“Come with me. I think some warm milk may be in order.”
Damn, but she felt good in his arms, like she’d always belonged there—he’d carry her anywhere. Somehow she made his incredibly sexless t-shirt look incredibly sexy. Her mouth, with its perfect pink Cupid’s bow, was just inches away from his and begging to be crushed in a kiss that she’d feel all the way down to her toes.
He deposited her carefully on the sofa then tucked the supersized lightweight blanket that had covered him around her. “Stay there, love. I’ll be right back.”
While he worked in the kitchen, Adam kept a surreptitious eye on his houseguest. At least she wasn’t in any hurry to move from where he’d deposited her. He was also remembering her reaction to his scarred back—gentle concern and something he was hesitant to name.
He poured the warm milk into a glass, then added a little honey and a touch of vanilla extract. Warm milk on its own might do the trick but it didn’t taste very interesting.
“There you go, try that,” he said when he returned to her side. She accepted the glass and took a delicate sip, followed by a slightly less ladylike one that left her with a subtle but visible milk moustache. Before she could do anything about it, he produced a clean handkerchief and did the honors. “Like it?”
She nodded. “Delicious. Thank you very much, Mr. Granger.”
They were both half-naked and she was still addressing him formally. For a potential sub, she was exhibiting some very strong-minded tendencies. “You’re most welcome, Miss Harrison,” he replied, formality masking the hint of unexpected amusement.
He watched her finish the milk, a glimmer of a smile appearing in his eyes as her eyelids began to droop. She didn’t react when he took the almost-empty glass from her. He wished he could say the same for himself when she leaned against him with a sigh, her breathing relaxing into the easy rhythm of sleep when his arm went around her. If he could get a hard-on when she was just around him in the office, he stood no chance with her snuggled against him—and the evidence was there, pushing against the fly of his jeans.
He should have taken her back to bed immediately but now that she was settled there was no sense in waking her up. He just hoped that the nightmares wouldn’t come again. Once in a night was enough but his main concern was that she didn’t witness their effect on him. She didn’t need that.
Neither did he.
Most nights, Adam was reluctant to close his eyes—but not tonight. Beth felt good beside him. She felt right. He pulled the huge blanket over both of them and then let himself relax, his feet up on the coffee table. Whether her ankle was better or not, she was spending the weekend here. Tomorrow he’d talk her into letting him collect some clothes and anything else she needed from her flat but tonight he could pretend that she was his.
Chapter Four
With the start of a slow stretch, Beth’s return to wakefulness was unusually languid—until she realized that the pillow beneath her head was moving. She sat up with a start, her recollection of the previous day’s events almost instantly crystal-clear as she looked round at her employer—who was looking back at her with a totally inscrutable expression on his face.
A kaleidoscope of visual and physical impressions hit her all at once—there was the way Adam looked, stubble on his chin and a chest he really needed to put away, the heat emanating from his body, the hard strength of that body against hers. Wearing just the faded jeans, bare feet on the coffee table and legs crossed at the ankles, he looked very masculine and very dangerous, especially to a woman who had been without male company for far too long. His elbow was resting on the back of the sofa, his fist providing support for his head.
He was still looking at her and not saying anything.
Beth couldn’t have said how long they just looked at one another. She was concentrating on not letting herself give in to the urge to kiss him good morning, so it was Adam who finally broke the silence, to give her bathroom privileges first and let her know that there would be another t-shirt for her to wear when she was ready.
“And there’s a hairdryer around here somewhere—I’ll dig it out for you,” he promised.
“What about my clothes?” Beth asked. Why she hadn’t thought to ask about them before now, she had no idea.
“In with the dry cleaning, and due to be picked up,” he glanced at his wristwatch, “any time now.” He checked the time again. “It’s nearly 10 a.m.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” She was puzzled by his reaction to the time. He looked as if he couldn’t quite believe what his watch was telling him.
Adam frowned. “I haven’t slept this late at the weekend since…I don’t know when.”
She was still confused. “Is that a good or bad thing?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about.” All of a sudden his attitude lightened up. “So, Beth, how’s your ankle this morning? Feeling any better? If you need more aspirin for it, I’ll get you some toast and coffee for now, then we’ll see about lunch later.”
Beth flexed the joint. It was still painful but not so much that it required medication.
“Good. And your hands and knees?”
She offered her palms for inspection. The light grazes were already healing and were thankfully only slightly sensitive. Her knees had borne the brunt of the damage but they too were recovering.
“Now what about you? You were pretty shaken up yesterday.”
As if she weren’t shaken up by the way he was curling a stray strand of hair round her ear. “Yes. I’m sorry about that, Mr. Granger. I don’t know what came over me. Thank you for looking after me and Mr. Chesterfield for checking my flat. I should really be getting back home.”
