“You’re late.”
A squeeze of her buttocks accompanied his reprimand before he crashed his lips over hers, invading her with the taste of him, the distillation of dominance and danger.
But he was invading more than her essence. He was breaching her last privacy, leaving her no place to hide. Just when she’d convinced herself he’d leave her alone, set her free.
She’d do anything to make him let her go. Even beg.
But his large hands were spreading her thighs around his hips, raising her to thrust his erection up at her core as he dragged her down on it. His tongue filled her again and again, drank her moans as they formed. Reality softened, awareness expanded to encompass his every breath and heartbeat. Nothing remained but Richard and her and their fusion.
“Richard...”
“Yes, let me hear your distress for me, make up for the agonizing night I spent, needing you under me, all around me.”
Something shrill cut through the fog of sensations as he undid her blouse and bra, bent to engulf one nipple in his mouth. The first hot suckle almost made her faint with pleasure. Then the clamor rose again until she realized what it was—her mind screaming, reminding her of the threat he posed to her existence and everyone in it.
It finally imbued her with enough sanity and strength to push out of the craved prison of his arms and passion, to stumble away and put her clothes back in order.
“What are you doing here?”
At his question she turned to him with an incredulous huff. “I won’t even dignify that by echoing it.”
Lids heavy, his gaze swept her in ruthless hunger, strumming her simmering insanity. “I told you to end your partnership with the Andersons. And what did you do? You reported to work yesterday and again first thing this morning. When I made it clear this is the one thing I won’t budge on.”
She tossed him a contemptuous glance. “You don’t have to budge. Only to bugger off, as you say in your homeland.”
His lips twisted in that palpitation-inducing smile that seemed to come easier to him since yesterday. “Don’t think that because I want you now more than ever I will bargain with you over this. It’s not a matter of either you do it or you don’t.”
“You’re right. It’s not a matter of ‘either or’ but ‘neither nor.’” At his arching eyebrow, she huffed. “You do know your grammar, don’t you? The language was coined where you hail from. I will neither end anything with the Andersons nor start anything with you.”
A theatric exhalation. “Pity. After everything that happened between us, I would have rather not forced you into complying. Oh, well.”
He produced his phone from his pocket, pressed one virtual button. The line opened in two seconds and she heard a deep voice on the other end. She thought it said, “Sir.”
Without taking his eyes off her, Richard got to the point of his call at once. “Murdock, I need a court order to shut down the Anderson Surgery Center in forty-eight hours.”
With that he ended the call and continued looking at her.
So that was his extreme measure. If she wouldn’t leave, he’d take everything from under her. And she had no doubt he could and would do it. And that would only be for starters. In case this somehow didn’t work, he would only escalate his methods of destruction.
And none of it made any sense.
She cried out her confusion. “Why do you want me to stop working here? What is it to you? Is this even about me or...” A suspicion exploded in her mind. “Is this about Rose? Did you discover her relationship to Burton and come here to clean up every trace of him, including anybody who knew him? If so, did you only want me out of the way so I wouldn’t warn them about you? And now you’ve decided to strike directly since I didn’t cooperate and spoiled your preferred stealth methods?”
As the conviction sank in her mind, from one breath to the next her desperation turned to aggression in defense of her friends. “Burton was a monster who deserved far worse than whatever you’ve done to him. But she was his victim. Besides that, Rose and Jeffrey are the absolute best people I’ve ever known, and I’d die before I let you near them. And that’s not a figure of spee
ch.”
As if he hadn’t heard her tirade, he cocked his head at her. “How did you come to know that couple?”
“Wh-what?”
“There was no evidence of when you met, or of your developing relationship, not even emails or phone calls, and I want to know how you did this.”
“I—I met Rose in a conference in Texas four years ago.”
“And? I want to know what led to their asking you to be their partner and not any of their long-term colleagues.”
His icy focus shook her. Where was this interrogation heading? “I felt a...kinship to her at once. I guess she felt the same, since she told me her life story as we waited for a late lecturer. I was shocked to realize that Burton used to be her stepfather.”