by Mia Carson
Chapter 12
Over the next few days, Belle watched Greyson go from being the timid man she had moved in with back to the predatory boss she’d met that first day of work. She had no idea what brought about the change—whether their fight or whatever he’d talked to his mom about—but she was not complaining.
In fact, she was barely able to sit in a room with him for more than a few minutes before he pulled her into his lap just to hold her close against the hard planes of his chest. She was used to being held as she worked, talking to him quietly as he watched her mouse dart across the screen. At one point, she broke down and let him tweak a few details, which made all the difference. Belle finally had a boyfriend, albeit an overbearing and, at times, arrogant, know-it-all boyfriend, but the hands-off policy was gone.
On such an afternoon, while she sat in the living room trying to work on three projects at once, Greyson stalked towards her. She smiled, though she tried to be serious.
“Wait, I have too much work to do today,” she said and held up her hand—the one with the broken wrist. He frowned and took it gently, kissing her fingertips before sitting down beside her.
“That’s a pity. I was hoping to start a new game soon.”
“Which one?” she asked, unable to keep her excitement from bubbling up.
He grinned wolfishly at her. “A new one… like the one we’re beta testing right now. Tim’s getting everything set up. Mind you, it’s not the whole game, just bits here and there to see what’s working. I was going to head into the office.”
“Your e-mails!” she yelped and jumped off the couch, rushing to the second laptop he gave her. A few days ago, she found out he was paying her for every day since the accident, even if she wasn’t working. There’d been a small argument about it until he finally agreed to let her do some work for him again until she could return to full-time duty. She was fairly certain she could return to work sooner, but he kept telling her she needed to rest. It was probably a good idea for her to be off pain meds first, but he was stalling. Part of her secretly enjoyed him wanting to keep her at home longer with him; the other part was simply annoyed he wouldn’t let her go back to full-time. “I completely forgot to check them!”
His deep, throaty chuckle caught her off-guard as she booted up the second laptop and sat down at the kitchen table. “It’s fine, just take a breath.”
“I can’t. Those three projects are due at the end of the week, and I’m still so far behind on them.”
“Didn’t you tell your professors you were in an accident?”
Her shoulders hunched over the laptop, and she avoided the annoyed glare she felt burning into her back as he watched her.
“Belle, did you not tell anyone on campus what happened to you?”
“I told Carrie,” she replied quietly.
“You should’ve told your professors about the accident. They would have given you more time.”
She whipped around, her lips screwed to the side as she shook her head. “Then I would have an unfair advantage over all the other students. I’m fine. I’ll manage.”
“Not when you have to do your other work for me, too. Stop checking e-mails. I knew this was a bad idea,” he grumbled and clicked the laptop shut in her face. “Go back to your classwork.”
Her mouth hanging open, she shifted her glare to him. “You can’t stop me from working, too. Get your hand off the laptop.”
He leaned down, and her belly pooled with sudden want. “No,” he growled, and the want flared into full out annoyance. “Go do your work for class. I got this.”
“I said I can handle both. Move your damn hand.” She tried shoving it away, but he wouldn’t budge and she was limited to using her uninjured wrist. “Greyson, seriously. I’m fine.”
“Clearly you’re not when you’re panicking over e-mails,” he retorted hotly.
“It’s just going to mean a few sleepless nights. Nothing I haven’t done before,” she said, but it was the wrong thing to say. His hand moved away, and he whipped out his cell phone before striding away. “What are you doing?” she asked loudly, but he held up his hand towards her.
“Yes, is this Arizona State University? Hi, this is Greyson Taylor… yes, that Greyson Taylor,” he replied with a grin, but Belle wasn’t laughing. She jumped up from her chair and charged at him, but all he had to do was keep his arm with the cell out of her reach. He laughed when she hopped up, trying to snatch it, and he simply stood on his toes.
“Damn it, what are you doing?” she snapped.
“Yes, I have one of your students working for me at the moment. Her name is Belle Hall. If you could please let her professors know that she’s been in a terrible car accident? She’s alright, but she was injured… Yes, terrible. I’d be so grateful if you could let them know on her behalf… Of course. Yes, please send her an e-mail to verify… She’s stubborn, I guess. What can I say?” He stared her down with his dark brown eyes as he said the last bit, and Belle’s body couldn’t decide how to react with that smoldering gaze on her.
Her toes curled, and she wanted to jump his bones for what he was doing for her, knowing that look would lead to heated kisses. The idea of his bare palms holding her breasts sent chills down her spine. On the other hand, she wanted to haul off and smack him for taking over her life like that. It was the price of having Greyson Taylor actually act like her boyfriend for a change.
“Yes, thank you, I appreciate it…” he said as he finished his call. “You too.” He hung up and tucked his cell into his back pocket, breaking the trance Belle was under.
“What did you just do?” she asked with a scowl.
“Check your e-mail later today,” he said with a smug grin as he crossed his muscled arms over his chest and stared her down, toe to toe. “They said to expect messages from your professors. Something about a policy allowing students extra time for suffering grievous injuries. All you have to do is send them the doctor’s note, which I know you received.”
