone from his pocket, and hits a few things on the screen before handing me the device.
I look at the black and white image… not an image, a video. “You have a security camera in your bedroom?” He doesn’t answer, probably because I’m staring at