He assumed he’d be seeing her on her knees? In his dreams.
“Can I help you with something, or were you just calling to be crude?”
“Open your door.”
“What? Why?”
“Because if you don’t open it, I’m going to knock it down.”
There was a thump on her condo door, and she jumped out of bed like her sheets had caught fire. Her phone went flying, landing hard and skittering across the floor before disappearing under her dresser.
Fuck.
She froze, not sure whether to dive for the phone to tell him to wait, or to throw some clothes on fast.
“One minute!” she called, rushing to her closet. She grabbed a sundress and yanked it over her head, wishing she’d grabbed something longer. This one she usually wore with leggings. The loud bang on her door made her abandon the idea of changing. The man was going to get her in trouble with the neighbors if she didn’t get him out of the hallway. She fled to the foyer and yanked open the door, pasting a polite smile on her face.
Will towered over her, looking pissed and sexy as hell.
“I don’t encourage clients to drop by my home, Mr. Ellis. In the future, we should probably schedule meetings at Stride’s office or at Catacombs.”
He crowded her backward into her condo. Should she be afraid? She wasn’t. She was, however, inconveniently turned on. He kicked the door closed behind him and she sucked in a breath, aroused by the show of masculine aggression.
God, he was big. She’d thought her memory had exaggerated that part.
“I didn’t think you’d want to talk about last night where your coworkers could overhear,” he said. The words sounded like a threat. He kept walking toward her, and she kept backing away until her back was pressed against her living room wall.
“Especially considering I work with my brothers, and they’d kick your ass if they found out what you did to me.”
He brushed a lock of hair back from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, the combination of tenderness and his touching her was more exciting than the touch merited. She almost groaned.
“You didn’t look stressed out and didn’t safeword—I’m sorry if what I did upset you. I should have stopped to ask if you were okay.”
He looked at her searchingly, but a slow smirk spread across his ridiculously handsome face. Obviously, he’d read through her attempt at cool indifference.
It wasn’t her fault. In the light, his coloring was so striking it was hard not to stare. And his lips . . . she couldn’t help but stare at those. He kissed like no other man she’d ever been with. Like he planned to defile her and make her like it. Like she was his captive to use. There was no wooing involved. His kisses weren’t a question. He was too sure of himself for that.
“Yes, I let you. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.” Damn, but that had come out far too breathily.
“No?”
She tried to steady her breathing to respond with something professional and a bit sarcastic, but his mouth was hovering over hers now. A weird, desperate whimper slipped out. She would have died on the spot if there were any justice in the world, but no such luck.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Jerkily, she nodded her head.
Yes, take your gorgeous, impossible self and get out before I cave and let you do anything you want.
“You don’t seem very convinced,” he whispered, his tone mocking and the breaths from his words tickling her skin. “Safeword and I’ll leave; otherwise, I’ll assume this is all part of your game.”
“My game?”
“That you like being chased.”
“I . . .”
He trailed his fingertip over her exposed collarbone, making her lose her train of thought.