Kiss me.
Kiss me.
Kiss me…
* * *
He hadn’t been trying to scare her. Then he found himself hovering over her, knife in hand, and had scared himself. But Isa wasn’t afraid. She didn’t see him as a monster but as a man. And right now, a woman he wanted stood before him.
He brushed his fingers along Isa’s satin-soft skin, between her breasts rising and falling in a white lace bra, down her flat, smooth stomach, and along the waistband of her pants.
Whiskey-colored eyes locked on his. Her full lips parted as she pulled in a breath, and every ounce of man in him wanted to sample every drop of woman in her.
He leaned closer, satisfaction coating his chest when Isa’s eyelids slid shut and she leaned closer to him. He captured her waiting lips, gently, and heat engulfed him like the entire warehouse had caught fire. Desire singed his torso, scorched his spine, incinerated his brain. Her pillowy lips gave and took until a high mewl came from her throat.
She smelled like spice cake and tasted better, her own brand of fire and smoke and sex. It’d been too long since he’d had a woman in his arms and this woman was all woman. From her high, high heels to her long, long legs hiding beneath a pair of inconvenient pants, to the delicate blouse he cut every last button off of and still longed to see what was underneath.
He dropped the knife to the table behind her and locked his free arm around her waist. She dipped with him, allowing him to tip her back, her long hair tickling his forearm. When he righted them both, his hand went to her jaw and he held her lips to his.
She didn’t balk.
She advanced one step, two, until her knees bumped his leg…and his prosthesis. Her lips disconnected from his with a subtle pop, her eyes going wide. The fire licking between them smothered in the hanging silence.
She’d touched the part of him that wasn’t him and now those dark lust-filled eyes were filled with alarm. Like she’d forgotten she was kissing a man who wasn’t complete.
“I thought you weren’t scared,” he said between clenched teeth.
He let her go, frustrated with himself for getting this far, for taking what he wanted when jealousy roared to life over Zachary Ferguson, for God’s sake. Isa wasn’t Eli’s to have. Up until two seconds ago, he would’ve bet she didn’t even like him.
He started away from her, feeling pissed or confused or maybe both in equal measure.
“Where are you going?” She snatched a palmful of his T-shirt and tugged, her eyes going to his legs as he shifted on his weight. This time the heat that lit within him was his temper.
He turned, not the least bit smoothly, and leaned in. “Why’d you kiss me?”
“You kissed me!”
“You kissed me back.” He came so close his nose practically touched hers, to test if she’d back away. To see if the reminder of all he was—of all he wasn’t—would scare her for good. She only moved enough to elevate her proud chin.
“So?”
“So?” he repeated, backing up to focus on her face. “Did you forget for a second I had a handicap? Is that why you kissed me back?”
“By handicap, I assume you mean your horrible attitude.” She held his eyes with hers. “And don’t do that teeth-sucking thing just because you’re pissed.”
“The what?”
“It’s your tic when you don’t know what to say.”
His tongue was pressed to the back of his front teeth, poised to do just that. He wedged his jaw tight and Isa hoisted a triumphant eyebrow.
“You don’t want me to date Zach because you want me for yourself. Is that it?”
Because she was right and he didn’t want to admit it, he chuffed a dry laugh and looked to the windows. “Yeah, right.”
She lifted her hand to his cheek. Her soft touch, her smell…there wasn’t a thing about Isabella Sawyer he didn’t want. He wanted her lips on his, her hands on him, her truncated sounds of steep pleasure saturating the air after an all-day marathon between the sheets.
He wanted to be the man to put a smile on her face, hear that moan of pleasure coming from her throat like when he kissed her a moment ago.
There was one piece of equipment standing between him and taking Isa to heaven and back again. The leg. Isa, with her to-die-for perfect body…God. He felt his shoulders wilt, his anger fade into a muted sadness.
What in the hell had he been thinking? The Eli he’d been looking for was gone. The only one left standing was in front of Isa, whose shirt gaped because he’d cut the buttons off it. What the fuck was wrong with him?
