My heart beats triple time as he speaks. And when he looks deep into my eyes, I can barely catch my breath. He nods, points to the page, and implores me with his eyes to read the words Jane Eyre said to Mr. Rochester in the moments before he proposed to her.
“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!”
I reach up and take out the elastic that’s holding my hair up in a bun. “I want you.” How can I not when the man is hot and quoting literature?
Bryan’s eyes darken as my hair tumbles down my shoulders. He gazes at me like I’m the only woman in the world. “And I want you. I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw one of your videos.”
His words set my heart racing, and I decide not to think about anything but this moment right here.
Bryan unbuttons my cardigan slowly, and my breathing grows heavy as he pops open one button at a time. By the time he slips my cardigan off my shoulders, I’m so ready I have to fight the urge to rip his clothes off.
Bryan, on the other hand, seems to want to take his time.
“Your skin is so soft,” he whispers as he trails soft, slow, kisses along my neck and down my collar-bone.
I see a flash of silver over his shoulder and spot Byron the robot standing there, still and silent. With no books to put away, he’s powered down, but I still feel like I’m being watched by the machine that just made my job obsolete.
Forget about the robot, Jane. You have a hot billionaire who wants to have sex with you, and you get to see him shirtless—in real life!
I’m dying to know if all those muscles are real or airbrushed, the way models’ muscles are.
I pull his suit jacket off his broad shoulders. I’m about to toss it on the floor when he takes it from me and drapes it neatly over the back of the leather chair.
I raise an eyebrow.
Bryan’s cheeks flush. “If it gets wrinkled, my dry cleaner will have my head.”
“Off with his head,” I say automatically, then start blushing, too.
“Shakespeare foreplay?” Bryan teases.
“Or Alice in Wonderland,” I tell him. “Not that it makes it any better.”
“Books always make everything better,” he says earnestly, and I nearly swoon.
Could Bryan Brooks be any more perfect? Well, maybe if he hadn’t programmed a robot to replace me—but other than that, he seems pretty damn incomparable.
“Can I kiss you?” he whispers.
My lips tingle, and I nod.
Ever so slowly, he leans down and covers my lips with his. He tastes like coffee, and I moan. Definitely perfect.
I wrap my hands around his neck and let myself get lost in the kiss. By the time we pull apart, we’re both out of breath, and I make quick work of his shirt. I hand it to him so he can drape it over the chair with his suit jacket, and let my gaze rove over him.
His chest looks exactly the way it does on QuickStar. “I can’t believe it’s real.”
Bryan frowns. “Excuse me?”
“I thought it was Photoshopped.” I trace his pecs softly with my fingertips and then run them down over his hard six-pack.
“You follow my QuickStar?” He grins, like I just gave him the best news in the world.
“I may have seen it once or twice,” I tease.
His face falls.
“Yes, I follow you,” I admit, then quote, “One day, I will find the right words, and they will all be simple.”