“That’s…not ominous at all,” I said with a frown.
He chuckled. “What did you say to her?”
The slight shift took me off-guard. “What?”
“Before she sent you to fetch me.”
“What did she say?”
He set his glass aside. “Now, now, you’ve had your round of questions. I think it only fair you answer mine.”
“It’s not exactly some shameful secret,” I said with a shrug. “It amounted to the fact that she can’t keep doing this double life thing. She’s got to choose, and if she wants to keep running her empire, she will have to dial back on it in the short term. Otherwise, she’s going to destroy what strength her body is going to have left.”
“Something I’m sure she enjoyed thoroughly,” he said with a snort.
“No, I’m pretty sure she was ready to string me up from the nearest high point.”
“Which didn’t bother you in the slightest.”
“No. She can get mad all she wants, take offense all she wants, insult me, fire me, whatever, but I was going to tell her the truth.”
“And you told her…almost exactly that, didn’t you?”
I watched as he stood up, a shadow following over his face as he approached me slowly. Resisting the urge to step back, I tilted my head up to meet his eyes. “Not word for word, but yes.”
“You…gave my mother an earful?” he asked softly, almost dangerously.
“I told her the truth. And told her she was going to hear it even if she didn’t like me for it,” I told him, wondering just what his problem was. It wasn’t as if I’d been rude or crude to her. Which, in all fairness, would have been incredibly hypocritical on his part.
“You are something else,” he said, stepping around the chair.
“Look,” I began, but it was all I managed to get out before I found his hand on the back of my head, pulling me close.
A grunt of surprise left me as his mouth pressed against mine, my hand coming up to slap against his chest at the sudden lunge. Despite knowing better, I immediately relaxed, my fingers curling against the fabric over his chest and parting my lips. I could taste what I could now tell was bourbon on his lips, and then, even more, when he slipped his tongue across my bottom lip.
“What I would have given to have been there when you gave Sophia Perkins the business,” he chuckled, low and throaty. The sound made it even harder for the voice of reason inside me to grow fainter.
“Can you explain why your horny face happens to look like an angry face?” I grumbled.
“Intense emotions are intense emotions,” he said, running his hand down my neck to wrap his fingers around the base. My breath shuddered as I felt his fingers dig into the muscle and pull me in for another kiss.
It wasn’t helped when I felt him press closer to me, and I could feel the way he was straining against the crotch of his slacks. Memories of his suggestion at the big party fluttered into my mind, and I felt my stomach tighten at the thought.
“Shane,” I grunted, trying desperately to get some sense of self-control.
“You need only say the one necessary word,” he said, and I shivered as he slid his hand down to cup my ass, squeezing it.
The problem was, I was starting not to care quite as much, now I could feel the hardness of his…everything. Perhaps when I was a little more clear-headed, I’d wonder how it was I could throw all professionalism straight out the window, and for a man that half the time I swore I couldn’t stand.
“Here?” I whispered.
“Here,” he said with such confidence I suddenly found it difficult to come up with a proper response.
This was a bad idea.
“Your mother,” I hissed, barely managing to break the kiss to tell him, “is in this house.”
“Yes, and please don’t ruin the mood by bringing up that fact.”