Off Limits

Fuck.

‘Believe it or not, I haven’t given any thought to your bedroom prowess,’ I lie, shifting my attention back to the room of people. London’s elite swirl around us, and I am wanting to swirl away with them.

‘Liar,’ he says, so softly I think I’ve misheard.

Because we can’t go there! He knows that—I know that. Every bone in my body wants him, but my brain is still in charge. I don’t want to screw up my career, but it’s more than that. I love Jack. Not in that way. I mean I love working with him. Even when he’s at his assholiest, he’s become one of the biggest constants in my life. How stupid would it be to rock the boat?

I imagine, briefly, that we indulge in an affair and it ends—because Jack doesn’t do permanent—and then I imagine not seeing him again.

It makes me ill.

I don’t want to think about it.

I don’t want to risk it.

‘The speech was good.’ I bring the conversation back onto far safer ground, trying to fold my desperate realisations away neatly into a box I won’t open again.

‘Tell me something, Gemma,’ he says, and the tone of his voice is still dangerous to me.

He hasn’t got my silent memo, obviously, because his words prick the blood in my veins until it gushes and gurgles through me—he’s flirting with me.

I use my most businesslike tone. ‘Oh, I don’t know if you really want me to do that. You might not like what I say...’

His eyes lance mine. It’s like being sliced through.

‘What’s the deal with you and that guy from New York?’

Who’s he talking about? Oh. Right. ‘You mean Wolf?’

His lips curl derisively—that’s one of my favourite of his expressions. I don’t know if he realises how devilishly sexy he looks.

‘Who calls their kid after an animal? Especially when he’s the least wolf-like person you can imagine.’

‘I don’t suppose they knew that when he was born,’ I say, but a smile is pushing at my lips. He’s right. Wolf is handsome, but in a very neat and tidy kind of way.

‘Is he a wolf in the bedroom?’

The question catches me completely off guard. It’s wholly new territory for us. Invasive in a way I don’t know if I like but am worried that I might.

Still, challenging Jack is what I do. That’s who we are.

I tilt my head to one side, assessing him for a moment, before volleying back, ‘How was the blonde?’

‘She was dull,’ he says with a shrug and no hesitation, apparently having no qualms discussing his sex-life with me.

‘Where is she?’

‘At her house. Waiting.’

‘For you?’

He shrugs. ‘I said I might stop by. It seemed like the only way to get rid of her.’

Wait. He hasn’t slept with her? No, not slept with. Fucked. The thought is oddly elating, though I can’t help but feel sympathy for the woman he flirted with and then sent packing.

‘You really are a bastard,’ I mutter. ‘Are you going to go to her?’

His eyes are probing mine now, and I feel like every single one of my fantasies, my dirtiest, hottest dreams, are playing out between us like a kinky Pensieve for his pleasure.

Yes, I’m a Harry Potter diehard. Hermione was one of my first role models.

‘Maybe.’

My stomach turns. I am used to this feeling with Jack. In the first six months we worked together I wasn’t so adept at dealing with his vivid love-life. I blushed whenever I found evidence of his nocturnal activities, and I couldn’t always meet his eye. But now? Well, now I’ve had two years to practise acceptance.

I smile blandly. ‘Well...’ I shrug as though my heart’s not racing and my nipples aren’t throbbing. ‘Have a good night.’

‘Wait.’ His words are commanding, and so too is the hand he clamps around my wrist.

I jerk my face towards his, the breath exploding out of me. We don’t touch. No more than an accidental brush of fingers from time to time. That’s impossible to avoid when you’re together as often as we are.

Definitely not like this.

His thumb pads across my inner wrist, and when I don’t say anything he pulls me, hard and fast, so that my body rams into his. We are surrounded and yet we are alone. There is a void that engulfs us. Like a sensual electric fence.

This is all new and all wrong. And so right.

His body is tight. Hard. Hot. Just as it is in all my fantasies. It takes every single ounce of my willpower to close my mouth and let my breath return to normal. To look at him as though he’s lost his mind, not made me lose mine.

‘Yes, sir?’

His eyes flare. I meant it to put him back on his guard, to remind him of the boundaries of our relationship, but I might as well have struck a match over gasoline. He doesn’t let me go.

‘Dance with me.’

