by Shayla Black
handle this interrogation with some modicum of civility.
It was so good to know civility wasn’t going to be required.
It wasn’t so good to realize that the minute she’d opened that bratty mouth, he’d gotten hard as hell and he wanted to fuck her more than he wanted to figure her out. There was a little voice playing in his head that told him to just get inside her and all those secrets would open for him. All he had to do was thrust inside her tight body and the mysteries of the universe would reveal themselves.
Yeah, he wasn’t going to do that. He was going to do his job and find out who she worked for and then he would walk away from her. He wasn’t going to hold her tenderly or hope she could love him. No. It was time to grow the fuck up. How was it being through what he’d been through in Iraq hadn’t managed to teach him what this one woman had? He needed to shut down and do his job.
But that didn’t mean parts of his job couldn’t be very pleasurable.
“Uhm, Jesse, don’t you think you should handle this in the conference room? It’s where Ian planned on keeping her.” Adam Miles’s voice was an unwelcome intrusion.
“No.” He knew the old Jesse would have stopped, but this was between him and Phoebe.
“Adam, I can really explain. This is all one huge misunderstanding.” Phoebe tried to bring her head up.
That was an easy move to counter. He brought his hand down on that sweet, sweet ass. Phoebe had the damn prettiest ass he’d ever watched for hours and drooled over, and now he had zero reason to not spank that gorgeous flesh. He heard that sound, that smack as his hand hit her, and he felt her shiver. She didn’t scream. Nope. He’d thought if he smacked her good, she would call him a fucking pervert, but he’d been a dumbass idiot and this Phoebe just moaned a little as the slap went through her.
It wasn’t the type of moan that would cause him to stop spanking a sub at Sanctum.
Motherfucker. He knew he hadn’t been wrong about her. He’d thought there was a submissive streak buried under her “I’m a good girl so don’t fuck my sweet little asshole” exterior.
“The only explanation is I’m a dirty little spy and I need to tell my captor everything in order to keep him from slapping my ass silly.” He couldn’t be professional with her. It wouldn’t work. It would only serve to put distance between them, and now he could see that distance was what she’d worked for the whole time. She hadn’t let him do more than hold her hand and give her an awkward peck. She’d had him convinced he just wasn’t her type, but he could smell her now. Yeah, that wasn’t sweet or gentlemanly, but then that obviously didn’t work for her. “She likes me slapping her ass. Take a deep whiff, Adam, and you’ll be able to tell she’s aroused.”
She gasped and her whole torso came up off his. “Jesse!”
Yeah, she sounded like a pissed off girlfriend, but she wasn’t his girlfriend. She was the woman who had played him and then nearly painted her initials on his chest. And he was the idiot who had stood there and almost begged her to do it.
He cringed at the thought of how stupid he’d been about her. He knew he was ping-ponging, caught between wanting to understand her and wanting to throttle her, but most of all, he wanted to get his hands on her.
He wanted to see just how much she’d lied about.
“You might want to think this thing through, Jesse,” Adam began.
He was just about to tell Adam where he could shove his thought process when Big Tag strode out of his office. A thunderous look clouded his boss’s face, but Jesse was ready to throw down with whoever he needed to. This was his op and his…fuck, he didn’t even know what to call her, but Phoebe was his.
Ian stopped in front of them. “Take her to your office. Do what you need to do but keep it down. Apparently we’re still having a baby shower and I have to attend or risk having my balls ripped off my body. I like my balls, Murdoch. Keep her quiet. Charlie’s serious about this party thing. When did I fucking lose control? She’s not even an employee here.”
“No. I’m part owner,” Charlotte said, her voice a sharp instrument. She was a beautiful woman with strawberry blonde hair. She rested her hand on the bump on her belly that seemed to get bigger every day. “Eve and I own half this company, you know. And we have all the boobs so try getting around us. Phoebe, I swear to god if I find out you’ve done one thing to put this company and our people in danger I will take you apart myself. Is that understood? You better hope you can prove you weren’t going to hurt Jesse. He’s one of my men and I will deal with you.”
Phoebe’s head came up again. “Your men? That’s a little presumptuous, isn’t it? You treat him like a puppy you can pat on his head and send away. He isn’t yours and if you think you can take me, you’re wrong.”
Charlotte’s lips curled up and Jesse realized Phoebe had just fallen into a trap. “She doesn’t like the fact that I said you’re mine, Jesse.”
Big Tag was frowning at her. “I didn’t either.”