“Dressed like that?” He raised an eyebrow, looking her up and down. “I don’t think so. First thing, you need to get your behind under that shower, because I can’t until you do and when we’re both done, you can tell me what I need to collect from your flat today.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re staying here this weekend,” he directed in a tone that brooked no argument, “then we’ll see how you’re doing on Monday morning. If necessary, we can both work from here. Dan’s a key holder. He’ll open the office for the staff.”
She’d clearly missed the memo—the one where he’d informed her that he was taking over her life. She was still trying to think of a suitable rejoinder when he spoke again.
“Beth, adorable as you are and as much as I could sit here looking at you all day, I need you to get in that shower now and if you don’t move in three seconds, I will put you under the shower myself.”
Adorable. He’d called her adorable but there was no time to deal with that now. Four seconds later she was being dumped rather unceremoniously on the bed so that he could remove the bandage from her ankle.
“Will you be all right on your own now?”
Stunned into silence, she managed a jerky nod and then the human whirlwind disappeared.
Fifteen minutes later she was all freshened up, wearing the clean t-shirt he’d left for her and was perched on the edge of the bed, drying her hair and aware that Adam was just a few feet away under the shower. Without a brush or a comb, the best she could do was run her fingers through it and there was no way she was rummaging around Adam’s personal space.
She was so wrapped up in what she was doing that she didn’t notice that the sound of the shower had stopped. What she did notice was movement on the bed behind her, the sudden heat of Adam’s body at her back and his strong, muscular—naked—legs on either side of hers. Oh Lord.
“Give that to me.”
The hairdryer was taken from her and with infinite gentleness Adam began to dry her hair, the sensations he created causing yet another internal riot. It would be so easy to lean back against his strength but instead she focused on the powerful thighs that framed her more slender ones, the way the muscles moved…and more scars. Without thinking, she touched the long-healed puckered scar on the left one.
“I was lucky with that one,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Half an inch to the right, and it would have been the bullet with my name on it.”
Her fingers involuntarily squeezed his thigh. “Oh God!” she sighed softly.
It was the most natural thing in the world to slip his arm around her waist and draw her back against his body. When she turned slightly to lay her head on his shoulder and cling to his arm as if it were the only safe haven in a storm-tossed ocean, he laid the hairdryer aside and wrapped her in his embrace…and experienced a sense of homecoming the likes of which he’d never felt before. She was his—no pretending this time. She might not know it yet, she might take some persuading but she belonged to him. She was his Beth.
“Don’t fight it, love,” he urged softly, his voice as tender as his touch. “Let me take care of you.”
She lifted her face to him. His heart twisted at what he saw in her eyes. Tears? For him? Holding her head so she couldn’t turn away, he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to her soft lips. His self-control had been tested to the limit and beyond. It was time to let something go.
“I told you—it was all a long time ago, in another life,” he murmured, stroking her hair to comfort her, his urge to protect her almost overwhelming.
As if she suddenly realized what she was doing and who she was doing it with, Beth jumped up, dashing the giveaway tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Adam—Mr. Granger. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
In one swift movement, a muscular arm around her waist captured her and returned her to her former position—seated between his thighs. “Hallelujah!” he breathed into her hair. “She finally called me Adam.”
He swore he could feel the radiating heat of her embarrassment. “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Adam groaned. Sir. Dear God, didn’t she realize she’d just made it a thousand times worse? How could she? “Why not?” he demanded, using the same tone of compulsion that he would with a recalcitrant sub.
“I can’t.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, as if saying the two little syllables of his name was the worst thing she could ever do.
“Say my name, Beth,” he commanded. His voice was quiet but it held a core of steel.
She shook her head slowly.
“Say it!”
This time, she couldn’t resist it—that something in his voice that subs responded to every time. “Adam…”
“Again.”
“Adam.”
How could something as simple as a name be so potent? The way she said it sent a bolt of lightning through every cell in his body. “See, it’s not so hard is it?” Unlike his cock. He fought down the urge to divest her of her clothing, tie her to his bed and give her a first lesson in submission. “How about if we finish drying your hair, then I get dressed and we talk?”
The talk happened while they ate. At first, Adam just watched Beth pick over her food. She was clearly deeply troubled. This talk was going to be pivotal to their future. He had to coax her out of her comfort zone and show her that life outside it wasn’t so scary.
“Now then, Miss Bethany Harrison, we have a mystery to solve. I’ve let this slide for far too long. Why are you using my name to maintain this distance between us? You and I are a team, we work well together—I have friends who aren’t as close to their wives as I am to you—so please, tell me what’s going through that pretty head of yours?”
Keeping a close eye on her as he spoke, Adam frowned a little as he sensed her withdraw from him even more. She was as taut as a bowstring. He could have sworn he could actually see her pulling together her courage, knitting it into a shield. There would be none of that nonsense if she were his sub. In time, he told himself. In time.
“I can’t,” she murmured, refusing to look at him. “You’re my employer. I can’t… Please.”