“I overstepped a boundary. It won’t happen again.” He lifted his hand and placed it over hers on his cheek. As much as he wanted to turn his face, kiss her palm, and enjoy her comfort, he resisted and brushed her aside instead. “I’ll replace your shirt.”
“You’ll replace my shirt,” she repeated, her tone flat.
“Yeah.” He walked away and this time she let him. He went to his office, determined to wrestle back two things he had no right to have: the burgeoning erection pressing his fly and an image of naked Isabella in his bed, legs spread, his face buried between her shapely thighs.
Jesus, that sounded fantastic.
“You can leave,” he called through a throat thick with lust. He wouldn’t ask her to compromise. Isa should never be asked to compromise.
Chapter 5
It took every bit of resolve she possessed not to follow him when he stormed off. Something had happened just now. Something more than that explosive kiss.
Seriously, explosive. TNT, dynamite. C-4.
Ka-boom.
She bent to pick up one of the plastic pearl buttons from the floor and rolled it between her fingers. What…was that all about? One minute he was slicing an apple, the next about to shred her clothes. Her shoulders shivered thinking about it. Not shivers of fear, either. Shivers of want.
Where Eli was concerned, there was an instinctual, almost animal attraction. Isa wasn’t comfortable with how easily he’d disconnected her good sense from her “do me, baby.”
Getting back to work was the only way to get through the afternoon, so that’s what she did. She found a tank top in the bottom of her tote and knotted her ruined shirt at her waist over it. Then she sat down, put her fingers on her keyboard, and checked her e-mail. There were thirty of them—the perfect distraction from the lip-lock that had left her hot and bothered to the nth degree.
She handled a few from Bobbie at the Crane office with ease. Yes, Eli would be attending the dinner at the Royale London, a fancy Chicagoan banquet hall where Reese had invited lots of corporate muckety-mucks to rub expensively suited elbows.
It was a few months out yet, so she didn’t bother to run it by Eli. He’d go because she’d make him, or he’d have fired her for real by then and wouldn’t go, and it wouldn’t be her problem.
A few e-mails from Chloe showed she hadn’t hung around Elsa’s to hit on Zach some more, instead returning to the office to respond from Isa’s main account. Thank God for her, Isa thought with a breath of relief. She answered a few of Chloe’s questions, knowing her worries were over the moment she hit SEND. Chloe could handle the bigger issues without her.
Isa pulled in a deep breath of accomplishment, considering why she loved being a personal assistant. Lifting the weight from her clients’ shoulders was simple for her but life-changing for them. Her parents may well have thought her destiny lay in becoming president at Sawyer Financial, but as Isa rolled that title around in her head, she felt her nose wrinkle.
She could be there now. Wearing a beige pantsuit and carrying a calculator. Sitting in her beige office with beige carpet and walls. Living a beige life. A wave of very real nausea swept over her whenever she imagined that plight.
She pulled her focus from the screen to look around Eli’s pad. Exercise equipment, black and silver. Blue mat. Red and rust-colored exposed brick, yellow warning stickers on the warehouse elevator from whatever business had predate
d him. The dining room table where she sat now was surrounded by mismatched chairs, each rustic wooden frame adorned with a different tapestry-styled cushion seat.
Instead of beige, her life was vibrant color. She ran a finger over a knot in the wood of the table. And damn if that color hadn’t exploded into a kaleidoscope of neon when Eli’s lips touched hers.
Aaaand she was thinking about the kiss again.
With a sigh, she pressed a button to print the e-mail she’d been reading, realizing belatedly that she was not in her office.
“Shit, shit, shit!” she hissed, hitting the CANCEL button repeatedly. From Eli’s cave, the printer hummed.
Too late.
Standing, she smoothed her hands down her pants and flipped her hair. She had planned to quietly finish her work and leave without seeing him again. No such luck. And no hiding that she was heading his way when her heels clicked along the concrete floor.
Well.