She withered under his glare. She had been given one and was told to take it to her professors, but she never did. It was tucked away in her room, but the doctor had sent her an electronic copy as well.
“I’m fine. You didn’t have to do that,” she whispered, hating and loving that he cared so much.
“Yes, I did, especially when my girlfriend is a workaholic ready to drive herself to an early grave,” he said. “You’re injured. You’re not cheating and you’re not faking to give yourself more time. They’re online classes, for God’s sake. The other students won’t even know.”
“I’ll know,” she said and threw her arms up. “I’ll know that I wasn’t able to do it on time.”
“You have a valid reason,” he argued and motioned angrily towards her broken wrist. “Car accident, remember? You could’ve been killed and you’re worried about your stupid class work and answering e-mails!”
“What else am I going to do? Be pampered by my boyfriend who, only a few days ago, actually started acting like one?” she fired back.
He ground his teeth and moved closer until there was no space between them. “I was being cautious. Forgive me for not wanting to be a brute!”
“You are a brute,” she said, her hands on her hips as she held his glare with her own. “That’s who you are. Look what you just did!”
“So you want me to be a brute or you don’t?” he argued. “Make up your mind!”
“You make up yours! You still can’t decide if you want this to go anywhere!” Belle stood her ground as their chests heaved in unison as, once again, they fought over nothing. She had no idea why they did it, but he infuriated her with his back-and-forth, roller coaster of emotions.
“If my girlfriend would actually let people do things for her, maybe this wouldn’t be so hard,” he grumbled, his voice strained as want filled his eyes, warring with his annoyance at her. “Maybe if she accepted what I was trying to do for her instead of fighting me tooth and nail!”
No argument came t
o mind to counter his words, so Belle did the only thing she could think of. She rose up on her toes and kissed him hotly, capturing his mouth with hers in an urgent need to be close. She melted against him as his hands fisted angrily in her shirt and dragged her up off her feet as they fought for control. She broke the kiss and pushed against his chest until he set her down.
“You’re driving me insane,” she muttered, snatched up the work laptop, and took off down the hall before he could stop her. At her door, she turned back and said, “Thanks,” and ducked into her bedroom.
Greyson watched in disbelief as Belle took off again, leaving his emotions a hot, tangled mess and a raging erection in his jeans. His hands lifted in a motion to strangle her as he growled in annoyance.
What the hell is she doing to me? I’m driving her crazy?
For once in his life, he was completely and utterly lost in a turbulent storm of desire and passion so fierce, the idea of finally letting go and seeing what would happen when they came together scared him. He wanted her in his bed, in his arms, wanted to kiss the annoyed grin from her face. She tried to stop it every time, but he caught flashes of it all the same. She couldn’t resist him for long, but the same went for him with her. Eventually, they wouldn’t restrain themselves, and the storm that would rage might be too much for either of them to handle.
His cell rang, and he snatched it up, answering without even looking. Probably Tim, anyway, telling him there was another issue. “Tim, unless the building is on fire and you are running for your lives, I don’t care.”
“Oh, this isn’t Tim, lover,” Aiden said with her voice of silk on the other line.
His hand fisted around his cell. “How are you calling me? I blocked your number.”
“I got a new phone. Not that hard to do,” she replied with a deep-throated laugh he knew all too well. “I was wondering if you had reconsidered my offer.”
“I’m hanging up. Do not call me again or I’m calling the cops,” he warned.
“Is this about that intern tramp?” she yelled.
Greyson’s blood ran cold. “What did you just say?”
“What’s her name, Belle Hall? She’s a student. Looks like she has quite the past,” Aiden whistled. “My, my, she’s bounced around almost more than I have.”
“How did you find out about her?” he snapped.
“Well, when you wouldn’t meet with me, I found someone who would. Tim likes to talk about everything when he’s had a few drinks, did you know that?” she mused with a quiet snicker. “He told me several interesting facts about this girl. Like how she’s living with you. Now why is that, Greyson?”
He stared wildly around his house as if expecting Aiden to suddenly appear. “Why do you care? You’re not exactly the settling down type of woman.”
“And you aren’t the settling down type of man. What game are you playing?”
“Maybe you just weren’t the right woman,” he replied and smirked when she gasped in anger. “You aren’t the woman I want and you will never be back in my life, understand? And you are to leave Belle alone.”
“Or what?” she taunted. “What are you going to do?”
“You don’t have anything on me, no matter what Tim told you. He’s smarter than you think, so back the fuck off.” He hung up and stood in the kitchen, shaking in rage.
He needed to call Tim and make sure he hadn’t given Aiden any important information about their current projects. His friend knew who Aiden was, and he hoped he was smart enough to stay away from her. After gathering control of his anger—enough so he wouldn’t bite his friend’s head off—Greyson called Tim and paced anxiously around his back patio, out of earshot of Belle.
“Hey, boss man, what’s going on?” Tim asked when he finally answered.
“I hear you had drinks with a friend of mine,” Greyson said. “Aiden?”
