Rule's Addiction (The House of Rule 3)

When she reached his side and would have passed through, he halted her forward motion with a detaining hand on her arm.

The move paralyzed her immediately.

He never touched her.

Never. It was an unwritten rule between them.

But now, his fingers grasped the fleshy part of her bare upper arm and no matter how hard she fought against it, at the first touch of his callused fingers, she immediately stiffened with nerves and her pulse rate accelerated. As his scent hit her nostrils in a conflagration of sexual heat that she refused to acknowledge, a fine trembling took hold of her legs.

A dangerous sizzle filled the air as he stood only inches away, looming over her. Trying with everything she had to appear unaffected, she ran her eyes up and down his length, attempting a dismissive expression that she knew was a pathetic fail. There was no question that he was intimidating when he wanted to be, his designer suit molding his tall, powerful body, enhancing his stance of authority. His eyes were hot and dark as he stared down into hers. “Is something bothering you today? Cat pissed in your Post Toasties this morning?”

Her breath snagged; he was so close she could see the gold striations running through his pupils. “You know very well that I don’t have a cat.”

“It was a rhetorical question. I don’t care for the attitude, Maria. You need to lose it, pronto. Capisce?”

Maria firmed her lips. Keep your mouth closed. Just keep your damn mouth closed, Maria. Absolutely nothing good can come from arguing with him. He’ll be gone soon and then you’ll have the job you’ve always wanted and you’ll never have to deal with him . . . at least, not very often. As his hand gripped tighter, then loosened, and then pulsed tighter again, she took one stabilizing breath and then another. When that didn’t calm her down, she counted to ten and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she found him watching her with a merciless expression that was colored with retribution.

Every muscle in her body tightened, and when she remained silent, refusing to give him an answer, his features turned menacing. She could almost feel his inexorable control slipping; the primal attributes that made him so much a man had never been quite so obvious as they were now, as he held her in an uncompromising grasp not six inches away from his torso. Oh, yeah. He was a man like no other, there was no getting away from that fact. She could lie to herself all she wanted, but Garrett Rule was pure unadulterated male, through and through.

Their eyes stayed connected; his intense gaze narrowed and the pagan, dominant personality he usually took pains to keep hidden rose to the fore. Her breath snagged in her lungs. He was dangerous. She’d known that from the moment she’d met him, hell, from the very first phone conversation she’d had with him.

Now, as a wave of anger seemed to grip him, he leaned down until his mouth was at her ear and he demanded an answer. “Do you understand me, Maria? Are you screwing with me? You’ve never been careless enough to fuck with me before. I’m warning you, now wouldn’t be a good time to start.”

Maria attempted to give him a benign agreement as she struggled for control, but she lost it.

Challenge accepted, douchebag.

Using all the strength at her disposal, she pulled back from him and glared, not even trying to hide her truculent expression. At the warning that smoldered in his eyes, her stomach flipped wildly, but she had a point to prove.

She was about to knock the son-of-a-bitch on his ass; she’d teach him to try to intimidate her.

He thought he could subdue her with his hard-core masculinity? Just wait…. how would the motherfucker react when faced with her undisguised femininity? She took a cleansing breath and then purposely softened her features, making her eyes turn liquid. Tilting her head to the side, she let her hair swing forward. She’d caught him staring at her hair more times than she could count and now she put the thick tresses to good use. Holding his stare from under her lashes, she dampened her bottom lip and then caught it between her teeth. Not overtly. Not innocently. Just perfectly.

An instantaneous, ferocious look crossed his features while his jaw clenched at her actions.

She held every bit of his attention and she used it to her advantage. Dropping her gaze to his mouth, she held it there for the count of two seconds before letting it slide down to the bulge in his pants. Not expecting that and yet refusing to blush, she lifted her face and let her eyes clash with his before dropping her bombshell in a falsely soothing voice that was barely more than a whisper. “I promise, Mr. Rule, I wouldn’t dare fuck with you. And if I ever did, I assure you, you’d know it.”