Hero (Hero 1)

“Something’s wrong,” I said. Clearly there was something wrong. One minute we’d been going at it like lust-starved teenagers and now he wouldn’t even look at me.

“Caine.”

Finally he glanced up from buttoning his shirt. He was guarded as he avoided looking anywhere but at my face. I crossed my leg over the other and leaned back on my palms, thrusting my breasts out in defiance. That instantly distracted him. He clenched his jaw as his gaze roamed over me.

“Well?”

Eyes blazing he glared at me. “This was a mistake.”

Even though I knew it was coming, it still hurt like hell. “A mistake?”

“Yes. We crossed the line.”

“I see. We’re back to that again.” I stared at him in disappointment but refused to budge. We were not leaving this office until I’d removed the stick from his ass, something that apparently only sex could do.

Well, if I had to, I had to.

My eyes greedily took in his handsome face.

It wasn’t like it was a hardship or anything.

I smirked at the heat in his eyes. At least I knew he wanted me physically. That made it easier to keep pretending that I was completely comfortable sitting cross-legged and naked on his desk. “We should talk.”

“You,” he snapped, reaching over to grab my dress off the sofa, “should get dressed.” He held it out to me.

I took it from him, but I had no intention of actually getting dressed while my nakedness did so much to throw him off balance. We stared defiantly at each other.

“Alexa, get dressed.”

No more Lexie for me, huh? Another sharp pain sliced across my chest. I hid it from him. “We’re back to Alexa, I see.”

Apparently Caine was done with being impatient and was now moving on to annoyed. “Look, we were attracted to each other, we got it out of our systems, and now we need to go back to being boss and employee. And from this point on we’re maintaining a strictly professional—” He cut off to scowl as I uncrossed my legs only to cross them again in the opposite direction. He looked away. “Strictly professional relationship,” he finished, his voice thick. “Now get dressed.”

Realizing I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him until I conceded this one thing, I slipped gracefully off the table. “I need to clean up.”

Without looking at me he pointed to the bathroom off his office. “You know where it is.”

Shrugging on as much confidence as I could muster, I strode into the bathroom, my dress trailing from my hand, and I was satisfied to feel the burn of his gaze on my back as I went.

The truth was my heart was racing as I cleaned up and slipped my dress back on. I’d left my panties out in the office, but I was too shaken up to go back out there for them. As I stared into the mirror, seeing my flushed cheeks and bright eyes and post-sex hair, I was flooded with the sensation of being with Caine all over again. I could still smell him. Taste him. Feel him.

I’d just had the best sex of my life with a man with whom I shared off-the-charts chemistry. What was between us wasn’t average or everyday. It was extraordinary.

And he was acting like it meant nothing.

The sickness in my stomach intensified and when I looked back in the mirror I could see the flush draining from my cheeks.

I’d never felt like this about any man.

This was lust. This was what all those books and films were always going on about. This wasn’t the sexual attraction I’d felt for other men. This was full-blown desire.

Yet—I closed my eyes, remembering the way he’d held my gaze as he moved inside me—it could be more between us. If we tried, who knew where extraordinary could take us?

More scared than I had ever been in my life, I threw my shoulders back with determination and walked out into the office to face Caine.

He was shrugging on his jacket and I saw his relief that I’d put my dress back on.

My belly flipped at the sight of him all rumpled and sexy. Why, oh, why, out of all the men in the world did Caine Carraway have to be the one to make me feel this way?

I stopped a few feet before him and he narrowed his gaze, as if he sensed what was coming.

“You’re afraid to let me in.”

He shot me a warning look. “Alexa.”

I forged ahead. “But I know something all those other women who have tried and failed with you don’t. I know you’re a good man. Real in a way they’ve never had the chance to see. I know that because I saw it when you were with Effie. I saw who you really are. I see who you are because … we’re not so different, you and I. We both deserve happiness.”

For a moment Caine just stared at me and a little bubble of hope floated around inside me. When he took a step backward, extremely guarded, that little bubble just went pop. “Happiness? This coming from the daughter of the guy who destroyed my family?”

All the air went out of the room.

It was like he’d punched me in the chest.

And he wasn’t finished. “I don’t know what this is you’re trying to do, but you and I are not the same.” He took another step back from me. “And I am not for you. I’m not your white knight. I’m just the guy who wanted to fuck you.”

I flinched under the sting of his words. Words that humiliated me. I’d idiotically allowed myself to be vulnerable with a man who’d already proven he had no qualms hurting my feelings.

My God, I was such a stupid, stupid fool. Worse. I was … some kind of masochist!