Tim laughed. “Yeah, man, I did. She’s a piece of work—hot and very interested in every aspect of your life.”
Greyson let out a breath. “So you weren’t drunk?”
“You know me. She couldn’t afford to get me trashed, but she wouldn’t stop coming around the office looking for you so I had to give her something.”
“She came to the office?” Greyson’s face was hot as he kicked at the patio with his boot. “How many times? And why the hell didn’t anyone tell me?”
“You’ve been busy with Belle, and a few times, five or six, maybe,” he told him.
Greyson groaned and held the phone away from his ear, his free hand gripped into a fist as he fought the urge to bellow his anger. He sucked in a few deep breaths, muttering to himself not to lose it, and put his cell back to his ear, Tim still talking.
“…then there was the two shots of tequila, and she was pretty drunk herself,” Tim rambled on until Greyson cut him off.
“Why did you tell her about Belle?”
“She was asking about the company. I figured it was safer to have her mind on something else. You heard the rumors of who she’s been seen with, right? Our competitor’s CEO. The last thing we need is her snooping around.”
Greyson rubbed at the throbbing pain in his forehead. “Yeah, well, now she’s snooping around Belle’s life.”
“She called you?” Tim cursed. “Sorry, man, I didn’t think she’d go that far. But just a forewarning—she was on a jealous rampage after I said Belle was staying with you. I think she expected to break you.”
“She should’ve known better,” Greyson growled.
“What are you going to do?”
“I can’t do anything yet, but if she gets too close to Belle, I won’t have a choice. I’m not letting that woman anywhere near my girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend? When did that happen?”
“Long story. We can talk about it at the gamers' function Friday,” he promised.
He hung up after a quick update on the project’s progress. Belle remained in her room. He debated banging his fist on her door and making her open up, but he knew from experience that approach never worked well for either of them. He’d had enough doors slammed in his face the past few weeks.
He stalked to his office and closed himself in, debating what his next move would be if Aiden pushed. She had clearly done her homework on Belle, and as he sat there, another, darker thought crossed his mind. Aiden’s talent was finding out secrets. Maybe he could use her to find out what happened to Belle’s family, to give her some much-needed closure… But that would involve working with the woman he wanted nothing to do with.
Belle’s eyes, filled with pain despite what she’d said about her parents, appeared in his mind again. Only setting it aside as a last resort, he jotted down the number Aiden called him from and tucked it away in his desk drawer.
Chapter 13
A loud dinging echoed, and Greyson groaned, dragging a pillow over his head to make it stop. The dinging continued, and he grumbled, burrowing as deeply into the quilts as he could. His door flew open and something bulky and soft whacked him hard in the back.
“What?” he growled.
“Someone’s at your door,” Belle said through an irritated yawn. “You going to answer it?”
He lifted his head to tell her to ignore it when words failed him and all he could do was stare. The dark blue nightgown she wore barely covered her curves and brought out the icy blue of her eyes as they glared at him. The spaghetti straps would be so easy to glide over her shoulders, and one simple tug over her breasts would reveal her delicious body to his hungry gaze. He wondered what she wore underneath and sat up, ready to find out. She took a step back as her gaze slithered down his bare chest. He grinned, scratching absently at his beard. Then, she took a step closer and another.
Greyson licked his lips, ready to snatch her and drag her under the quilts with him, but she still wasn’t at one hundred percent and every protective instinct in him said it would be too much.
And then there was the doorbell, still ringing over and over throughout the house.
“You should… you should get that,” Belle said, her voice hoarse.
“Yeah, guess I should,” he grumbled and threw off the quilt to climb out of bed. He stalked towards her in his silk sleep pants and brushed his arm against hers, sending a shock between them that made them both gasp. He paused for a moment to lift a strand of her hair and let it slide through his fingers before he continued towards the door. “You can go back to bed. It’s gotta be early.”
“I’ll make some coffee,” she suggested instead and followed him out.
He turned for the front door but watched as her nightgown bounced up as she walked, revealing the slightest glimpse of an ass that his hands itched to grab again. They curled into fists, imagining those mounds in his palms, but he shook his head and tried to focus on walking to the door.
Hard not to when the doorbell was still ringing. “I’m coming!” he yelled, ready to rip whoever was on the other side a new one when two bright, smiling faces appeared and rushed past him into his house. “What the hell are you two doing here?”
His younger sisters, fraternal twins, set down a duffel each and spun around his house before rushing to tackle him in a bear hug as they’d had when they were kids. “Can’t we stop by to surprise our brother?” Mel, the redhead, said with a laugh as she squeezed him extra hard.
“Mom didn’t tell you?” Molly asked, her narrowed gaze staring up at him. They were as short as their mom.
“No, she didn’t,” he mumbled and wrapped his arms around them, picking them up off their feet. “But I don’t mind the surprise.” He hated surprises—all surprises—and his mom knew that. So did his sisters. Especially when there was a barely-clad Belle in his kitchen.
They released him and followed his gaze towards the kitchen. The sound of clanking dishes echoed, and before he could stop them, Mel and Molly rushed through the house.