Page 32 of Secrets, Lies and Love

“I’m feeling like a specimen in a laboratory. Do you think I’m a freak because I haven’t tried anything yet? I don’t want to be with someone just for the sake of it—I want them to mean something to me.” I could go back to the party, but I feel numb, as if his gaze has the power to keep me still, and that’s both scary and exciting.

“I didn’t say that being inexperienced was abnormal. I’m just surprised.”

“Why?”

“We’re not boss and employee yet, so I’ll speak freely.”

I nod my head in agreement.

“Does that mean I can say whatever I want without you feeling like you’re being harassed?”

Again I nod, and I see one corner of his mouth lift in a half-smile.

Everything about him is kind of mesmerizing. The color of his skin, the mischief in his eyes, the sensual mouth with the lower lip that is a little fuller than the top one.

The man can make my hormones boil just by looking at me, and God wanted the one to awaken me to sexual attraction to be the same person who is forbidden to me.

“Ask me again,” he says, approaching.

“Why were you surprised when I said I’d never been with anyone, Mr.—"

“No, we’re still in neutral territory, Cecily. Say my name, without ‘Mr.’ or ‘sir.’”

“Why were you surprised when I said I’ve never been with anyone, Dionysus?”

He’s very close, almost glued to me,onme. I feel it everywhere, and I like the feeling.

“Because you are beautiful, which makes it unbelievable that you’re untouched.”

I blink, not believing he just said that. “Are you saying that to make me feel better or because you really find me interesting?”

“Interesting?”he repeats and touches a strand of my hair, feeling it in his fingers, just like his son did. “No, you are notinteresting, girl. You are delicious.”

My body goes crazy form the proximity. I forget the party and the people. I forget what I came to do in New York and that from tomorrow this man will be my boss. What I do know is that I want more of this. A little morefrom him.

We face each other in silence, and I melt at the steel-gray glow that is now interspersed with flames, incandescent and inviting.

My limbs are like jelly, and my lungs aren’t working like they should. All my senses belong to him, and inside me, a voice—crazy, reckless, and without judgment—screams:mine.

I shake my head, trying to clear it, but it’s no use. The feeling doesn’t go away, because my body screams for his, feverish and needy.

I lift my face so I can see him better, since he’s very tall. Now we’re so close I feel the heat of his breath.

I want to touch him and feel how hard I guess his body must be, and I’m embarrassed because I think he can read me completely and knows what I’m feeling.

“Do it,” he orders, confirming my intuition, and feeling like I’m outside my body, I take a step closer. His commanding tone makes me shiver and my entire skin tingle.

“I shouldn’t.”

“We are nothing yet, except a man and a woman. Do what you feel like, Cecily.”

I hear a moan like a cat’s whine, and with horror, I realize that it has escaped me.

His nostrils flare, and his gaze hardens. His breathing is as shaky as mine as he leans down and whispers in my ear, his lips brushing it, “Touch me. It will be your only chance. I don’t get intimate with employees.”

That should offend me because he’s assuming that everything depends exclusively on his will, as if he’s sure that I would succumb in the blink of an eye. I’m long past the pride phase, however, and his statement encourages me to do what I want.

I place both hands flat on his chest.

---