Holding on Tighter

  into its clip, grinding his teeth together as if his promise of temporary non-violence had used up a serious amount of restraint.

  “It’s none of my business, but was that your wife? If so, you should know that Karis is in love with the idea of love and may make a pass at you.”

  Cutter sent him a WTF glance. “No. Brea is my best friend. We’ve never . . . It’s not like that.”

  Heath wondered if Cutter truly meant that or if he was deluding himself. “Is she ill?”

  He hesitated, sighed. “A couple of months back, I got in a hostage standoff. I managed to get the captive released but I had no way out myself. I was outmanned and outgunned. The situation required the help of a world-class sniper. Brea and I know one, a complete asshole of the first order. He likes to be called One-Mile as a nod to his longest kill shot. She asked him to get me out of the bind. He agreed to do it . . . for a price.”

  Shock jolted Heath. “The bastard coerced her into sleeping with him in order to save you?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed long and heavy. “And now she thinks she’s pregnant. I work with the asshole every single day. I can’t wait to kill him.”

  “That option puts you in jail, mind you. Perhaps you could make him own up to his responsibility?”

  “Oh, he’d marry Brea tomorrow. But the fucker isn’t good enough for her. Lowlife scum-sucking asswipe. He’d make her absolutely miserable. I’ll take care of her. Pierce Walker won’t ever touch her again.” Cutter seemed to shake himself from his anger. “But that’s another problem for later. Sorry. Let’s get back on track so I can figure out how best to keep Karis protected.”

  “Very good.” Heath led the other man down the hall, in search of Jolie’s sister.

  Instead, he found Arthur standing in the girl’s cubicle looking slightly flustered. “Have you seen Karis?”

  As far as he knew, the sisters had planned to run through the investor pitch together. “No. I escorted her and her sister to work this morning. Maybe they’ve gone to her office.”

  With long strides, he made his way to the reception area at the front, Arthur and Cutter following. Jolie’s office sat empty, her computer dark.

  If the sisters weren’t in her office, where the hell had they gone? Heath frowned, his senses sharpening.

  Arthur scratched his head. “That’s weird. I saw Karis thirty minutes ago. I heard Jolie in her office, on the phone. I wonder where they went.”

  And whether they’d gone voluntarily. Last night, Jolie had promised not to leave him. She might be many things—driven, stubborn, headstrong—but she was a woman of her word.

  Fear nicked Heath’s composure.

  Damn it, he hadn’t yet finished installing the last bit of the security system, so he didn’t know the door through which she might have gone, in which direction to begin the search.

  Taking a breath and fighting for calm, he peeked through the suite’s windows and into the lot. Karis’s little car still squatted next to her sister’s. If they’d gone, who had driven them away? Jolie hadn’t mentioned an appointment off-site. He would have insisted on going.

  Yanking his phone from his pocket, he launched the app he’d secretly installed to trace her mobile, only to realize moments later it was somewhere in the building. He sent a text. The device dinged not two feet from him.

  She was not where she should be and had no way to contact him if someone tried to hurt her.

  Fear began to chill into panic.

  Visions of her body limp and lifeless on a morgue table, waiting for identification, ran through his head. Heath had done that once already. He’d be damned if he ever endured that again.

  “We’ve got to find them,” he barked at the men.

  “Let’s fan out,” Cutter suggested.

  “Check the break room on the east side of the office and bathrooms through the door to the south. I’ll hit the file room at the west.” He turned to Wisteria, who meandered to her desk just then. “Did Jolie and Karis leave?”

  The blonde shrugged. “I don’t know. Jolie asked me to clean up the break room and organize the supply cabinet. I’ve been back there for the last hour.”

  Heath held in a curse and forced himself to breathe. But his heart revved. Fear burned. “Keep looking, everyone.”

  As Cutter darted away, Heath tore down the hall toward the back of the suite, a vision of life without Jolie assaulting his brain. He imagined her as prey of a killer, imagined standing over her remains sealed forever in a casket while people sang, the scent of too many flowers choking him as he wondered when everything had gone so fucking wrong. How he would cope without her?

  Bloody hell. He was falling for her. And now he might lose her.

  “Jolie . . .” he called. “Jolie!”

  A moment later, the door to the file room opened and she poked her head out. “What?”

  His relief in seeing her was a bleeding, palpable thing. His breath rushed out with a shudder. He tried to grab hold of himself, waited for calm to return.

  Nothing. He still felt shaky and worried and overwrought.

  “Is Karis with you?” Arthur asked behind him, sounding somewhere between concerned and confused.

