Page 32 of Long for Me
“I bought you a coffee.”
My God. Did he think that helped anything? This man!
“Bennett. You’re my boss. That’s all. You’ve made it clear that you don’t mind fucking with my mind or my body, but I can’t, won’t do what you’re suggesting right now. There’s no way, not after this week. Not after—”
I clipped my mouth closed. I’d almost said too much. I might not have been wearing Miranda’s armored suggestion of clothing, but I absolutely needed something to protect me from being so irrevocably stupid.
“After what, Rebecca?”
Damn him for knowing me so well.
Sucking in a deep, shuddering breath, I breathed out the one word that would get him to go away. “Red.”
He jerked like I’d slapped him. Eyes widened and his bottom jaw popped forward before he gritted his teeth together.
“You’re going to safe word so you don’t have to be honest with me? That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” Oh my God, was that my screeching? “You haven’t played fair since I saw you beating that woman at Luminous.”
His lips twitched but he had no response.
I pushed off the table, turned, and grabbed my files and iPad I’d left there when I left the room earlier. “Damn you, Bennett. You can’t twist me up like you’ve done all damn week and think that I’m just going to fall into your arms like a woman without any self-respect. I spent too many years fighting to get away from that bullshit and the last thing I need is another man in my life who thinks he can flash some sexy grin, give a couple orgasms, and then assume that he can treat that same woman like shit and expect her to just fall over and spread her legs.” A splash of water hit my iPad.
Fuck! I swiped my tears. I’d said it. I’d said everything I never wanted to admit and I’d said it to him.
I pushed past him without looking and swung the door open when he stopped me with a word.
My name.
But it wasn’t that he said my name, it was the way he said it. Tortured, like it’d been ripped from him.
“What?”
“Please, look at me.”
I couldn’t resist. I’d humiliated myself in front of my boss, spread my garbage at his feet, and still, that please spun through me and warmed me. Damn it!
“What?” I asked again, turning. I held my files to my chest and dragged my eyes reluctantly to him. “What else can you possibly say to me right now?”
His hands were at his hips. Broad shoulders heaving. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and dropped it back to his narrow hip. His tongue swiped across the front of his teeth and every moment he didn’t speak, a thickness filled the room, spun around me like a thick storm cloud and charged the air in the room.
“I’m sorry.”
If the pope had walked through the door I wouldn’t have been more surprised.
His expression slowly went blank. All the heat and desire in his eyes disappeared like someone slowly turning window blinds closed. “Have a good day, Rebecca. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I sidestepped Bennett as he walked to me, and then through the doorway. What in the hell had just happened?