“No one else I employ seems to have a problem calling me by my given name, Beth. Why is it so difficult for you to do it, I wonder? Could it be that there’s the potential for more to our relationship than just work? Is that what has you running scared?”
“Mixing business and pleasure never works. Never.”
“Calling me by my given name in the office hardly constitutes a blazing affair, Beth. Trouble is, a blazing affair is what I want with you—and you know it.” His gaze narrowed, assessing her reaction.
Her eyes went wide, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper when she spoke. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Adam, I’m not stupid. I’ve seen the way women go through your life—I don’t want to be one of them. I can’t risk getting into that situation. I need my job.”
Adam stiffened. She thought her job was under threat if they had a personal relationship? Suddenly he knew what was going through her mind—a brief affair with him would make it impossible for her to continue working for him after it ended. He swore silently. His choice of words could have been better—a lot better. Time for him to take control.
“This has nothing to do with your job, Beth—that’s yours for as long as you want it—but this won’t be just an affair. That was a spectacularly bad choice of words. I told you I would protect you and I will. You’re not like the women you mentioned—you’re so much more to me than they could ever be. You’ll be mine to take care of and I will take care of you.”
He was waiting for the objections but none came. She did, however, look scared to death and clearly didn’t know how to respond. He knew he’d taken her way out of her depth but he wanted her to learn that she could trust him to keep her safe.
“Why me?” Her eyes lifted to meet his at last. “Why do you want me?”
“A man would be crazy not to want you, Beth. What man wouldn’t want an intelligent, sensual, beautiful woman in his life and in his bed?”
* * * * *
After lunch, still dazed by the turn of events, Beth handed Adam the keys to her flat. The situation she now found herself in was even more unreal—she was Adam Granger’s girlfriend.
Girlfriend. She almost laughed out loud—a misnomer if ever there was one. He’d left her in no doubt that she was his woman, a declaration that had held a possessive edge that sent a shiver down her spine. She still couldn’t work out how she hadn’t said no to him.
Perhaps it was because she simply hadn’t wanted to say no. He had seen what she had tried to deny for so long.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be, love—once I’ve picked your belongings up I have a meeting with Dan about the security inspection but I’ll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime make yourself at home, help yourself to anything but try not to use that ankle too much. And if you do need to take any aspirin,” he pointed to the coffee table, to the pack sitting beside the glass of water and the plate of biscuits, “don’t have it on an empty stomach.”
And with that he was gone. The apartment fell silent and Beth was left alone with her thoughts. It hardly seemed possible that so much could have happened in so short a time.
All her determination to keep him at arm’s length had been rendered futile in the space of a few moments. She’d fought so hard not to fall into the trap of letting herself get close to a man who couldn’t possibly be interested in her, only for him to sweep her efforts aside as easily as if they were a house of cards.
Events had overtaken her and overwhelmed her. Adam had completely dismantled the boundaries of their employer/employee relationship and was building in its stead something that could give her everything she’d ever desired.
Beth felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to dive headlong off it. The strangest thing was she felt like she wanted to make the dive but at the same time it was the most dangerous thing she could do.
* * * * *
Adam’s visit to his assistant’s home had been illuminating as was the meeting with Dan Chesterfield. There had been something weird going on at the office for quite some time, hence the sweep. Dan’s team had found se
veral bugs scattered through the office, not to mention a handful of concealed cameras, but nothing that would incriminate any particular member of the staff.
Finding the devices had answered one question, but gone on to generate more, not least of which were who, why and how. Adam had a gut feeling that it wasn’t as simple as plain old industrial espionage but until Dan came back with more information, the answers to those questions would remain elusive.
His visit to Beth’s home had disturbed him slightly. It was as clean and tidy as he’d expected but it was the location that concerned him—the neighborhood wasn’t unsafe, it just wasn’t what he would have preferred for her. Hell, what he preferred for her was his neighborhood, his apartment and his bed. That would come soon enough.
After a detour to an exclusive boutique owned by one of his trusted female counterparts from Apollo, and with Beth’s belongings—including her precious laptop, safely stored in the trunk—Adam found it quite amusing that all of a sudden, for the first time in forever, he was in a hurry to get home as he drove back to the apartment. There was only one thing better than going home to Beth and that would be going home to Beth wearing nothing but his collar. She was gorgeous. He had a preference for tall women but unlike many men skinny model types didn’t turn him on. Beth, with her curves, her smile, her intelligence and her wit, did.
And he knew, now more than ever, that she was a woman of warmth and passion who just needed a secure environment in which she could come out and play. Anyone who wrote about submission the way Beth had wasn’t just interested in writing about it—she wanted it, he was sure.
The bonus was that he’d discovered he loved just talking to her as well, found out from their conversations a little more about what made her tick—and now he carried with him a much more three-dimensional view of the woman he had wanted to claim for so long.
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