  The door opened wider, and her younger sister stepped out. “Yeah, I’m just helping Jolie with her pitch for tonight.”

  “In here?” Heath demanded.

  “You were in the conference room with that hot—” Karis stopped herself. “That other guy.”

  “And my office phone kept ringing since Wisteria was busy in the break room and couldn’t answer.” Jolie frowned. “So we came in here and locked the door. Is that a problem?”

  “It is when you don’t tell me and don’t take your phone with you.”

  “We didn’t go far,” she argued.

  “Um . . .” The accountant looked ruffled as he focused on Karis. “The invoices for the . . . ah, the photographer who took the website pictures? I’d like to go over them today.” He directed his attention to Jolie. “And I have a question for you, boss. Can you spare a minute?”

  “No, she can’t.” Heath couldn’t wait another second to get to Jolie. He knew all too well that life could be short and he intended to seize this opportunity now. “She’s busy.” He marched toward her, pausing to peer at Karis. “You’re all right?”

  She looked bewildered. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Excellent. Will you excuse us?”

  Karis glanced between him and Jolie. Understanding lit her eyes. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Go easy on my sister. She’s really nervous about tonight and—”

  Heath stepped into the little room and shut the door in her face. Then he locked it.

  “What are you doing?” Jolie’s voice shook.

  She must feel the tension pouring off him, couldn’t possibly miss his restraint hanging by a thread.

  He dragged in a breath, then another. Every urge running through his head was foolish and mad and irresponsible.

  Heath didn’t care anymore.

  He took two long steps toward her and pulled her stiff body against him. “What I should have done last night.”

  His lips crashed over hers. He was so far past worrying whether this was right or wrong, whether he should break his own rule or not. He only knew that holding Jolie felt perfect, and in that moment he needed her alive and warm and welcoming in his arms.

  She met him halfway, opening to him instantly. He ate at her mouth as if he was both starved and half-crazed. She was there with him—every breath, every touch, every heartbeat. She pumped his veins full of need, fired his blood with warmth.

  The last eighteen hours he hadn’t been inside her had felt like the worst sort of hell.

  As Heath reached for her skirt and lifted the hem over her hips, he brushed his lips across the swells of her breasts. “Give me your knickers.”

  “What?” Her voice shook, her expression puzzled. “No. Heath—”

  “I thought you had disappeared. I thought . . .�
�� He clenched his jaw tight and swallowed the words. “I thought the worst. I don’t want to think now. Take off your whatever you’re wearing under that skirt.”

  Somewhere in the back of his head, Heath suspected she would balk because his kneejerk response was out of line. But he couldn’t stop it. To lose Jolie to violence—hell, to lose her at all—would do something to him. Heath didn’t want to consider what that meant.

  He should slow down, scale back, but the blinding, primal urge to have her against him, around him, holding on to him, and crying out his name wouldn’t be banished.

  “I’m here,” she assured, not moving to do his bidding. “I’m fine. But I can’t have sex with you now, in my place of business.” She frowned. “You can’t have sex with me again, either, remember?”

  He no longer cared about his no-repeat rule because he’d found a good reason to break it.

  He bent to her ear, softly commanding, “I want your knickers, Jolie. Give them to me.”

  “We’re supposed to be working,” she argued but now sounded breathy. “My sister and I—”

  “Hand them over or I’ll take them. Unless you’re saying no. Say that, and I’ll stop.”

  She swallowed, blinked, stared as if trying to figure him out. Maybe it was the barely leashed need pinging off his body. Maybe it was her own hunger.

  He didn’t care when she bit her lip, then bent and removed her panties. Then she gave the silky scrap to him.

  His fingers closed around the warm softness that had just graced her skin. “Thank you.”

  He held the garment to his nose. Her breath caught as he inhaled her scent. Hmm . . .

  Her nipples beaded under her white blouse. He wanted that—and her standard bra beneath—gone.

  Heath shoved her lacy knickers in his pocket, then he brushed his knuckles over the curve of her breasts before settling his fingers at the top button of the filmy shirt. “Tell me you want this.”

  She hesitated for a moment before she gave in. “I want it.”

  That should make him happy, satisfy the requirement for consent. Instead, the words only made him ache more. “Tell me you want me.”

  By god, if he was going to break his one rule for her, he was all but admitting—to her and himself—that she meant more than a fuck. That she was important.

  Her breathing turned choppy. Jolie stared, searching his face. “Will you resent me later?”

  She worried that he’d blame her for giving in and distance himself afterward. She feared he’d hurt her, just as Karis had said. “I think I’m way past that.”

  A wariness he wanted gone gleamed from her eyes. “I’d be taking a chance.”

