But she flinched instead, stumbling back, head down, as she refused to look at me. “I know that, asshole.”

A chuckle bubbled up, but then ice raced through me. “Wait…What? You’re agreeing with me?”

There was no way she could be serious, but by the way the beast rattled inside me, I knew she was.

The one person to tempt me in years, to draw me in like no other and make me beg for mercy, my enigma, thought she wasn’t pretty? She was beyond pretty. Gorgeous. A broken beauty whose water-filled eyes tore at my chest.

“Of course I am. I’m not stupid,” she said, her teeth clenching as her bottom lip quivered. “I know I’m plain, boring and a workaholic…useless.”

Her hand flew up, covering her mouth, but the damage was done. Literally. Darkness poured out of her, despair and loneliness radiated. The beast clawed to be closed, to absorb it all.

I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t. So I stared as she rocked, one arm across her chest like she was holding herself together.

“Lila?”

I started to reach out, but stopped myself, balling my fingers into a fist. It was the space I needed.

She sniffed and attempted to smile, but it was a poor attempt. Even more so if she was actually trying to divert attention away from what she just revealed.

“Sorry, I’m a depressed drunk.” Just then, the elevator chimed for her floor, the doors sliding open. “Have a good weekend.”

My mouth popped open to respond, but I had no words and the doors closed. All alone and suddenly feeling even worse, the guilt eating at me. Something hurt her, and I had a feeling there was so much more than she was letting on. There was so much pain, so much anguish pouring from her.

I wanted to give her peace, but it wasn’t my place. In fact, I had no place. Not in the world and certainly not in her life.

CHAPTER 8

Delilah’s impromptu confession did nothing to sway my curiosity. In fact, it flamed the fire of her draw.

I just wanted to make it through the day, just one day, without thinking about her, but she was always fucking there, in my periphery. The smell of her perfume was a constant torture. If we weren’t office mates, working together and she was just some girl at the bar, I could fuck her, get her out of my system, and be done.

Instead, I was left ready to explode like a ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off at any moment. Anger and frustration mounted, and the sight of her made me furious.

I resented her, absolutely despised her for making me want her in the first place.

I didn’t want the need that churned inside me. I didn’t want the crawling hunger to fuck her like she was the last fucking woman on the planet. I didn’t want to crave her with her pretty vacant eyes and her plump, perfect all.

I didn’t want her.

Liar!

Shut up!

Arguing about it with myself wasn’t helping either, because the beast vibrated in his cage as wave after wave of agonizing desire rolled through him, leaking into me. I couldn’t get a grip, slowly losing my mind to the insanity within. All because I hungered for the taste of one woman.

It was all made infinitely worse because I woke up late and didn’t have time to get off before heading to work. Meaning it was a simple equation—me turned on plus Delilah in my vicinity equaled a fucking recipe for a catastrophic explosion if I didn’t watch myself.

Turned out it would have been better if I’d been ten minutes late.

Better for my sanity, which was slipping. Bad enough I had Delilah on my mind, but of course she was wearing the skirt that drove me wild. It was a black pencil skirt with a flirty hem that hugged her body perfectly.

It was not the day for a distraction, but all I could think about was catching her, pulling that fucking skirt up and plowing into her. My cock had been between semi and full hardness all day. I could barely concentrate on the case file in front of me, having stared at the same piece of paper for almost an hour. So unfocused that I told Jennifer we’d have an almost unattainable task done in two days.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ, Nathan!” Delilah snapped. “I would like to leave sometime this century.”

We’d been at each other’s throats all week, annoyances grating and compressing against the four walls that surrounded us. The building was long empty, even from the cleaning crew.

I narrowed my eyes on her. It wasn’t all my fault we were there so late. I wanted to go home as well.

“Well, I do believe this is your fucking fault for telling Jack we could have all of these contracts done by Friday morning!”

“Yes, well, it wasn’t a fucking problem until you told Jennifer we would have her contracts for the Sampson takeover ready by Thursday!” she snapped back.

Jennifer was the most annoying of my admirers, and the most aggressive. I didn’t know if it was her tits fucking staring at me or my cock twitching with each annoyed sigh that passed Delilah’s lips, but something distracted me from realizing just what I agreed to.

“If you had informed me of your agreement with Jack, we wouldn’t still be here,” I hissed, my lip twitching up toward a snarl.

She slammed her fingers on the keyboard in front of her. “If you read your fucking email, you would have known.”

Three “fucks” from her beautiful mouth and I was no longer half-cocked.

“You’re saying fuck a lot tonight, Delilah. Something on your mind?”

She turned to me, that fucking annoyed glare that only set the beast off more.

Tick.

Spank her. Bite her. Shove my cock down her throat. Fuck her.

Tick.

YES! Finally we can have her!

“Get your mind out of the fu—just get moving so we can leave, okay?”

I couldn’t stop my mouth from drawing up. First one side, then the other, my tongue slipping out to wet my lips. I watched her cheeks turn pink as she attempted to avoid me.

Each ticking second that passed, I felt the beast’s arousal roll through me. Hairs stood up on my arms, a ripple flowed down my spine, my hips shifting.

Sanity was gone. Control obliterated. All that remained was want. All movement and thought taken over by desire and a need that was on a cellular level.

“With all the times you’ve said ‘fuck’ tonight, I think I know what you really want. What you need, Lila.”

Me.

She shifted in her chair, her spine straightening, but the way her thighs rubbed together didn’t go unnoticed. “What is it that you think I need?”