I give up, at least for now. I turn and head for the door. “Harper?”
I turn to face her. “Yes?”
“I love you, honey, and you’ve been there for me this past year, but when I tell you to do something, you do it. This is still your job. We both know I gave you instructions where Eric was concerned and you ignored those instructions.”
She’s right. I did. I didn’t want him back here this way for reasons I’d point out, but she won’t listen. I nod and exit the office, a million emotions clawing at me, but I show none. Emotions
are used against you in this place. My need to protect my mother and even my father’s legacy is why I’m still here. That need is an emotion. It’s trouble, like Eric, and I can’t seem to walk away from that combination.
Eager to be in my own space, where I can privately melt down and then stand back up and fight, I hurry up the stairs. The doorway to my office is like sweet relief. I enter my office and I’ve made it all of two steps when I hear. “Hello, princess.”
I whirl around to find Eric in the doorway and he doesn’t stay there. He shuts the door and starts walking toward me, the look in his eyes as predatory as the jaguar on his arm, and like all prey, I’m thrust into a moment where I must make a decision to stand and fight or run. And I am prey. His prey, and before I can make a move, he’s standing in front of me, that earthy male scent of him seducing me.
“We’re not done yet,” he says. “Just in case you hadn’t figured that out by now.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Harper
I have about thirty seconds to process Eric’s declaration that we’re not done before he pulls me close, all that sinewy muscle absorbing my body, that powerful edge that is this man, owning me, and he owns me all too easily. I try to resist. I know I’m the enemy to him. My hand settles on his chest but I’m not sure if it’s to touch him or push him away.
“Eric,” I whisper, and I feel the charge radiating between us, the heat, the ten shades of lust that come from deep, dark places for him and for me; they just exist, because he exists.
He tangles his fingers in my hair, and lowers his mouth to mine. “We are definitely not done yet,” he repeats, the words almost guttural and then his lips are on my lips, his tongue stroking long and deep, stealing my breath and driving away everything but how he tastes, how he feels; that’s how easily I’m lost and found in this man. It’s doesn’t matter that he could very well be the one to destroy us. Not in this moment, not when he’s kissing me, not when I get that one last taste of him I’ve wished for these past hours, but it’s not a kiss that he allows me to drown in, it’s not even a kiss that lets me swim in the moment.
He tears his mouth from mine, his lips a warm breath from another kiss that I hunger for in ways I didn’t know any man could make me hunger. “I’m here now,” he declares. “Just like you wanted.”
His touch, his taste, his very existence in this room is burning me alive, but so is the hate between him and this family, his family. “This isn’t how I wanted you.”
One of his hands slides up between my shoulder blades, molding me close. The other caresses up my waist, cupping my breast, sending a wave of sensations through my body. “How did you want me, Harper?”
My lashes lower and I pant out a breath. How did I want him? Too many ways. So many ways. “Impossible ways,” I say, trying to tear away from his grip, but he pulls me back to him, that damn earthy scent of him driving me insane, consuming me the way he’s threatening to consume me. The way he already has in some ways for six long years.
“Let go,” I growl. “Let go now.”
“What impossible ways?”
“Without the hate. You can’t be here and not hate.”
“Is that what you think? That I hate you?”
“The bastard and the princess. You said it. I felt it in that hotel room. You wanted to punish me.”
“I wanted a lot of things in that hotel room. I still do.”
“You don’t even deny it.”
“Did I want to spank you? Yes. Did I want to fuck you hard and fast and do it all over again? Yes. Did I want to fuck you out of my system once and for fucking all? Yes, I did. But I failed. I failed and now I’m here.” He maneuvers me to the desk and presses me against it, his big body caging mine.
“Stop. You hate me. I’m not fucking a man who hates me again, but apparently, I am going to get fucked by him in all kinds of ways. I should’ve never asked you for help. And yes, you’re a bastard, and not by name. I told you. You claim that with actions.”
“What haven’t you told me, Harper?” he demands, wanting information with me as a side order.
“We’re not finished, you said?” I challenge, hating that I melt for him when he has an agenda, hating even more that I opened the door to that agenda. “You mean you’re not done using me?”
“Who’s using who, princess? You came to me.”
“I didn’t use you. I’m not using you, unless a request for honest help is now considered using.”