There was one person who monopolized his thoughts and attention. Had thoroughly hijacked his focus so not even work offered an escape. Which was unprecedented. No person or thing had ever interfered with work before. He hadn’t allowed it. But since Saturday night—since he’d dropped Devon off at her house with both of them still smelling of sex—he didn’t have a choice.
Devon Cole had become his own personal ghost. And she haunted him when he was awake and during the few hours of sleep he managed to snatch.
His fingers tightened around the stylus, and it pressed into his skin. Nearly forty-eight hours had passed since he’d last seen her, and he could still hear her moans in his ears. Still feel the impatient, demanding twist of her body under his. Still smell the perfume of her need. Still taste that perfume on his tongue.
But even more, her sharp gasp as he coldly called her a fool for trusting him rattled in his ears like phantom chains. Her contained expression and shuttered emerald eyes floated across his mind.
Goddamn, he needed an exorcist if he were going to focus or sleep again.
“Cain.”
He jerked up his head from his blind study of the report to find the men and women around the table staring at him, including Karina, Achilles and Kenan. He avoided the two men’s scrutiny, not just uncomfortable with what he might see in their identical gazes, but with what he might inadvertently reveal to them.
“I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I was studying the numbers.”
Karina nodded. “I suggested each of us review the proposals and bids then reconvene next week with the top five. And we can narrow it down to three from there.”
“Sounds good.” Cain tapped the screen and closed the email out. “Is there anything else?” A murmur of noes filled the room, and moments later, the meeting ended, and everyone filed out.
Sighing, Cain followed minutes later. As he headed toward his office, his thoughts again reverted to Devon. What was he going to do? Saturday night, he’d had big intentions of maintaining a safe distance, never crossing that line again. But the past two days had rendered those objectives laughable—and impossible.
He wanted her.
All of the reasons why he should uphold the boundaries he’d placed on this “relationship” remained valid. Now more than ever, since they’d thrown sex into the mix. But that logic took a suicidal leap out the window when up against his memories of that night, the smile of pure joy that had lit her face when she’d seen her family. Or when the brand of her sweet, selfless embrace taunted him with a bone-deep longing he refused to name—was too terrified to name.
No, he couldn’t go on much longer like this, he decided, sweeping a glance over his executive assistant’s empty chair and desk. He had to make a choice. Either he stick to the facade of a loving fiancé in public and preserve a careful and polite distance in private... Or he surrender to his dark, carnal urges and fuck Devon out of his system.
Pulling open his closed office door, he strode inside, jaw clenched. Only one of those options didn’t spell disaster. Only one made sense—
Devon rose from the couch in his sitting area, her emerald eyes slamming into his.
“Cain,” she said, her sultry tone soothing the agitation crackling under his skin—and hardening his body to the point of pain. “I’m sorry to show up uninvited, but there was something I needed to speak with you about. Your assistant said I could come in and wait for you...”
She continued speaking, but a dull roar had exploded in his head. And it pounded in his chest, his gut...his cock. Seeing her in the flesh as if she’d been conjured straight out of his dirty fantasies, wearing a black turtleneck dress that clung to every lush curve, all that gorgeous brown-and-gold hair tumbling around her shoulders and playing hide-and-seek with her beautiful breasts...
His will caved, and he buckled under the weight of his lust.
Dropping his files and tablet to the floor, he stalked across the office. With each step, every warning shed from him like dirt knocked off a boot. By the time he stood in front of her, her green eyes were wide with surprise and simmering with heat.
He was not the CEO of Farrell International. Or a member of one of the oldest, wealthiest families in Boston. He wasn’t a son, a brother, not even a bought fiancé.
He was just a man condensed to the basest, most primal parts of himself.
Hunger. Need.
Survival.
Because if he didn’t get inside Devon, he would damn sure cease to exist.
Lifting his hands, he cupped her face, tilted it back. His thumbs swept over her high, rounded cheekbones, skimming the tender skin under her amazing eyes.
“Cain,” she whispered, her fingers circling his wrists. But she didn’t tug him away. Just held on.
His answer was to take. Her mouth. Her gasp. Her breath.
Her.
He molded his lips to hers, dragging his teeth along the soft, damp skin. Smoothing any sting he might’ve caused with his tongue, then plunging inside her. God, it had been only two days since he’d last savored her, but it might as well have been two weeks, two centuries.
