Page 31 of Out of Office Nights
‘That’s not going to work, Sabeen. You need to put your arms around me.’
‘Is that absolutely necessary?’
He turned his head and hooked her with a penetrative stare. ‘To ensure your safety,sí. It’s non-negotiable.’
She glanced over to where his bodyguards waited in a perfectly safe,roomySUV. Before she could voice her change of heart, he’d turned the ignition. The machine vibrating between her legs made her gasp. A thrill of excitement she didn’t even know she craved until that moment slamming into her.
‘Arms. Now.’
Tilting her hips forward, she slowly slid her arms around him. He was warm. Hard. His six-pack rippled beneath her fingers. And…did he just tense? Or was that her? It didn’t matter. They were moving. Another gasp caught as they rolled to the end of her narrow street.
‘Hold tight. Follow the motions of my body. Lean into the corners with me. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ Surely it was the helmet’s acoustics turning her voice husky.
He took off, and Sabeen got why people went crazy over motorbikes. Why he’d rebelled against his usual transport for this.
The unfettered freedom was exhilarating. The smooth, coiled power of his body as he manoeuvred the bike almost theatrically beautiful.
It was when she felt her nipples pebbling, her belly dipping and heat pooling between her legs that she knew she was in trouble.
Because after they reached their destination and Teo helped her off, his gaze watchful, emotions continued to roil through her.
CHAPTER SIX
For the nextthree days they went through a similar routine. She would sketch for hours. Teo would inspect her work in painstaking detail. In complete silence. Then burn all but one. Two if she was lucky. Each time she swung between anger and despair. Each time he watched her with clinical expectation for several minutes, then retreated to the sofa and his tablet, where he would furiously resume sketching.
Gradually, Sabeen realised that there was a sort of catharsis in watching her precious work go up in flames. But if she was being reborn, it wasn’t without a ferocious struggle.
After burning her morning’s work, he would feed her lunch. After burning her afternoon’s work, she would pick where they ate dinner, and he’d drive them there on his motorcycle.
She would hang onto him, her front pressed to his back, feeling every shift and contraction of his muscles, feeling illicit lust steal through her as she slowly lost her fight against just experiencing it. Then she would spend the duration of their meal fighting her every wayward emotion.
The sound of his bike trundling down her alley on the fourth day excited far too many butterflies in her belly. But even as she dismissed them, she was striding to the front door, throwing it open with cringeworthy eagerness.
Expecting him to step off after turning off the engine, she withstood his usual searing scrutiny, his eyes lingering on her legs before meeting her eyes.
‘Change of plans today.’
‘What? Why?’ When he simply stared at her, she folded her arms. ‘I didn’t agree to a dictatorship.’
‘Is it one when I’m proposing that we take a break?’
She shook her head. ‘I’d rather not. I want to push on.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘And waste more paper?’
‘It needn’t be wasted if you don’t burn it. I don’t see you burning your work,’ she taunted.
The wave of savage disquiet rushed over his face before he expertly throttled it. But she’d spotted it, and her heart lurched. ‘For every one of your sketches I burn, I destroy a dozen of mine,’ he rasped, then his face closed tighter. Clearly he hadn’t meant to disclose that.
Her arms dropped, her heart pitching harder with a strange kinship at gleaning this flaw.
The perfect Playboy Prince isn’t so perfect after all.
‘You do?’
He braced his arms over the handlebars, his gloved hands dangling free. ‘It may not be as dramatic as sending yours up in flames but…yes. So you see, your fireplace is turning out to be a source of rebirth…for us both.’
