His Terms

So, she ate in silence, finished off her meal and glass of wine, and then stood and moved over toward him. He had finished a few minutes before she had and had been watching her, but there was now this curious look on his face as she approached. She set her empty glass on the table, and before she took a seat she reached for the wine bottle. But Rian had the same thing in mind, because he reached for it at the same time. Their fingers brushed together, and tingles of electricity raced up her arm. He lifted the bottle and poured her glass full again.

He looked at her intently and then handed her now full glass of wine to her. Just looking at him, knowing he was watching every single little move she made, had every erogenous zone on her body standing at full attention. Sorcha brought the glass to her lips and took a small sip. She wasn’t a lush, and on occasion did go out with Cora, but right now she needed every drop of wine. This was her third glass, and already she felt the warm buzz moving through her veins. She took another sip, one that was bigger this time, and let the sweetly flavored liquid wash over her taste buds.

“Your friend was okay with you doing all of this?” he said and grabbed his glass to take a sip.

“My friend?” She assumed who he was speaking about, but how did he know anything about Cora?

“Cora, the one that got you the initial interview with my office, and the one you spend most of your time with.” He was leaning back against his chair, one arm resting on the top of the table, and she watched as he ran the pad of his finger over the base of the glass.

“Um, yeah, she is okay, I guess.” She glanced away, trying to recall if Cora had ever been to the Hartford office, but she came up blank. There might only be two businesses in the building, but the attorney office held a lot of employees, and Cora had only set up the interview appointment with an answering service for Rian. “How exactly do you know about Cora?”

He didn’t answer right away, just brought the glass to his mouth again and took a long drink while watching her over the rim. When he set the now empty glass back on the table all he did was stare at her.

“Why do you do that?”

He lifted a dark eyebrow in question. “Do what?”

“Stare at me … constantly, like you are trying to figure me out.”

He didn’t respond right away yet again, and she found herself shifting on the seat.

“I know everything about you, so I’m not trying to figure anything out, Sorcha,” he said in an almost bland tone.

What did he mean by that? How much more than the personal information she had given him on her resume and application did he exactly know?

“Besides, I enjoy looking at you.”

The heat seemed to increase in the room, and she swallowed at the intensity of his words. But she pushed those feelings of lust aside, of just giving herself to him and “breaking the ice” and focused on what they were talking about now. She thought about his words, about what exactly he meant when he said he knew all about her. A man like Rian Hartford had resources to burn, and she knew exactly what he now meant. “You dug up my information, didn’t you?”

He smiled, but it was a darker one, and made her feel like this small prey before this giant predator. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

She felt her annoyance for this man start to return with a vengeance. “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

The sound of a clock ticking in the background broke up the sudden silence, but then she saw him grab for the bottle of wine, refill his glass, and set it aside. “I look up everyone who comes to work for me, Sorcha. There are men out there that would like to know how I run things, who my contacts are, and because of that I have to protect myself and my business.”

She licked her lips, knowing he had to look up certain things. “I have a feeling a man like you doesn’t stop at the surface.” The look on his face told her he knew what she was implying.

“A man like me?” He sounded amused.

“A man that doesn’t like to stop when he gets the bare facts. You keep digging because you’re egotistical and have to know everything.” She saw a muscle under his cheek start to twitch, and she knew she was pissing him off. Good, because she couldn’t count the number of times he had pissed her off since being in his presence.