to bend her over it.
But... I’d seen the heat in her eyes as I’d stalked towards her. Seen her cheeks flush and her mouth get all soft and vulnerable.
She’d looked shocked when I’d told her how much I’d wanted her, that I was going to punish her, yet when I’d put my hands on her she hadn’t pushed me away. Her breath had caught and her pupils had dilated, and there was a definite hint of feminine musk in the air.
She’d let me touch her, let me put my hand between her legs and feel how wet she was. And she had been wet. So beautifully, unmistakably wet and aroused.
And then she’d told me about that Christmas and the damn dog.
I remembered it dimly—some friend of Dad’s and his anxious puppy. I’d been wary of animals after Dad had killed Seven, the stray dog I’d befriended years earlier, but the poor animal had just been scared and I’d calmed it down easily enough. I hadn’t even remembered Poppy being in the room at the time, but clearly she hadn’t forgotten.
And Christ...as soon as she’d told me what she wanted, everything had crystallised for me because what she wanted I wanted too, and I was powerless to deny her.
I was powerless to deny us both.
So I hadn’t fought it.
I’d made her beg and then I’d bent her over the desk and fucked her.
From outside the office came the sound of a phone ringing and more realisations came, hitting me hard and fast.
I was in my office and it was the middle of the day. Had I locked the door? I couldn’t even remember. What if someone had come in?
What if someone came in now?
Too bad. You need to take care of her now.
I didn’t even question the thought.
Carefully, I pulled out of her and straightened. She shivered and made a soft noise, but I gave the back of her neck a gentle squeeze. ‘Keep still,’ I murmured.
She settled and at the sight of her obedience the blood began rushing back into my cock.
Jesus. I’d have thought once would be enough. At least, it had always been enough for me before. Once the itch was scratched it never bothered me again, so it really shouldn’t be bothering me now.
Trying not to think about that, I dealt with the condom then pulled her underwear back into place and smoothed down her skirt, resisting the urge to trail my fingers over the beautiful bare skin of her thighs.
‘You can get up now,’ I said, my voice way more gravelly than it should have been.
Slowly, she pushed herself up from my desk and turned, and I couldn’t stop the burst of satisfaction that flooded through me as she leaned back against it, as if the sex had wrecked her so completely she couldn’t stand.
Her eyes had gone from copper to gold, her face deeply flushed.
She looked so beautiful my heart nearly stopped.
You’ve made her yours now.
I turned away suddenly, the intense possessiveness of the thought disturbing me in a way it hadn’t while I was deep inside her. ‘You’re okay?’ I made my way around the desk to my chair. ‘I didn’t hurt you?’
‘No, not at all.’ She sounded husky and throaty, her voice feeling like it was wrapping itself around my cock.
I forced the feeling away as I sat down.
She turned to face me again and her eyes were shining. ‘Xander, can we—’
‘You have a few tasks to finish, I believe?’
I couldn’t let her think this would continue, that this would happen again. Because it couldn’t. There were too many reasons why it was a bad idea. There was our family connection and then my role in her father’s death. Not to mention the things I wanted to do to her. The things I still wanted to do to her.
Wrong. All wrong.
The flush died out of her face and the shine leached from her eyes. ‘Yeah, I have a few. But I—’
‘Then I suggest you go do them.’ I looked sightlessly down at my computer screen.
I was being cruel and I knew it. But it was the quickest way to get her out of here and away from me.
The itch was scratched. I didn’t need to scratch it any more.
There was a silence and I thought for a minute that she’d gone.
But this was Poppy and naturally she never missed an opportunity to challenge me.
‘So that’s it?’ Her hands slapped down on the edge of my desk. ‘You tell me you’ve wanted me for years, get me to admit something I’m personally ashamed of, fuck me across your goddamn desk and then act like nothing happened? Like I’m supposed to go back to my “tasks” like a good girl?’ Her voice shook. ‘You asshole!’
I was, yes. A complete asshole. But that was the best way—the only way—to handle this. If she thought I was an asshole she’d leave it at that and we’d go back to sniping at each other the way we always did.
And she’ll never find out just what a real bastard you are.
I looked up and met her furious gaze. ‘You want to be a good girl? Then finish the tasks I set you.’
She stared at me a long moment, angry flags of colour staining her exquisitely carved cheekbones. But beneath that anger I could see something else moving in the molten copper of her eyes.
Hurt.
You prick.
I closed myself off from it, shut myself down. The way I did after I found out that Seven, that stray I’d looked after for six months when I’d been ten, had been run over.
I’d loved that dog and after she’d died I’d discovered white fur on the tyre and blood on the bumper of my father’s car. The first lie I’d discovered. The one he’d told me when I’d asked him for help looking for Seven because I couldn’t find her, and he promised me he’d help me find her. All the while knowing he’d been the one to kill her.
I’d cried like a baby when I’d found out that Dad had run her over, because he didn’t like me having something that took my focus away from ‘family business’. Even a stray dog.
It had been a hard lesson, though I’d learned it and learned it well. If you didn’t have anything to care for then it couldn’t be taken from you or used to manipulate you, and that, in the end, was for the best.
I was the stronger for it, that much I did know, and I wasn’t putting that at risk by claiming something I’d never be able to keep.
Something like Poppy.
‘Did