  “You won’t regret it. I need to feel you.” That was bloody hard for him to admit.

  Jolie hesitated, clearly grappling. “I still don’t want anything lasting. I’m not looking for love.”

  She might believe that, but she was fooling herself. Still, Heath didn’t argue because he had to have her. “I understand. I want you here, now, mine in this moment. Can you give me that?”

  “Yes.”

  Heath didn’t think for a single instant that would be the end of the passion between them, not when it gripped him in the sort of chokehold he’d never experienced. He didn’t think he affected her any less. His head reeled with the possibilities and implications but the last thing he wanted to do now was pry the attraction apart and examine it.

  “Is that a yes? You want me?” he demanded.

  Her lips parted softly. “I don’t know how not to want you.”

  That was all he needed to hear.

  He began tearing into her blouse, unfastening one button after the other with ruthless efficiency, then pushing the pearly silk from her shoulders. Jolie shrugged it off the rest of the way, letting it skim down her arms, then onto the floor.

  Her bra was built for efficiency, not seduction. Heath didn’t care what her lingerie looked like. She was still unbearably sexy to him. And that white cotton was in his way. “Bra off.”

  “I don’t like it when you give me orders.”

  Her breathless anticipation made her a liar. She loved it when he gave orders. It was only afterward, when they weren’t in a haze of passion, that the strong female in her had second thoughts. Jolie would soon learn he had no desire to strip her power, just her body.

  “I promise to make it worth your while, love.”

  Jolie flushed softly. Her lips parted. After a long moment, she reached behind her back and unhooked the garment. When she relaxed her shoulders, it fell away. Heath didn’t bother to watch the garment hit the floor. He was too busy staring, seeing her body soften, her nipples harden, her gaze cling to him as if he alone held the answers to her burning questions.

  Her pale skin fascinated him. Over the years he’d had sex with women of nearly every race, color, and creed. But Jolie wasn’t like any of them. The night they’d shared passion, he’d taken her repeatedly in the dark, not really savoring the pristine, milky flesh.

  Now wasn’t the time, he knew. The office wasn’t the place. But if he was going to break his no-repeat rule once, he could do it again and again, until he satisfied his desire to consume every part of her.

  Heath turned her toward the wall and lifted her businesslike skirt as his hungry gaze ate up her alabaster shoulders, the smooth expanse of her back that led to the gentle sway of her hips. He could grip them, tell her to spread her legs and brace her hands against the wall and scream at will. He’d done it hundreds of times with hundreds of faceless women.

  But he couldn’t make himself speak those practiced words to Jolie. He’d fucked so many women standing up and from behind precisely because it was impersonal. He never had to look into a woman’s eyes and care what she was thinking during sex, never risk knowing her beyond a shared orgasm.

  Taking Jolie like that would never satisfy him.

  “Talk to me,” he skimmed his lips up her neck and murmured in her ear. “Tell me what you like, what you want.”

  He ached to satisfy her in the way she wanted to be pleasured.

  “Touch my nipples. Kiss me. Make this burning go away.”

  A little smile tugged at his lips. The burning was never going to go away, he feared. But he didn’t mention that now. He merely gripped her hips and turned her to face him again. “In that order?”

  “Yeah,” she challenged. “Hurry.”

  Of course she’d have an assertive side when it came to sex. That was Jolie.

  Caressing his way down her chest, he cupped the firm weight of one of her breasts in his palm, thumbing the nipple. Then he lowered his head and swallowed the sweet sound of her gasp before he delved deeper and possessed her lips utterly.

  Sweet honey surrender. He savored her texture as she opened to him, tasted her tongue. The pleasure was like a riptide, pulling him under until he didn’t care that he was drowning.

  Jolie threw her arms around his neck and jumped into the kiss with a passion that had his body tightening, his cock hardening, his head reeling.

  He pinched her nipples, worked them, dragged his knuckles over them, then started the cycle again. They stiffened. She whimpered, digging her nails into him, sharp even through his T-shirt. He reveled in the fact that he could seemingly get under this amazing woman’s skin and make her stop thinking long enough to feel.

  “Heath.” She pulled away with a gasp, reaching for his all-too-eager shaft.

  Once she touched him, he’d be inside her in less than three seconds. He wasn’t ready for that yet. Jolie didn’t know it, but neither was she.

  Swallowing a curse, he lifted her onto the nearest flat surface—a forgotten desk—and shoved her skirt around her hips. Jolie didn’t play coy; she knew what he liked. She laid back and spread her sleek thighs.

  He found himself staring at her dark curls and feminine pink