The kiss had happened. The button incident had happened. There was no taking it back. Regardless of how either of them felt about it, she was going to continue working here. So. She would deal with the here and now.
Since the sun was shining, Eli’s lair was welcome instead of foreboding. No fire cracked in the hearth today. Also unlike his usual, he wasn’t at his desk. He was at the printer.
“This yours?” He offered a sheet of paper.
“Yes.” She couldn’t keep from explaining. “Pressed the Print button by accident.”
“Mi printer es su printer.”
Isa accepted the document and Eli sank his hands into his jeans pockets, his forearms flexing with the movement.
“I wasn’t—”
“I shouldn’t—” they said at the same time.
He pursed his lips and she looked at her shoes.
“Go ahead.” She was going to say, I wasn’t offended when you kissed me, but now that she’d had a millisecond to think it through, maybe she should pretend the kiss hadn’t happened. Which was…impossible. Standing this close to him, it’s all she could think about.
“I shouldn’t have ruined your shirt,” he said.
“I dared you to.”
“Why?” His eyebrows compressed along with his lips.
“Because you have accepted the role of beast, but I don’t believe that’s who you are.” She let her gaze linger on his face before tracking down his body. “And because I like a challenge.”
“Do you?” He took a wide step toward her.
She matched his move and took one step closer to him. “Yes. I don’t wilt easily.”
He threaded her hair between his fingers, a look of longing and hurt mingling in his eyes. “I was about to lie and say I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
Shivers climbed her spine as she remembered how firm his lips felt against hers. “Maybe…you shouldn’t have stopped.”
His hands moved to grip her shoulders and he lowered his head, closer, closer…
With only a tingle of warm air between their parted mouths, the unmistakable clang of the elevator doors jolted her like a shock.
Eli looked as alarmed as she felt, jerking his head around to a wide-faced clock behind his desk.
“We’re early!” came a woman’s voice.
“Who is that?” Isa asked in a rush, the sound of an intruder sobering her like a bucket of ice water over her head.
“My sister-in-law, Merina.”
Alarm shot through her limbs. Fantastic.
Isa licked her lips and backed away from Eli, who allowed his palm to slide down her arm before he gave a brief nod of Everything is fine.
Except for the fact that Isa was trying to win over Merina and Reese, everything was fine. She fluffed her hair and straightened her shirt, which was basically useless since strings poked out here and there from the missing buttons.
Maybe Merina wouldn’t notice.
Chin up, Isa stepped from Eli’s office, the paper in her hand helping her look as if she’d been in there on official business.
Merina blinked at Isa, recognition written on her face. Isa couldn’t be sure Reese had let his wife know Isa was pretending to be an employee of Sable Concierge rather than its founder.
With a quick shake of her head she hoped communicated that, Isa moved forward, hand extended. “I’m Isabella, Elijah’s personal assistant.”
“Of course.” Merina nodded a little too vigorously. She knew plenty. “You know my husband, Reese Crane.”
“Reese, nice to see you.” Isabella shook his hand next. Okay, this was bordering on silly, but Eli wouldn’t appreciate any level of scheming, so she wasn’t about to admit she’d been lying to him all along.
She would tell him she owned Sable Concierge. Eventually.
“I should get going. We’re through for the day, aren’t we?” She directed the question to Eli. His hands, now stuffed in his back pockets, broadened his delicious chest and muscular shoulders. Yeah, so she’d just focus on packing up her things rather than drool over him for all the Cranes to see.
“For the day,” he said, his lingering gaze lighting with challenge. “Thank you, Isabella.”
Her full name sounded foreign on his tongue, but then, he couldn’t very well call her Sable, could he?
“You’re welcome. Until next week.” In two minutes, she was packed and ready to go. The elevator door opened as she was strolling to it, revealing a giant with long, elbow-length hair walking arm in arm with a petite, gorgeous blonde. The man had to be Tag Crane.
She dispensed introductions quickly, but since there was no need to lie (she’d never met Tag), those were much easier. Rachel, Tag’s girlfriend, was instantly likable the moment she grinned and said, “I love your shoes.”
