Reading Online Novel

Not Just the Boss's Plaything(60)


She ignored the way his voice lowered so suggestively, the images that    it conjured before her and the wildfires it sent spinning over her  skin.   She dropped her hand to her side and nodded at the view behind  him. An   infinity pool lay on the far side of the patio, the water as  smooth as   glass, surrounded by more of the smooth dark wood, and  beyond it, the   endless sea. Yet Cayo sat with his back to it, more  interested in his   laptop computer, the documents spread out before him  on the desk, the   television on the wall tuned, as ever, to the  financial news.

"You haven't been here in years." She knew she should walk to the desk,    sit down, act appropriately and do her job, but she couldn't bring    herself to move that close to him. Not so soon after the last two nights    of all that savage intensity. Not yet. "Not in as long as I've worked    for you."

"It was eight years ago, I believe," he agreed, that lean body much too    still, as if he was deliberately leashing all of his power as he sat   and  watched her. As he waited. "When I bought the place from some Saudi    prince or another."

Dru bit at her lip, that fluttery feeling twisting and suddenly too    close to another surge of what felt like tears. As if it was impossible    to be around him without all of this emotion welling up in her. She  was   afraid she might simply burst.

"I don't understand the point of owning beautiful things you never see."    Her voice should have sounded casual. Easy. Not...raw. Wounded. She   was  supposed to be so good at this kind of thing! "And now that you're   here  for the first time in almost a decade, you're sitting inside in  an   office, working. Moving all your money and power about like an  endless   game of chess. Why bother collecting all these little pieces  of  paradise  if you never plan to let yourself enjoy them?"

He looked at her for a beat, then another. And then that same look she'd    seen the night before, as if he'd come to some kind of decision,    gleamed in his eyes. A little chill snaked down Dru's back. Cayo moved    from his chair, rising to his feet and prowling toward her.

Dru had to fight to stand still-not to break and run. He stopped when he    was a foot or so away, and that cruel mouth of his, brutally sensual    and entirely too dangerous, quirked slightly in the corner. Dru felt  it   like another touch, like the hand he'd pressed against her cheek in    Milan, like his thumb across her mouth last night. Her blood seemed  too   hot in her veins, her skin felt too tight across her body, and  when she   reached over to grab the doorjamb again, it was because her  legs were   too weak to hold her upright.                       
       
           



       

And still, he only looked at her. Through her. Making the fire inside her leap high, burn white.

"I appreciate your concern," he said in that silky voice that teased    along her oversensitive skin, moved like a shiver down her spine, and    then made even her bones ache. "It's too bad you insist upon leaving me.    We could play chess with my properties together."

"What a lovely idea," she said with a great insincerity she took no    pains to conceal, and which made him look something close enough to    amused. "But I am terrible at chess."

"I find that hard to believe." She thought he nearly smiled then, gazing    down at her. "You are always at least six moves ahead. You'd excel at    it."

She had the oddest sense of déjà vu for a moment and then it came to    her-he was talking to her like a person. Not as his employee, but as    another human being. Someone he actually knew. The last time he'd done    this, he'd teased her in just this way. They'd smiled. They'd told    stories, shared parts of themselves over small dishes of food and large    glasses of wine. Or she'd thought they had. That had been that long    dinner in Cadiz, before their fateful walk home, and Dru couldn't stand    her own treacherous heart, the way it softened for him anew, as if she    didn't know exactly where moments like this led. Precisely nowhere,   with  a three-year detour through infatuated subservience.

She could not let him reel her in. Not again.

"I'm not here to play games," she said quietly, hoping he couldn't hear    the unevenness in her voice, that clash between what was good for her    and what she wanted. "I'm here to be your personal assistant. The only    other offer on the table was to be your dog. On a leash. Isn't that  what   you said? Is that what you'd prefer?"

His gaze heated, becoming so molten she could hardly bear it, though she    didn't look away. His mouth twisted. She remembered belatedly that he    was much too close, his potent masculinity and all of that restless,    brilliant power of his bright and brilliant between them, making her    swallow hard. Making her feel too hot, too weak, all at once.

"If you want to be my pet you must sit," he growled at her. Daring her. Commanding her. "Stay. Surrender."

And the worst part was, she very nearly obeyed.

"I do appreciate the offer," Dru whispered when she could speak, but she    hardly heard her own voice, lost as it was in the thunder of her    heartbeat, the shriek and clamor of the storm only gaining strength    inside her. "But I think I'll pass."

She should have moved-but she didn't. She only stood there, paralyzed,    as Cayo closed the distance between them and stretched an arm up, over    his head, to brace himself against the doorjamb and look down directly    into her face.

She thought of old gods again, stunning and unpredictable, implacable    and fierce. Something deep inside her seemed to go very, very still. He    leaned there, propped up in the doorway, dark eyes and that sinful   body,  exuding the ruthlessness and command that made him who he was.

Worse than that, he looked at her as if he knew her at least as well as    she knew him. As if he could read her as easily as she'd learned to   read  him. And the very notion was as terrifying-as impossible-as it had   been  before.

"Tell me," he said, his voice even lower, his golden amber eyes so hot    she worried they might blister her skin or consume her whole. "What are    you hiding from?"

* * *

For a moment, she looked almost as if he'd punched her in the stomach.    But then she blinked, the mask Cayo had come to hate descended, and she    even produced a strained sort of smile.

That might have irritated him, but he was done with this. He'd decided    he would have her no matter what games she played, and he would lick    that wall away if he had to. He looked forward to it.

"The only thing I've been hiding from today is our workload," she said    brightly. Hiding, he knew. Right there in front of him. "Perhaps we    should get to it."

"Forget about work," he growled, a sentence that had never crossed his    lips before, perhaps not ever. And he didn't allow himself to consider    the ramifications of that-all he could seem to concentrate on was the    confusing woman in front of him. And how very much he wanted her,    despite all the reasons he knew that was a bad idea. "We're in Bora    Bora. Work can wait."                       
       
           



       

"I beg your pardon?" She looked unduly horrified.

"What's the point of being the boss if I can't decree a holiday on a    whim?" he asked, striving for a lighter tone and, if that look on her    face was any indication, failing. "Didn't you suggest I enjoy myself in    paradise not five minutes ago?"

"To hell with the consequences, is that it?" she asked, throwing that    back at him, and her eyes flashed as if she was angry with him. Which    grated.

He didn't understand any of this. He didn't understand what was    happening to him, and he certainly didn't understand why everything he    said made her so unhappy, or so furious. Or both at once. Why she  leaped   from boats to escape him, then looked at him on a dark Italian  terrace   with all the world in her eyes and spoke of punishment, making  him  feel  small three years later.