I blinkedat the spreadsheet glowing on my screen, fingers frozen above the keyboard. For the third time tonight, I had to remind myself to focus. Finish the client email, Isabella. Don’t think about him.
The office was silent now. Everyone had gone home. Only the hum of the computers and the faint buzz of the city below kept me company.
Then I noticed it, his light was still on.
I stood and moved to his office. After a knock, and the faint permission to come in, I opened the door.
Sir,” I called softly, peeking in, “do you need anything? Maybe coffee?”
He looked up from his desk to see me. For a moment, he just studied me—then, in a voice low and unreadable, he said, “Come here, Isabella. Come closer.”
I moved to stand beside his chair, my heels clicking against the hardwood floor.
“This clause here,” he said, pointing to a section of the contract displayed on his monitor’s screen. “What’s your read?”
I couldn’t see clearly because I’d left my glasses on my desk, so I leaned over his shoulder to look. His scent wrapped around me like a claim, scattering my thoughts. He smelled faintly of scotch and something masculine. But beneath the physical scent, my wolf recognized something deeper—a scent that made every instinct in me growl mine. Something that called to his wolf. Something I didn’t quite understand. Yet.
The warmth of it seeped into me, coaxing out a reaction I couldn’t hide. My wolf stirred restlessly beneath my skin, and I had to reprimand her to stay still. I tried to strain my eyes, to focus on the document in front of him, but all I could think about was how close I was to him.
I could feel his gaze burning into my skin. I made the mistake of turning to look at him and met his dark brown eyes searching me in a way that made me feel naked, sending a thrilled shiver racing through my inner wolf.
My breath hitched, and I immediately stood straight.
“I-I have to get my glasses, sir.”
I started to pull back, to put a safe distance between us, but his hand shot out, catching my wrist.
“Wait, Isabella.”
I froze, my pulse thundering.
Slowly, he stood, his six-foot-five frame towering over me, filling the space between us. His thumb brushed over my wrist as he looked at me with an intensity that made my knees weak.
“Do you do it on purpose?”
I blinked, trying to focus my scattered thoughts. But I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. “I—what?”
“Every day, you walk into my office in your prim little skirt, with your hair pulled back in that messy bun I now itch to let loose.” His fingers moved from my wrist to my hair, finding the pin keeping it in place and slowly pulling it out. My long black hair fell around my face, and gently, he tucked a strand behind my ear. His gaze dropped to my chest, watching the heavy rise and fall of it. “And every day, Isabella…” He bit his lip as though it hurt to say the next words. “Every day I have to remind myself why I can’t touch you.”
“Why can’t you?” The words slipped out in a whisper before I could stop them, raw and breathless.
His eyes went darkened, but within that darkness, gold flickered. “You know why.”
“Because I’m your stepsister? Or because I’m the whore’s daughter who’s not good enough for—”
He moved faster than I could track, standing so close I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. His hands framed my face, gentle despite the tension evident in the way his jaw flexed.
“Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t ever call yourself that.”
“It’s whateveryone thinks.”
“I don’t care what everyone thinks.” His forehead dropped to mine, and I felt him shudder. “God help me, Isabella, I don’t care about anything other than what you taste like. Other than hearing you call me by my first name and not ‘sir’ or Mr. Ravencrest.”
The intention was clear in his eyes, clear in the way the gold in them seemed to expand as if his wolf stirred restlessly within him, and in the way his gaze dropped to my lips and stayed there.
I let my eyes flutter closed as his head lowered. I could taste his breath, feel the heat radiating from his body, the desperate desire to have him touch me the way I wanted him to.
His lips were barely a breath from mine when he suddenly jerked away like I’d burned him, stumbling back against his desk, his chest heaving.