“Thanks,” Isa responded. “I’m sure Eli gets tired of me clomping around here all day, but they’re a weakness.”
“He’ll be fine.” Rachel gave her a conspiring wink before her eyes studied the strings poking out from the missing buttons on Isa’s shirt.
“If you’ll excuse me.” Isa closed her shirt with one hand. “Enjoy your dinner.”
* * *
Eli hadn’t invited Isa to stay for dinner, which was for the best. Especially with Merina and Rachel chattering away about Tag and Reese like they weren’t in the room.
Notably missing was their father and Rhona, but Alex didn’t make every family dinner, so no one was surprised by this. Least of all Merina, who’d made it a point to call and ask if they wanted pasta and salad. “Alex and Rhona are in Amish country. Did you know that, Reese?”
Reese hadn’t known that, and Tag and Eli exchanged equally puzzled glances. Why was their father in Amish country? Did he need a bureau? Cheese?
Merina dispatched dinner—Italian—with minimal fuss. She’d insisted on dishes but let Eli win the argument for paper napkins. Now everyone sat at the table, plates cleared and wineglasses refilled. Beers sat in front of Eli and Tag.
“She’s working out, I guess,” Reese said.
Pretending not to know what his brother was talking about, Eli only frowned.
“Isabella. The PA position.” Reese lifted his glass of red. “When I saw you with her, you two seemed to be getting along.”
“I’ll say,” Rachel put in.
Eli glanced over and Rachel sipped from her glass.
“I’d have thought you would have fired her by now,” Reese said.
“I have,” Eli grumbled. “Several times.”
“I bet.” Tag let out a chuckle and sent Eli a knowing look. “Hard to make moves on the girl when she’s on the payroll.” He sent Rachel a warm look. “Right, Dimples?”
Rachel gave Eli a nod of approval. “She’s very pretty, Eli.”
“And feisty.” Merina smiled.
“Takes one to know one.” Rachel held up her glass and Merina clanged hers in a “cheers.”
“What’s going on?” Tag asked, his smile gone.
Reese’s brow lowered. “They do this more than they used to.”
“Oh, come on, guys,” Merina said, setting her glass on the table. “It’s obvious Isa and Eli had something going on other than work.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Eli growled, then followed Merina’s gaze as it settled on a stray button on the floor.
Dammit.
The last thing he needed was for his family to know he’d crossed a line.
“No shit?” Tag asked, his smile edging across his face. “You and the PA.”
Eli sighed and drank his beer.
“I like her,” Reese announced in that commanding, authoritative way he had. Even Merina and Rachel paused to listen. “Especially since she massaged you into RSVPing yes to the Royale London event in November.”
His brain may have become hung up on the word massaged if not for what followed.
“What?” Eli barked.
“Nothing,” Tag said quickly, amused as per his usual. “Just a Crane thing.”
Eli sucked his tongue against his teeth. He’d take that RSVP up with Isa first thing Monday morning.
Then he’d fire her. Again.
“We should go out next time,” Merina said, breaking off her conversation with Rachel to focus on Eli intently.
“Be my guest,” Eli said. “I could use the break.”
Tag’s laughter shook the table.
“With you in tow,” Merina said.
“The two of you,” Rachel said, batting her lashes. She was braver when she sat next to Merina. “Wouldn’t you like to get out more?” She cocked her head in genuine curiosity.
“Look around, Rach. This place is big enough to hold a three-ring circus. Where do I need to go?”
“It’d be good practice for the event,” Tag said. “Like seeing how a formerly captive animal reacts to being in the wild.”
Eli sent him a death glare.
“You should bring your PA,” Merina sang, a smile on her face. “Your father always brings his PA.” She capped that statement with a grin and Reese leaned over and wiped it off her face with a kiss. Rachel, too far from Tag to do the same, winked at him and he grinned like a moron.
The Bastard Billionaire Page 7
