A Game Of Temptation

“Alex…” He was staring out the window, a muscle ticking in his jaw, but the moment I called him, he turned to me and glared at me through narrowed eyes that were still filled with heat. My lust had dulled to a low tempo but seeing his, reignited mine. It was like there was a string attached to us on both ends, pulling us together. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

His reaction to those two words was almost comical. His eyes widened and his brows dove to his hairline. His lips parted, and the expression of absolute shock and disbelief on his face had me wondering if he’d heard me correctly. Had I accidentally said the L word and not what I thought I’d said?

“You’re sorry?” The words were laced with disbelief.

So he had heard me after all.

I nodded.

He turned from the window and faced me, letting me know that I was his complete focus now. That I held all his attention. It made me want to run for the hills-or at least turn the other way-because Alex was intense and having him focus on me like that was doing things to me that I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that I liked.

My nipples tightened into painful little points inside my dress and when I moved, the material brushed against them, heightening the sensation. I was also suddenly very conscious of the fact that I wasn’t wearing panties anymore, and I felt so empty, dying for any form of attention at all. It was also a bit hard for me to breathe due to the fact that I felt a pressure on my chest, which I knew was guilt, and it was threatening to suffocate me.

I blinked, realising that I had been staring at him all this while. When he simply cocked a brow, I blushed.

I. Freaking. Blushed.

My cheeks went up in flames and I knew that if I looked in the mirror right now, there would be two huge spots of red colour on my face. It was so bloody confusing because, Jesus Christ, the man hadn’t even said anything. He’d simply given me a look and my entire world had felt it.

Shit. I couldn’t remember what I’d been saying before.

Right, I was apologising for acting like a giant ass.

“Yeah, so, I’m sorry.” I didn’t dare look up and meet his gaze. He was definitely watching me; I could feel the heat of his eyes on my body. “It was wrong and selfish of me to have…wanted to do something like that without the slightest consideration about your feelings, and I’m sorry.” The silence was deafening, and if I didn’t know that the car was moving, I would have thought that we were frozen in time. The silence was too much for me, and I wanted to fill it up with anything. “Alex, I get why you’re mad at me, I swear. I would be too if the situations were reversed, but you have to understand that I want you so much and I thought that it would be a win-win for the both-”

I was cut off rather abruptly-albeit thankfully-as Alex yanked me into him and kissed the ever-loving fuck out of me. It was a quick, hard kiss that ended entirely too quickly for my liking, then he dropped me back on my seat which wouldn’t do at all.

I wanted to be on him.

But he held my chin between his thumb and forefinger and made me look up at him. “You’re precious, do you know that?”

My heart gave that odd little clench it liked to give when I was around him but it wasn’t enough to make me pull away from him this time. It didn’t make me want to run like it usually did.

His hand fell away from my chin and I thought that he was going to go back to ignoring me, so I clambered onto his thighs, giving him a sheepish smile when he grinned wide. Laughter shone in his eyes. He was laughing at me.

Ask me if I cared. I liked that he wasn’t angry anymore and if that meant he was laughing at me, then so be it. I’d gladly act a clown just to get him to give me one of his sexy smiles.

He dragged a finger down my cheek and I shivered. “I want to see you when we go back.”

Now, that killed my mood instantly. “No.”

“Then no sex.” He shrugged and made to lift me off him but I batted his hands away.

“You’re not going to have sex with me until I agree to see you when we get back?”

“Sharp as a blade, Laura.”

I glared at him but he just stared at me blankly. Was he serious right now?

When he just kept staring at me and I saw that there wasn’t a single thread of amusement in his expression, I knew that he wasn’t joking. He was serious as a heart attack. What the actual fuck?

“Do you realise how crazy that sounds?” I asked, appalled and rightfully angry. “You’re turning what should be us merely enjoying ourselves into a transaction.”

Something flickered across his eyes then. “Yeah, I know, and I’m sorry.” I sensed a ‘but’ coming. “But you’ve reduced me to this person that has to be cunning every single fucking second they spend with you, and if that is what I have to do to get you where I want you, then I don’t care if it makes me a bad person.”

My hand flew to my collar bone and I started fiddling with the necklace I’d worn earlier. “And where do you want me?”

His eyes flashed. “In New York with me.”

Okay, that was incredibly specific.

And why the hell did those words turn me on so much? I should have been insulted by them and running the other way. But I wasn’t. Actually, I was pretty sure I was going to leave a wet spot on his pants.

Should I agree to this? Should I not?

I decided to weigh my options. If I agreed to see him, then that would mean spending more time with him and which would further mean putting one of us in danger. But it definitely wouldn’t be me, that was for sure. And it wasn’t like he could force me to feel anything-or stay-so I was safe.

I could do it.

“Okay.”

He blinked. “Okay you’re agreeing to the deal?”

“Yes. I’ll see you in New York.”

To say that he was surprised that I was agreeing would be the understatement of the century. Yet then his face split in a cheeky grin, full of excitement and heat, and it was then that I realised that the car had stopped moving because he opened the door.

“Great choice,” he said before stealing a quick kiss and stepping down from the car with my legs wrapped around him.