Page 99 of Sexting His Assistant

“You’re arrogant.”

“Yes.”

“You’re selfish and impossible and you have no concept of boundaries.”

“I’m learning.”

I let out a sound that is almost a laugh and almost a sob.

His eyes move over my face, and the anger between us changes shape so suddenly I feel dizzy. It does not disappear. It becomes heat. It becomes the kind of silence that has weight and breath and teeth.

He’s still too close.

His cheek is still marked from my hand.

And somehow that makes him look more human than I have ever seen him.

“You should leave,” I say.

“Yes.” He doesn’t move. His eyes drop to my mouth.

I don’t think.

If I think, I will remember Alina. The baby. Misha. The resignation pieces in his hand. The garage. The boardroom. Every reason this is doomed before it has even properly started.

So I don’t think.

I reach up, grab his face in both hands, and kiss him.

For half a second, he goes completely still.

Then Luka Kazan breaks.

His good arm comes around my waist, hard and immediate, dragging me against him with a sound low in his chest that feels torn out rather than chosen. His mouth opens under mine, and the first real kiss between us is nothing like the almost.

12

LUKA

I kiss her until neither of us can pretend this is still a fight.

Her hands are in my hair, her mouth open under mine, her body pressed against me like she has been holding herself back for weeks. I have thought about this too many times to be patient now. Every time she walked past my office, every time she argued with me, every time I watched her arrange dates I never wanted to go on, this was underneath it.

I want her.

I have wanted her for longer than I can excuse.

My good arm slides under her ass, and I lift her.

She gasps into my mouth. “Luka, your shoulder.”

I kiss her harder.

The wound stings, deep enough that I feel it through my chest and down my arm, but I don’t put her down. She wraps her legs around my waist, careful at first, then tighter when I keep kissing her. Her hands move to my jaw, holding me in place like she is afraid I will change my mind.

I carry her into the bedroom and lower her onto the mattress. Her apartment is small and warm, and the bedroom smells like clean sheets and her perfume. The lamp beside the bed throws soft light over her face, her swollen mouth, her messy hair, the oversized sweater slipping off one shoulder.

She looks up at me, breathing hard. “Are you okay?”