She’d sneak up to the second floor and have her meltdown in private. The office door opened just as she was walking past it. Brick filled the doorway, and her feet rooted to the floor. He looked furious. But she didn’t want to deal with this. With him.
She shook her head and forced her feet into motion. But she didn’t make it a second step past him. His hand closed around her wrist with a stinging grip, and she found herself being yanked back into the office. He used her own body to force the door shut before pinning her to the wood with his hips.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demanded.
“Now is not a good time,” she hissed.
“You’re shaking like a fucking leaf. Why is your friend saying that bullshit about you?” He crowded her against the door, using his body to absorb her tremors. “Talk to me.”
He believed her. He believed her over Camille, over what everyone else would be saying, the rumors that would be flying. He believed her. For some reason, that faith made her want to cry.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both. She has her reasons. You need to leave me alone, Brick. We’ve done this dance before.” She hated that the weight of his body against hers instantly made her feel calmer, safer.
“Why? So you can date my brother?” Now he didn’t look furious. He looked miserable as pain bloomed in those sharp blue eyes.
“For Pete’s sake, Brick. Spence is like a brother to me. And not in the way you keep pretending to think of me as a sister. But you don’t get to tell me you don’t want to be with me and then throw a fit when I end up with someone else.”
He bared his teeth at her, and she half expected him to take a bite out of her. Instead he shifted gears. “Are you just going to let everyone believe you were the one driving that night?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
He shook his head slowly. “The Remi I know would have that woman by the lady balls and crying for a teddy bear for lying. So I repeat. What the fuck is going on? Why aren’t you burning down her world right now?”
The laugh she tried to force came out as a half sob. “This doesn’t concern you. Leave it the fuck alone.”
He muttered something under his breath about murder, and Remi looked at him. Really looked at him.
“You really do believe me, don’t you?”
He looked annoyed. “I know when you’re lying.”
“Yeah. When I was eighteen. But I could have gotten better at it. I could be a different person. One you don’t know,” she pushed.
“I know that if you fucked up like that, you’d move heaven and earth to make it right. You’d have confessed on the scene, demanded a breathalyzer, and put yourself in the back of a squad car if you thought you put your friend in the hospital.”
She slumped against him, anger mixing with something more primal. “I did put her in the hospital,” she hissed. “Just because I wasn’t behind the wheel doesn’t mean I wasn’t responsible.”
“Your so-called friend is trying to ruin you, and you’re still worried about protecting her. What would happen if I talked to her?”
Remi felt the color drain from her face. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and held on. He went hard against her, his erection swelling behind his jeans. “Don’t you dare try to get involved in any way. Do you hear me?”
“You expect me to just stand by and ignore the fact that you’re in some kind of fucking trouble?”
“Yes! That is exactly what I expect you to do! Because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be my keeper and keep me at arm’s length. You can’t protect me from the big, bad world while protecting yourself from me!”
She’d never known want like this. Never been able to put a label on the desire she’d always had where Brick was concerned. But being pinned to the door by the pissed off, barely restrained giant, she finally had the word for it. She wanted to be dominated, wanted him to trust her enough to take everything he needed to give. She wanted to push him past those stalwart limits so he would finally take what he wanted.
She needed those vibrations shuddering through his body to ruin his walls, release that white-knuckled control, and set him free. His erection swelled, rigid and straining behind the fly of his jeans. She ached for him. And hoped like hell he was in the same pain.
“Now unless you plan to use that dick for what it was intended, back the fuck off,” she said, her voice low and shaking.
“I’m not good for you, baby,” he said. “I wouldn’t be gentle or sweet. I’d be mean, rough. And you deserve—”
“If you say that I deserve better than to be fucked exactly the way I want to be fucked, then clearly you’re not the man for the job.”
His eyes narrowed to slits, and Remi wondered if this was the time that he’d make good on all those threats to murder her. His entire body was bunched and trembling as if ready to spring.
One thing was clear. Brick wasn’t keeping his distance now.
As if reading her mind, he thrust his hips against her, pressing that hard, denim-covered cock against her, making her whimper. The tendons in his neck stood out beneath his beard as he gritted his teeth and growled.
It wasn’t enough for either of them. When he dipped his knees to press against her center, when he rammed himself between her legs, her head fell back against the door. Again. Again. Again. Desire choked her as her inner walls fluttered, desperate to be part of the brutality of his thrusts.
He stopped just as abruptly as he’d begun, but this time with his hips wedged between her thighs. His cock pulsing between them, his breath ragged.
Her pulse was racing, and she was hot, light-headed.
How had he never kissed her? How had they touched so intimately, shared so much vulnerability, yet his mouth had never taken hers? What would it be like to breathe his air? To feel the stroke of his tongue? To taste his words?
Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. Their eyes locked, but neither of them moved. They were trapped just a few steps outside the real world. Here in this cramped, dark office, they didn’t have the rules that existed on the other side of the door.
“What would I find if I slid my fingers into your panties right now?”
Her mouth went dry, and the insistent throb between her legs became a frantic drumbeat.
“Why don’t you find out?”
He fisted a hand in her hair, dragging her head back. He leaned in closer until their lips were a breath apart. “That fucking mouth, Remi.”
She let out a tiny, ridiculous whimper.
Oh, God. This wasn’t happening. This was one of those fantasies. One of those dreams she’d wake up from and realize Brick Callan was never going to touch her the way she wanted him to.
“Would you be wet?” His whisper was harsh, making her nipples tighten. “And if you were, would it be for me? Or someone else?”
Her eyelids were too heavy to stay open. She felt drugged and dreamlike, being held like this by him.