She waved him off. “I meant as a friend and employee, but Phoebe’s brain goes straight for the sexual. I wonder why. Li’s right. You’re going to owe him a hundred bucks at the end of this thing. She’s all Stockholmed out. Who wants cake?”
Into His Dark
The Cimarron Series, Book 1
New…from USA Today Bestseller Angel Payne
Coming February 3, 2015!
Click here to pre-order.
The Cimarrons:
They’re the mysterious, magnetic ruling family
of the most secretive kingdom on earth: The Island of Arcadia.
No westerners have ever been allowed inside Arcadia’s borders…until now.
A new adventure…
Camellia “Cam” Saxon struggles not to pinch herself. Is she really here, as a guest in the castle of the world’s most mysterious royal family, working on the only western film crew allowed on the island of Arcadia? A year ago, she was the girl who finished college with a sigh instead of a bang, moving on to a safe job and a steady suburban routine without a blink…
Until she gets the call from a film graduate buddy that will change everything.
A dangerous desire…
Cam’s excitement turns to dread in an instant—as soon as she lays eyes on Evrest Cimarron. Beautiful, commanding, and regal, he turns her logic to ash and her blood to fire…making it damn hard to remember the crown on his head.
As an Arcadian alone, Evrest must be thrust into Cam’s don’t-even-go-there column. As the leader of the kingdom, he’s now the face on her delete key, too. A fantasy never to be fed…ever
A journey to the forbidden…
A mishap lands Cam in Evrest’s most secret chambers, surrounded by luxury beyond imagination—and seduced by a creature who is no longer charming host and alluring king but powerful, passionate man. In Evrest’s arms, Cam learns she has new identities, too. The sensible girl is abandoned for a woman of illicit needs and sinful desires.
It’s the most incredible night of her life. The most perfect man she’s known. The most flawless fit for her soul.
A mistake she can never make again.
Sneak Preview Excerpt
“Hello.”
I watched every mesmerizing inch of his lips move with the word, though the sound seemed to resonate through my heart, not my ears. On the other hand, nothing in the room moved again, so it was easy for me to hear both the velvety syllables.
“Hi.” I didn’t push it above a rasp. I didn’t want to restart the world yet—though somewhere far away, a classical guitar and a harp blended in one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’d ever heard. It helped carry my soul’s plea to heaven.
Please don’t let this end.
Never.
Ever.
Please.
He reached. Slipped both his hands around mine.
And the certainty encompassed my heart.
I’d been waiting for this moment. For a very long time. Perhaps forever. The air in my lungs knew it. T
he very marrow of my bones knew it. The reaches of my soul knew it.
Why? How?
I didn’t know the questions had fallen out aloud—maybe they hadn’t—but as he branded his gaze deeper into mine, I knew he’d somehow heard. The corners of his mouth turn up a little, just enough to sluice all my nerve endings with high-octane awareness. Everything became him. Only him.
“Thank you for coming.” The words, seeming rote and protocol, evoked much more. There was a meaning beyond his meaning, but I couldn’t grasp it. What are you trying to say?
I hoped my eyes conveyed the question because I couldn’t speak the words. Tiny crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes, as if assuring me there was an answer to that, and he couldn’t wait to share it with me.
“I’m happy to be here.”
Nope. Please try your connection again. “Happy” was for free hot fudge sundaes on my birthday or a freak heat wave in January. This was something past happy. Something that didn’t have a word. Something twined to the completion of my hands inside his, my nearness to him, the electricity of my whole body in his presence.
“Are you certain of that?” His thumbs caressed the insides of my wrists, shooting rockets through my belly and fireworks through my brain.
Fireworks? Seriously, Cam?
But it made sense. Weirdly, insanely, suddenly, everything just…made sense.
“It’s just hard to believe this is happening.” I’d caught the double meaning virus, too—and it felt pretty nice. Until now, the whole living-in-a-dream thing was confined to excitement about the movie and simply being here in Arcadia. That was before this. Before him. Before the bubble that lowered over the two of us, this strange and wonderful cocoon sealed by the bridge of our touch, the embrace of our stares, the lock of our spirits…
Not just meeting each other. Recognizing each other.
“I am Evrest.” He dipped toward me, an edge of bashfulness in his voice. So beautiful. I treasured every note, gluing the sound to my memory like a precious flower in a scrapbook.
“I’m…Cam.”
“Cam.” He extended the last note, almost turning the word into a silken song. My lips parted as I imagined how it would feel if he did that against my bare skin, though I didn’t dare venture on what body part. Did it matter? His smile, parting wider, provided that definitive answer. Didn’t matter one damn bit.
