“It might be ten years since I’ve set foot in the Atlantis, Aria, but I grew up in Vegas. I know how this town works.”
“So do I. And I knew when I hit that bastard I was going to end up paying for it one way or another. So if I’m not losing my job, how exactly are you expecting me to pay?” She’s back to pacing toward the window.
Anger sparks inside me at the implication, pricks along the inside of my skin. At her for thinking all I want from her is a fast blow job or a faster fuck on my desk as payment for doing the right thing, for taking care of her. And at the world she’s living in that has taught her to be so suspicious. That has taught her all rich men want only one thing from her.
Because it won’t get me anywhere with her right now, I shove the anger down deep. Concentrate on being cool and rational, on showing her that I’m in control, since instinct tells me that’s the only way to reassure her at this point.
“I expect you to repay me by doing your job. From what I hear, you’re a hell of a cocktail waitress. That’s why David and Todd have you working the high roller area. I don’t plan on losing you because some asshole doesn’t know how to take no for an answer.”
I see the moment she picks up on my phrasing, and the double meaning that can be applied to the concept of me losing her. Still, she doesn’t respond the way I expect her to. Doesn’t seem relieved by my reassurance. Instead, she narrows her eyes at me and demands, “Are you fucking with me?”
The strength and the heat behind the question get me hot, have my dick growing harder even as my own temper flares. I push to my feet then, making sure my suit jacket is buttoned up and hiding my suddenly raging erection. And then I stalk toward her slowly, making her wait. Making her wonder.
I stop about a foot away from her—too close for regular business standards but not close enough to send her running for the hills. And then I ask, “Does it feel like I’m fucking with you, Aria?”
Those beautiful dark eyes of hers go wide and it’s all I can do not to touch her. Not to drag her into my arms and show her just how serious I am about her—about fucking her and about holding her afterward.
“I don’t know,” she says after a minute. “That’s the problem. I can’t figure you out.”
“That’s because you’re looking at me all wrong.” I step forward then, run the back of my hand softly down her cheek. “But I can assure you, love, when I’m fucking with you, you’ll know it.”
She jerks her head back from my touch. “So you do want sex.”
I like her bluntness. “From you? Absolutely.”
“I knew it.” She grabs for her purse, which is resting in the curve of the chair she’d been sitting in. “I don’t want the stupid job. You can keep it.”
She brushes past me on her way to the door, all fire and fury and long, fast steps. I grab her arm before she gets very far, swing her around to face me. She meets my eyes head-on, hers burning hotly as she tries to stare me down. And I can all but see the steel in her backbone, the force of will just waiting to come out.
I caught a glimpse of it hours ago, when I was watching the film of her working the tables. I didn’t focus on it then, was too caught up in my anger at her being placed in a situation like that to begin with. But looking at her now, I can definitely see it. The need for control—of herself and the world around her. The need to make her own rules, to set her own boundaries instead of having them set for her by men, by work, by life.
The low-grade arousal that has been growing inside me since the moment I opened my office door to find her standing on the other side suddenly bursts into full-blown want. Full-blown need. It’s not a response I’m used to, this sudden, insatiable desire to touch, to taste, to have. I’ve spent too many years working toward total control of myself and my environment to lose it like this over a woman. No matter how sexy, how smart, how real that woman is.
And yet, what’s the alternative? Let her walk out the door? Never talk to her, never see her, never think about her again? I know myself well enough to know that’s not going to happen.
She’s melting against me, her body going soft and languid where it rests against the heat of my own. And still she challenges me.
“You should let go of me.” Her voice is husky, but her eyes are steady. Resolved.
I uncurl my fingers from around her forearm, watch as she brings her elbow into her waist and lowers her arm to her side. She stares at it for a moment, almost like she’s trying to figure out what happened. Why it was so easy to get me to release her when she had obviously braced for a struggle. When she might even have wanted one.
But there can be no question of consent here, no thoughts of coercion or duress. Not with what I want to do to her, with her. Not for what I have planned.
And so I step away, hold my hands out to the sides, palms up, in the universal gesture of acquiescence. There’s a flash of disappointment in her eyes—so fleeting I would have missed it if I hadn’t been looking for it—but there, nonetheless.
It’s all the confirmation I need and I feel myself relax, the stress leaching out of my body like it never existed. My dick is still hard, my senses hyper-alert. But good things come to those who wait…and patience has always been one of my virtues.
“I need to go,” she tells me, and already there’s a hint of a question where fifteen minutes ago there would have been only assurance. Determination.
I nod, gesture to the door in a feel-free kind of motion.
For long seconds, she doesn’t move. She just stands there, staring at me, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides and her lush bottom lip caught, worried, between her teeth.
“So I’ve got my job back?” she asks.
“Yes, of course.”
“I just report for work tomorrow at the normal time?”