The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

For a long moment that veneer of implacability did not shift from his face, but then the corners of his lips lifted wryly. “But since it’s going to be difficult as hell to do that, I say we soldier on.”

“What precisely does that mean.”

“What would you like it to mean?”

She huffed irritably and fixed her best glower on him. “And you said I enjoy being an enigma?”

He full on grinned at her, and she shook her head, before sitting on the bed beside him.

“I’m probably going to resign,” she informed him, crossing her outstretched legs and enjoying the fact that they were almost as long as his.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I do. I’ve been hiding here. If nothing else this thing between us has shown me that I’m ready to join the world again. Meet people.”

“Meet men you mean?” he corrected her sourly, and she turned her head to stare at his implacable profile.

“Well, yes. I suppose I do. Eventually. After this…After us.”

He sighed again and reached out to tuck his palm around the nape of her neck. He tugged her toward him, and she made a soft, contented sound in the back of her throat. She dropped her head to his shoulder and snuggled close. This was exactly where she wanted to be right now.

He released her nape and curved his arm around her slender shoulders. His fingers toyed with a strand of her hair.

“Thank you for coming to me tonight.”

She smiled at the words. “Thank you for helping me come tonight.”

He snort-laughed at that.

“Want to fool around some more?” He dropped the question into her ear. His voice wicked and dark.

She giggled and was amazed that the carefree sound had come from her. “How about I give you an orgasm this time?”

“How about we make it one each?”

“You’re so competitive,” she complained and hiked her skirt to straddle his lap.

“Only way I know how to be,” he retorted, framing her face with his palms to give her a long, drugging kiss.

By the time he relinquished her lips, Charity had lost all semblance of time and place. And when he removed her ruined blouse, she unthinkingly allowed him to manipulate her arms through the sleeves.

It was only when he was smoothing his hands up her arms that she started thinking clearly again, and by then it was too late, his left hand had frozen halfway up her right forearm. His brow lowered as his fingers traced the scars he found there, trying to make sense of them.

“What—?”

She didn’t allow him to complete the question. Instead, she tore her arm from his grasp and leaped from the bed in a panic. She was so stupid. Why did she think she could do this? There were too many secrets that she had kept for too long. Secrets trapped in her heart and memory and scattered all over her body. Getting intimate with any man required revealing some of those secrets. The physical ones if not the psychological and emotional ones.

And she now knew that she wasn’t ready for that.

She had her hand secured over the spot he had unwittingly stumbled upon, while she stared at him in panic and she tried to figure out how to get away from him without exposing even more of her broken self.

He had followed her off the bed and now stood in front of her, unashamedly naked. His body so flawless he didn’t have to hide a single part of himself.

“I changed my mind.” The words tumbled over each other in her haste to get them out. She wanted them to disgust him enough to give up on her and on this madness between them.

“Oh?” His tone of voice was menacing and nothing like she’d ever heard him use before. It scared her, and she hated that anything about him could frighten her. “Why? Because I found the cigarette burns on your arm?”

“They’re…they’re not…”