Page 18 of A Forbidden Spring
“You will actverysurprised tomorrow when I announce that she’s on unpaid suspension for the next week.”
“For what?” The question is breathy as he drags his nose along the underside of my jaw.
“I’m trying to convince you to have dinner with me, and you just want to talk about work.” He sighs, nipping at my pulse as it hammers in my throat.
“You started it.”
He growls, the sound vibrating against my skin. “I told you I was looking for money in the budget and I found it. She’d been paying herself through her bullshit PR company.”
“What?”
“Do you have any idea what all these skintight tops do to me?”
“Focus.”
“I am,” he groans as his thumb brushes along the underside of my breast, “and your tits—fuck, baby.I can’t wait to have my mouth all over them.”
“Dinner.”
“Are you agreeing?”
“No,” I manage, the response forcing him to pull back to look at me.
“No?”
“A man doesn’t ask me to dinner through a text, Mr. Ellis.” I grit out, the cocky bastard pressing his thigh into the apex of mine in response.
“I’m about to say fuck dinner if you keep rocking against me like that.”
“Merrick—” His name is a whine, and I gasp when he grinds against me, his erection hard and thick andoh my God, I need it.
“Don’t you want to know the good news?”
“Is it your dick? Because that feels like good news.”
He chuckles, the sound a low rasp that sends a shiver down my spine and a shot of desire between my legs.
“Now that everything is all sorted, I can grant your proposal.”
“Then why are you distracting me? I can’t think when you’re this close.”
“You chose violence, Miss Sterling, and you’re so much morepliantthis way.”
“Dammit, Merrick, I just?—”
Stealing the breath from my lungs, Merrick takes my mouth in a bruising kiss, his hand tilting my face up to meet his as he consumes me. It’s heady the way his tongue pushes between my lips, licking and teasing and forcing a gasp from my throat.
“Come home with me,” he pleads as he trails hot, open-mouthed kisses down my throat before pulling the neck of my shirt down and dipping his tongue beneath the fabric.
“That’s such a bad idea,” I manage as I push my breast against him, my nipples already hard, needy peaks just begging for attention.
“I can’t do what I want to you here.”
“We shouldn’t.”
“I’m way past that, Hellcat,” he says, making it sound like a curse as he drops my hands before threading his fingers in my hair, his palms cupping my face as my nails dig into his forearms.
Because it’s the only thing keeping me upright as I’m hit with the intensity of his need— his desire—and the way I need it too.
