Except her body was rebelling against her logic, and now it craved more.
It craved everything from a man who could easily have other “special friends” at the moment. He was Daniel Lexington, and he would never belong to a woman, even when he was sleeping with her. He would be as untamable as a storm, and Monica would be stupid to step deeper into the eye of it.
These were the sorts of feelings that made people do stupid things. Like fire your prized assistant. Commit infidelity and murder. Take your own precious life and leave your daughter behind like she meant nothing.
Her mind drifted to Roland.
He was her shield against all of these memories that hurt her, all these passionate feelings that went up so mighty and high, there was no choice but to suffer when they came plummeting back down. Roland was safe and gentle. He didn’t get accosted by groupies hounding him when he went out, who launched at him and kissed him like his mouth was public property.
Exhaling thinly as she searched for calm, she avoided Daniel’s gaze and focused on the love of her life—Davenport’s—until the meeting was adjourned.
She said good-bye to everyone with a “See you next week,” then walked to him. “Can I talk to you privately?”
He followed her to her office and shut the door as she went to her desk, where she braced herself slightly before she spun to face him. “You seem to find it funny that my assistant puts her breasts all over you,” she said.
He shrugged, smiling wickedly. “Nothing new.”
“Oh. So she’s done it before?”
He cocked his head, and was surveying her like he were the ringmaster, and she were an animal that had just stepped out of its ring.
“And you let her?”
His smile remained, but the light in his eyes was dimming. “Considering that it’s both amusing and harmless and I’m used to it, yes, Monica. Whatever body part she presses against me makes no impact on me.”
“I can’t believe this.”
He was such a sexual force, he was even used to these sorts of come-ons!
Daniel closed the distance between them and cupped her face, his hands as warm as his voice. “Hey … you’re wound up. We both are. Nothing’s going on here. I’ll come over tonight.”
She stiffened at the stroke of his thumb across her lips and quickly moved away. “Please don’t. I’m sure we both have better things to do. But I do apologize for my assistant. I’ll talk to her.”
“Monica—”
“You’re a member of my board, Daniel.”
“It’s not the only board I’m on.”
“Well, I care about my board, not the others.” My board and my man! Scowling at the last thought, which was as senseless as all the emotions she was feeling, she went to the window and stared down at the city without seeing any of it. “Her behavior is rude and unprofessional. I expect more from my employees. You should’ve told me.”
She thought about Roland and how she didn’t have this sort of problem with a man like him, and she immediately wanted him to take her back. Today. Tonight. At the gala, where they would meet. Then she heard Daniel behind her, his voice low and a little rough. “Are you jealous, Monica?”
When she refused to answer that, indignant he even asked it, he came closer, pressing softly against her, his voice insistent. “Are you?”
She’d die before she admitted it, even to him. Jealousy, anger, the rage. Her parents had raised her. Good, normal people, in all appearances. But too obsessed. Too in love. She ducked her head and rubbed her temples. “I miss Roland, that’s all,” she said, as softly as he had spoken to her.
It was a good, much needed reminder to herself. Daniel may have tons of lovers. This was not a novelty to him, but this was a novelty to her, and before she started thinking of him as anything other than a friend, she’d sooner end their arrangement.
“And I just ask that … you please refrain from sleeping with people in my employ. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to think about it. Although maybe you already have?”
She met his gaze, and his expression had morphed.
He approached her painstakingly slowly, catching her arm, his voice instantly rough, his eyes dark as thunderclouds. “You seem to be mistaking me for one of your elderly lapdogs. I’m not a man to be ordered around, not even by you, but now that you’re making demands of me, then I’ll gladly issue some demands of my own. The first one is, don’t you ever, ever, say his name to me again as long as I’m fucking you. I may be your friend, but I’m also your lover. It’s my name you call when you come. It’s my eyes you look into when you’re begging and writhing. It’s me you wanted to fuck last night, me you wanted to fuck just an hour ago—not Roland.”
“Roland was my partner for over a year and he’s been after me forever. You and I are nothing but fuck bud—”
“I am nobody’s fuck buddy, Monica! I agreed because I wanted you. But that’s over. If you want me, we’re doing this my way, and I hope you realize that I will want sex daily, I will be demanding in bed, and I will certainly expect your exclusivity.”
A tap on the door came a second before her assistant opened it. “Ms. Davenport, I have the Loro Piana collaborator on the phone for you. Oh, why, Mr. Lexington, you’re still here…”
Before her assistant could even finish, Daniel had dropped her arm and stormed outside, and Monica stared at the vacant space where he’d charged out the door, dumbstruck at his explosion. And she thought she’d been jealous?
My God, she’d never in her life seen Daniel like this!
* * *
Holy shit, he hadn’t handled that well.
No, not at all.
But he was burning in his skin, burning with desire, with jealousy, with frustration.
It was the hardest thing he’d ever endured, sitting across the boardroom table from her, when every cell in his body clamored for her, when every fiber in his being knew that she needed him, that as she sat there, in her clothes, with her glacial mask on, she was still burning for him.
His mind had been fresh with the memory of her in a blanket of cashmere, in his arms, his flesh feeling tight and hot, his body pulsing and aching. The hunger to caress her had been so powerful it nearly paralyzed him.
He hadn’t even been able to keep track of the conversation and was, like her, speechless and silent, pretending to listen, when he would have done anything to seclude her in any nearby room with a lock, and fuck her so long he’d be dry and she’d be raw and they’d both be bone-tired with exhaustion.