“These are the questions I ask myself every fucking day. I can’t concentrate when you’re around. When I know you’re just across the street. Just across the dinner table. Just across the bar.”
Her entire body was trembling against his. She needed him. Needed more than what he was willing to give her.
“Every day, you lure me a little closer. And one day, I’m not going to be strong enough to step back.”
“Then stop stepping back.”
One of his fingers toyed with the zipper of her jeans. Brushing lightly over it.
“There are rules, Remi.”
“I’m not a teenager. I’m not dating your little brother. You’re not married.”
“Your mother is my boss.”
“You want my mom’s okay before you’ll stick your dick in me? We’re both adults, Brick. We don’t need a permission slip!”
His hand abandoned her zipper and coasted up her sweater to rest just under her breast. Her nipple strained against the confines of her bra, needing his touch. She was shaking again. But this time, it wasn’t from fear.
“I don’t want to know what you feel like from the inside if you’re just going to pack up and leave. I don’t want to watch you walk away knowing what you taste like between those fucking thighs. I don’t want to say good-bye to you knowing what my come looks like spread over your perfect goddamn tits.”
Her knees gave out on her right then and there. But she didn’t fall. Because once again, Brick Callan caught her.
“How the hell should I know if or when I’m leaving? And why does that give you the right to torture me?”
“You aren’t hearing me, Remi. If I got anywhere near that sweet pussy of yours, I would punish you for making me wait so damn long. I’d discipline you for wanting to leave me. You’re safer if I never touch you. And so am I.”
As he said the words, his cock flexed between them.
She was shaking now. He’d put voice to it. Her deepest, darkest desire. He wanted to dominate her. The thought of it, the thought of that big, hard man bending her over and…
“Show me.”
He flinched, and she saw his jaw tighten as his throat worked. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Test me. Show me how you’d punish me. How you’d make me apologize for all those lonely hard-ons I’ve left you with. All those times you had to get yourself off because you just couldn’t help it. Show me.”
She wanted, craved, needed to know what it felt like to have him powering into her, making her come.
“Never.” His whisper was jagged, broken. And it sliced her into ribbons.
“Then I guess you’re never gonna know what you’d find if you forgot about your dumbass rules long enough to slide that hand between my legs.”
His growl was a warning that she was pushing him too far. There was nothing she wanted more than to push him even harder.
“If you wanted me like that, nothing would stand in your way. Nothing would stop you from taking me and giving me what I want. So don’t stand there and act so conflicted when you’re more concerned with what other people would think if you got off your high horse and fucked me.”
She shoved at his big, broad chest. Soft flannel over hard muscle. He didn’t move an inch. Dear God, that turned her on. She was well on the road to humiliating herself and needed to take a hard detour before she threw herself at his feet and begged him to take her hard and mean. Just this once.
“Back the fuck up, Brick. You’ve said your piece. I’ve said mine. I’ll just go back to pretending you don’t exist. And you can go back to wondering just how wet I get. Just how hard you’d have to work to get all the way inside me. How tight I’d squeeze you when I come.”
He pulled her hair hard and snarled something unintelligible, but she wasn’t about to be intimidated.
“For the rest of your life, you can comfort yourself that you’ll never know. Congratulations on your sky-high morals, Brick Callan.”
“Fuck.”
In one swift move, he swung her around and bent her over the desk. One hand gripped the back of her neck. The other rested on the curve of her ass, fingers flexing into her flesh.
Her thighs quaked with anticipation.
She wanted this. Wanted what he was fighting his instincts to do. She wanted to be the one to push him too far and to take everything he had to give.
The hand on her bottom vanished, and in her mind’s eye, she could see him hauling back, ready to strike. But the slap didn’t come. Tears, hot and suffocating, blurred her vision. If Brick couldn’t give this to her, she’d never have it.
What was so wrong with her that he couldn’t give her what they both wanted?
He was breathing like a stallion behind her. She wished for his chest at her back, belt buckle digging into her skin above the waistband of her jeans. But he made no move to touch her. To take her.
“Sorry, Brick. The only man who gets to slap this ass is the one who’s going to fuck me.”
Both hands tightened on her for a second. Just long enough to give her hope that he was finally going to let her win. That he was going to shove down her jeans and ride her right here until they both came.
She was so wet she was sure he could see it through her jeans. The denim was going to freeze to her crotch on the long, lonely walk home.
Carefully, as if she were made of glass, he removed his hands. He stepped around her, putting the desk between them. His thick, swollen cock strained behind his fly, hands clenched at his side.
At least this time, it was his breath that was ragged. It was a small, pointless victory.
Remi straightened away from the desk. She didn’t look at him as she tugged the hem of her sweater down. “That was your last chance, Brick. I hope you don’t regret it.”
He didn’t say a fucking word as she marched out of the office without a backward glance.
27
He was too lightheaded to take orders or make change. Small talk was impossible when his thoughts were filled with how close he’d come to losing his mind. He’d bent her over his desk. The threads of control that had once been so tightly wound were frayed to the breaking point.
“So. You and Remi, huh?”
At the mention of her name from his brother’s mouth, Brick flinched. “What?”
“You two just about committed arson with that little bonfire on her way out,” Spencer said, toying with the coaster.
“Fuck,” Brick muttered. The last thing he needed was word to get back to the chief that one of her sergeants practically dry-humped her daughter in public then yelled at her when she tried to leave. And then almost climbed over a dozen bodies to get to her when she flipped him off and stormed right on out the front door.
Remi Ford was bad for a man’s sanity.
“There are rules,” he pointed out to his brother.
Spencer smirked. “What good is having your own rules if they just keep you from doing what you want?”