‘You weren’t rough,’ she assured him huskily.
His eyes pierced hers. ‘I should have realised that you weren’t experienced.’
‘Why should you?’
‘Because it’s a man’s job to take care of a woman in that situation.’
‘I disagree. This is the twenty-first century. Women are emancipated, in case you didn’t realise.’
A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘Emancipation had little to do with Friday night,’ he growled. ‘But let’s just say it’s not the way I usually behave with a woman.’
At the mention of his other women Ruby expelled a rushed breath. This was information she didn’t want inside her head. Ever. ‘Look, can we just not discuss this any more?’ Surely there was a much more important and safer topic for them to discuss. Or they could both just leave the room and pretend this conversation had never happened at all. ‘Don’t you have a meeting to go to or a new client to woo?’
Ignoring her question, he came around the table until he was no more than two feet from her. She nearly took a step back but caught herself just in time.
‘Why did you run away afterwards?’
Startled by his question, she met his gaze. ‘Sorry?’
‘It’s a simple question, Ruby. I want to know why you left before I returned with your water.’ His bronzed throat worked as he swallowed. ‘Did I scare you somehow?’
Being so close to him now, she couldn’t avoid the sensation of heat and male power emanating from him. There was also impatience, as if he wanted to close the gap between them and take her into his arms again. Or was that just her who wanted that to happen?
Jarred by the unexpected vision of how he would look naked, and desperate to close down this attraction any way she knew how, Ruby shook her head. ‘I was fine. I just didn’t see the point in hanging around.’ Not to mention that she’d been terrified at how easily he had made her feel so much, so quickly. Terrified at how easily she had given in to the attraction between them. It had made her feel weak and powerless; two states she had often seen her mother fall into with the men in her life. ‘I mean, it wasn’t as if either of us was looking for a repeat performance, was it?’
Sam’s jaw clenched. ‘You have no idea what I wanted, but be that as it may, it would have been polite for you to have been there when I returned. I didn’t know if I’d hurt you in some way.’
‘You didn’t hurt me, Sam,’ she said on a rush, memories of the pleasure he had given her making her knees tremble. ‘And you didn’t scare me. I was just... I wanted to put the whole incident behind me as soon as possible.’
‘Incident? It wasn’t a car accident,’ he bit out.
‘I know that! Really, I’d rather not talk about it, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘I can see that.’ She didn’t like the derisive glint in his eyes, or the way he stepped forward. ‘But I very much doubt that you’ve been able to put the whole incident behind you.’
Heat flamed through her. It was pretty hard to put something behind you that came back in full, cinematic glory every night when you tried to go to sleep. Not to mention those times it was standing right in front of you. Like now.
‘God, you’re arrogant.’ Against her better judgment she took a step towards him. ‘But be that as it may, we work together now. You’re my boss.’
Sam frowned. ‘I didn’t know that on Friday night. It wasn’t as if Drew sent me a list of Kent’s employees to pore over.’
‘So if you’d known I would be working for you on Friday night then it wouldn’t have happened?’ she challenged.
‘Believe it or not, Ruby, I didn’t mean for things to go as far as they did.’
‘So you’re blaming me for the fact that they did!’
‘No.’ He braced his hands on his hips, scowling down at her. ‘Dammit, would you stop being such a little hothead? I’m telling you that I never mix business with pleasure, and I usually take a woman out to dinner before I sleep with her.’
‘We didn’t sleep together, Sam.’ A charged silence followed her statement and Ruby suspected Sam was remembering exactly what they had done, just as she was.