Off Limits

His look is one of silent impatience, but before he can say anything the car pulls into yet another underground car park and comes to a stop right near the lift.

I can’t describe how lost and confused I feel. I’m a swirling tempest of rage and insecurity, uncertainty and doubt. It’s as though I’m in the middle of a swamp, reeds tangled around my ankles, water rising.

I want to fight with him. I’m angry. But I don’t know what about! Putting into words what I feel seems impossible.

And then he speaks.

‘Come with me.’

Three simple words, but they are enough because there is a plea in their depths.

I nod slowly, and there’s a plea in that, too. Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t use me. I haven’t even realised I feel it until this moment, but the idea of becoming to Jack what all those other women are is unpalatable. I weigh that against my need for him, and desire wins. I can only hope I won’t regret it.

He pushes the button for the lift and then swipes a keycard. Soon the elevator is soaring towards the heavens—I’m in another lift, only this time with Jack Grant by my side.

‘Am I allowed to talk now?’

He glares at me, then stares ahead until the lift doors open.

I guess not.

I stand with my hands on my hips, angrily admonishing him with my look. ‘Nuh-uh. I’m not getting out until you tell me what’s going on.’

‘What’s going on?’ His tone shows incredulity.

He turns back into the elevator and lifts me easily, throwing me over his shoulder in a way I have only ever fantasised about. He carries me into an apartment—a palatial space. I gain a brief impression of glass, steel, white leather furniture and a state-of-the-art kitchen before he’s storming down a tiled hallway and turning into a room.

A bedroom.

With an enormous bed in the centre and floor-to-ceiling windows that show a glinting view of London below.

‘You are driving me crazy—that’s what’s going on. And I don’t want to want you like this. I’m sick of waking up about to fucking explode because I’ve been dreaming about you. I’m sick of looking at you and imagining you naked every time we’re in the same damned room.’

He drops me onto the bed but I’m too shocked by his angry confession to care. So he does feel it, too—this burning, all-consuming, unwanted, unwelcome, unasked-for need.

‘So, if it’s all the same to you, I want to fuck you properly—right out of my head—so we can go back to working together like damned adults instead of horny teenagers.’

My breath is burning my lungs, exploding out of me in fierce bursts. ‘You think you can fuck me out of your head?’

‘Yes.’ He stares down at me, flicking his shirt open button by button.

My eyes follow his movement and though I’ve seen him naked before it was never like this. He’s never been naked for me.

‘Why? Why now?’

‘Because I need you now.’

Still, my brain is shouting at me and, having ignored it in the past and had it lead me into disastrous temptation, I push up on my elbows and roll off the other side of the bed.

His eyes stay trained on me even as he continues to undress, and my throat is dry, parched. I feel like I’ve been dropped from a great height; I’m in free fall with nothing to grab. Gravity no longer exists.

‘How dare you? You drag me here, to your...your...lair...’ I spit angrily, only to have Jack burst out laughing.

‘My lair?’ He throws his head back.

He’s so sexy. God, this isn’t fair. I know what I should do. I know what I need to do. But he is laughing at me, and my pride is being thumped with each sound he makes.

I jump back onto the bed, storm across it quickly and step off the other side, surprising him with the force of my body against his, knocking him partway to the floor. He catches his balance, his hands steadying me even as I keep on pushing until we are at the wall.