“Why not? Why are you so bad for me?”
He smiled. “That’s like asking why it’s bad to put a scorpion in a cage with a sweet little rabbit.”
“You’re so certain that I’m this innocent, fluffy, harmless creature. How do you know I’m really like that? Maybe I’m a closet slut, a bitch just playing at being innocent.”
“If only it was that simple,” he told her sadly. “We both know you aren’t pretending to be something you’re not.”
“But I’m not as fragile as you seem to think I am, either.”
“I never said you were fragile,” Cullen replied. “I think you’re very, very unique, Ivy. You’re like a precious work of art—something to be treasured, respected, loved and tended to carefully. Not thrown away, abused, kept in the dark, treated shabbily.”
The way he looked at her, the expression on his face as he said these things—it took her breath away yet again, but this time in a good way. She felt as though he truly meant it—he truly cared about her so deeply that he was concerned more for her well being than even his own gratification.
“You send a lot of mixed signals,” Ivy said, after he’d gazed into her eyes like that for a time.
“Is this a mixed signal?” he asked, and then he leaned across the seat, taking the back of her head in his hand as his lips made gentle, exquisite contact with her mouth.
His lips were soft, warm, and unmistakably passionate. The kiss wasn’t long, but when he broke away and repositioned himself in the driver’s seat—Ivy was speechless.
Cullen smirked ever so slightly, shifting the car into gear and driving quickly into traffic.
They arrived at Cullen’s apartment building and he pulled into a parking spot almost directly in front of the home.
Ivy hadn’t spoken much the rest of the way. Her mind was a whirl of thoughts, fears, excitement and lust.
His kiss had once more awoken everything inside her, and she realized instantly that she was still far more attracted to Cullen Sharpe than any other man she’d ever met.
She’d never even thought such a pull of attraction existed in anything but the movies. Yet here she was, feeling it, experiencing it as vividly as anything she’d ever gone through in her entire life.
Ivy wanted to ask him why. Why was he so cold and distant one moment—so judgmental, cruel even—while the next he seemed to treat her with loving care and an almost parental compassion?
She knew Cullen Sharpe wouldn’t have given her the satisfaction of an answer. The choice was clear enough. Either she had to quit working for Biomatrix Pharma, stop speaking with and seeing Cullen—or she needed to accept that she was powerless to resist him when he wanted her.
Cullen came around to the passenger side and opened the door for her.
“Come, Ivy,” he said, looking at her with the hungry expression she’d gotten familiar with. His cold eyes were unblinking, frozen and yet somehow burning like a thousand suns.
She got out of the car and allowed him to take her hand, walking with her to the front door. He let them inside and then closed the door behind them.
Ivy was aware that it was just the two of them and now they were in his home, in his environment, with nothing to stop him from ravishing her completely.
Her nipples stiffened and she felt her most private center respond with a pulsating excitement.
Cullen caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, and then he kissed her softly once more.
“How can you be so gentle like this, and then turn around and be so mean?” she asked, her voice coming soft from her open throat.
“Nothing I do is intended to be mean,” Cullen said. “But I’m a product of many things beyond my control.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, watching him closely.
“It means that there are certain things I have to do,” he told her. “It means that everything I told you before remains true.”
“You still want to…teach me? Discipline me?”
He nodded. “That part of things cannot change.”
“But why? Why can’t we just…be like this? The way we are right now? Soft?”
Cullen turned his head. “Don’t ask me to change. I can’t change, not even for you, Ivy.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he said, still not quite looking at her. He finally looked at her once more. “That’s why I’ve tried with all my power to end what’s begun between you and I.”
Ivy wasn’t sure what to say. She felt incredibly flattered by the notion that this powerful man couldn’t resist her.
But she was also terribly frightened. Cullen’s eyes were haunted and bereft, like a frozen winter scape that had lain barren for a hundred thousand years.
“I’m trying to understand,” she said. “I want to understand you.”
He came closer, his nostrils flaring. “There’s no understanding. There’s only submission.”