"Enough!"
Something flickered in her gaze, some shred of trepidation as he released her wrists and stepped away from her.
"You are not firing Timmy." She jerked that damned shirt around her like a shield.
"Rory is firing Timmy and as of today you'll be back in the office where you belong," he snapped, turning back to her in time to catch the sudden, overwhelming hurt that flashed in her face.
"No, I won't be." She squared her shoulders and faced him with a defiant lift of her chin and rage burning in her eyes. "Neither you nor Rory can enforce that one, Noah. I'll burn this garage to the ground before I'll let you take me out of it."
Her expression was fierce, furious, and reminded him of the night he tried to force her to stay home rather than go out with her friends.
He frowned back at her. "Dammit, Sabella, you're killing yourself out there. It's hard, damned dirty work. There's no sense in your having to labor like that. You could go to the spa. Get your nails done. Wouldn't that be nice?"
Sabella fought to hold back the fury strangling her. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to scream at him and slap that arrogant, condescending expression off his face. At that moment, she could see where Duncan got the impression that Noah was just like Nathan. Superior. Certain of his own strength and determined to have his way. Nathan had gotten away with it simply because she hadn't matured enough in their marriage to put her foot down while he was home. She had matured now. And this wasn't Nathan. Noah wasn't a SEAL who could be called out at any minute on a mission, and he wasn't the man who had once claimed her soul, so he could go to hell as far as she was concerned.
"If I wanted a manicure then I would have one. If I wanted to sit back and play receptionist all day then that's what the hell I would do. If I wanted another man to decide how I should act, dress, or present myself then I'd have one. That is not a part of your job description, Mr. Blake, and if you think you can make it happen then you can take a flying leap into hell."
Noah stared back at her, shocked.
"Your husband dictated those things for you?" he asked her, feeling his guts ice over, because he knew he hadn't.
She paused. He watched her expression soften, sadden. Her gray eyes flashed with arousal, and suddenly, her slender body seemed softer, sexier with whatever memories poured through her.
"No," she finally admitted. "I dictated it, because it was what I thought he wanted. He liked his painted-up little wife. The nail polish and the pretty clothes and the helplessness." She shook her head as he felt his chest clench at her sorrow. "He used to call me his little Southern Bella. He died before he ever learned what a complete imposter I was. Before he ever knew that I was just as knowledgeable about cars as any of his mechanics were. I loved Nathan. He was my heart and I gave him what he needed while I had him with me." She flicked him a searing glance then. "But you're not Nathan. And I don't give a damn if you have what you need or not."
Did she think he had given a damn about the frigging nail polish? Anger tore through him, not rage, not fury, but pure unbridled offense and male pride. Damn her, what pleased her had pleased him, but had she thought he had needed her to be something she wasn't?
He tensed at the sexual, dominant surge of heat that filled his body. Before he could stop himself he was stalking toward her, jerking her to him.
"And did you get what you needed from him?" he rasped. "You've eaten me alive every time we've touched, Sabella. Did he f**k you like you needed or did you play the pretty little doll for him then too?"
"He gave me everything I needed," she snarled back.
But he saw it. A little lie, just a little one. And he remembered the nights that she had tossed restlessly in their bed beside him. How he had felt, sometimes, that his Sabella needed something harder, something darker, than he had given her, but then thinking that it was only his own fantasies and needs that drove him to sense that.
It wasn't. He saw it in her eyes. He recalled the torrential lust of last week when she had marked his shoulders with her sharp little nails, then his memories of their life together before hell, and he knew. He knew Sabella had longed for a hell of a lot more than he had allowed himself to give her. Pure lust.
A tight, hard smile twisted his lips as her gaze finally flickered in awareness of the animal she had just let loose inside him.
"You're a liar," he breathed, knowledge searing him, dominance rising inside him. "Tell me, Sabella. Did you ache? Did you dream of being taken hard and rough? Of getting wild and dirty with your husband? Were you too afraid to be the little wildcat you wanted to be?"
There was the truth. The flush leached from her face, her eyes darkened. He could see the lust filling her, pure, unbridled, but tinged with an emotion that tightened the heart in his chest.
Sabella wanted more than just sex. She wanted more than just the wild loving. She wanted everything he had ever dreamed of giving her. And he was going to give it to her right now.
She'd hidden things from him; well, there were damned sure things he had hidden from her as well. And the need to hear his sweet Southern Bella get nasty had been an all-consuming need.
"You can get wild with me, baby." He jerked her harder against him, let her feel the erection pounding beneath his jeans. "Come on, I dare you. I'm a stranger, Sabella. Nothing to you. Nothing to that paragon of a husband you knew. Get wild with me. And I'll show you how I can get wild right back."
* * *
CHAPTER TEN
Get wild with him? Pour everything into him that she had fantasized about pouring into Nathan? She stared up at Noah, her body so sensitive, so highly excited, she couldn't deny her need.
She could barely breathe for it. It was tearing through her veins, the temptation burning through her sex.
"You want to be taken hard and wild, Sabella." His voice deepened, darkened, as his hands speared into her hair, fingers clenching, pulling at it.
Sabella felt the shocking sensations unravel inside her. Her lashes fluttered, her knees weakened.
"You want to pull my hair, baby? Come on, Sabella, I dare you. You don't have to give me anything he had. Give me what he didn't have."
She jerked against him as she felt his lips on hers, whispering over them. Her eyes opened, and wild dark blue eyes held her trapped.
"I carried your scratches last week like other men carry a medal," he growled, then nipped her lips. "I jacked off remembering how hot you were in my arms. And then I imagined your mouth. Watching your eyes. Seeing how hungry you could get."