He wrapped his arm around her waist. In the near-total blackness of the night, she thought that he might have taken that bandage off his face.
He growled, “You swear that you’re not married.”
“I’m not married,” she said. “I have never been married.”
“Do I revolt you? Am I so hideous that you can’t stand to touch me? Is that why you don’t want anyone to know about us?”
He sounded so angry that Rox couldn’t even laugh, even though that question was patently insane. “Are you kidding me? You, hideous? You’re Cash Amsberg. Wren wrote a sonnet to your abs. People take pictures when you’re playing volleyball without a shirt on and pass them around. You have a fan page on the internet.”
“I do not,” he said.
“Uh, yeah you do. ‘Cash on Demand.’ You have twenty thousand likes.”
Pale moonlight touched his cheekbone and jaw line. “You didn’t answer the question. What about you?”
Rox tried to stare at him, but so little starlight filtered down to him that she could just see the faint outline of his face.
Was he being serious?
So much emotion choked his voice that he must be.
Rox reached down deep and told him the truth. “Cash, I can’t think straight when I look at you sometimes because my ovaries go into overdrive, but you’re also smart, and you’re ethical, and you’re funny. And you’re kind to my cats, even if you do spoil the crap out of them. Yes, you’re gorgeous, you’re so gorgeous that I catch my breath when I look at you, but you were there for me when I needed someone. That’s so much more important to me.”
“Then this was all so that we could work together.”
“It was so you wouldn’t screw me and break my heart.”
While she spoke, his other arm sneaked around her, and he held her tightly against his body.
She should push him away. She shouldn’t do this.
Rox ran her hands up his firm chest. “I couldn’t stand it, if we slept together and then you ghosted on me, just dumping me over the side like that.”
“And if I promise not to?”
“Oh, Cash. I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
“You are not ‘all the girls.’ You took care of me when I needed someone. You are the only person I can rely on at the office, especially now while I’m trying to figure out if Valerie has been selling out our clients.”
“I’m glad we’re friends.”
He bent, whispering, “Working with you every day has been a temptation. I stop myself a dozen times a day from reaching out to touch your hair, to bend and kiss your neck, to slam you up against a wall and rip your clothes off. Why did you tell me now that you aren’t married?”
Oh, yeah. This wasn’t fraught with all the feels or anything. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Think of something. “I didn’t want to lie anymore.”
“Why tonight? Why not tomorrow or in the office sometime?” His hand stroked over her hair. “Why in my house, near midnight, in the dark, when we’re both a little drunk?”
Rox slid her arms around his waist, feeling the strong muscles around his middle and back. “Because I liked it when we ‘slipped’ last night.”
His voice was even lower, huskier. “Me, too.”
“And I’m here, and you’re here, and we’re alone. At the office, I’m the plainest, chubbiest girl in the room.”
She saw him bending, and his warm lips found hers in the dark. He kissed her slowly, barely opening his lips until she did, too. When she slid her arms around his neck, he deepened the kiss, stroking his tongue against hers.
He backed off, whispering against her skin as his lips ran over her neck, “You are beautiful, Rox. I don’t want to ever hear you say again that you’re not.”
“But I’m not—”
His mouth covered hers again, and his fingers gripped her ass, digging in. His arm around her waist tightened.
When he broke off the kiss again, he growled near her ear, “You are beautiful. You’re voluptuous and succulent, and I want to lick every inch of you. If I hear you say again that you are not, I will turn you over my knee and spank your bare bottom.”
Rox felt her eyes widen, but it was too dark to see anything even with her eyes open wide. None of the other women in the office had mentioned spanking or anything like that, but no one had been forthcoming with details, either.
Just knowing looks.
Oh, Lord. He must be totally into the kinky stuff. He was European, which surely meant that he was depraved to begin with, and he must have gotten tired of all that normal sex stuff with women years ago.