The air around us is charged with expectation and I just know he’s asking for more than a dance. Does he expect me to say no? I don’t like living up to expectations, and I’m not going to give him a reason to think I’m afraid of what’s going on between us.

‘Fine.’ My smile is tight. It stretches over my face like sunburn.

He expels a breath, long and slow, and places a hand in the small of my back. No...just at the very top of my arse. His fingers are splayed wide and they press into me firmly, so that I’m propelled towards him. His other hand links with my fingers, wrapping through them.

I focus on the band, my eyes taking in the details of their appearance while I concentrate on looking completely calm. I’m not, though. I’m weak when I want to be strong, and I need something that I shouldn’t.

‘This dress is sensational,’ he says, immediately shattering my attempts to find calm.

‘Is that your informed fashion opinion?’

Too tart. I soften the snap with a smile. It’s a mistake. His eyes are mocking, his own smile sardonic.

I look away again immediately.

‘It’s my informed opinion as a red-blooded male.’

‘What do you like about it?’

Warning lights are flashing in my mind, clamouring for attention. They are bright and angry. What am I doing?

‘Let me see,’ he murmurs. ‘The colour. The way it’s literally glued to your skin.’

He drops his head closer and heat spirals inside me; my blood is a vapour of steam in my veins.

This isn’t right. It’s not us. He sleeps with other women and, sure, he flirts the heck out of me, but that’s harmless.

This doesn’t feel harmless.

The music slows and I slow with it, putting some space between us with what I tell myself is relief.

‘Get me up to speed on the New York situation,’ he says.

‘I intend to.’

I’m snappy because I’m uncertain. I’m completely wrong-footed by his nearness, his touch, and my own desire for him is swamping me. I need a minute to regroup, but his fingers are giving me no time. They’re throbbing across my spine, my arse, and I am heating up by the second.

‘Tonight. Now.’

I angle my head towards Wolf unconsciously. He’s still locked in conversation. I have no intention of going home with him, and yet I resent Jack’s implication that I don’t have a life of my own.

‘It’s not urgent.’ My words are stiff. ‘It’ll keep till tomorrow.’ And I force myself to pull completely free of Jack’s grip.

It’s the equivalent of grabbing a lifeline from the side of a sinking boat. It’s slippery, and I’m pretty sure I’m not strong enough to hold on to it for long enough to save myself. Drowning is inevitable.

‘I want to hear about it tonight.’

It’s a challenge. A gauntlet. He gives me a lot of latitude in my job because he knows how much I do. And I do it well. But at the end of the day he’s my boss, and I don’t know if anything is to be served by refusing him this request.

‘Fine,’ I say with a shrug of my shoulders. But I’m not going to let him think he’s won. ‘I just need...twenty minutes.’

I disconnect myself from him and try not to register how my body screams in frustration.

I saunter off towards Wolf before I can see if Jack’s reacting in the same way.

Wolf is deep in conversation when I approach. ‘May I have a moment?’ I look with a hint of apology towards the men he’s with.

‘Sure.’ He grins at me. A nice grin. He really is good to look at. Not groundbreaking, earth-shattering, but nice.

He puts a hand on my elbow but I am leading him, walking quickly out of the ballroom, seeking privacy for no reason other than to give Jack a taste of his own damned medicine. That and to send a loud and clear message. He doesn’t control every part of me.

‘All good for later?’ Wolf asks.

I smile. ‘No, it’s not. I have to work tonight, actually. I’m going to brief Jack on the software situation.’

‘Tonight?’ He arches a brow, his voice rich with disbelief.

‘He micromanages everything,’ I explain. It’s true. ‘And he’s impatient as hell. I just want to make sure I have all the information.’

He nods, not quite hiding his disappointment. ‘Let’s recap.’

And that’s how I spend the nineteen minutes I have. Well, eighteen... I allow myself one minute to pull a bit of my hair loose from its bun and to pinch my cheeks, making them appear flushed with pleasure.

Jack is waiting for me in the limousine twenty-five minutes after I left him. I imitate breathlessness as I step inside, and enjoy the way his eyes sweep over me with undisguised speculation.

‘Ready?’

It’s not what I expected. I nod, but as I do so I feel like maybe I’m agreeing to something I don’t understand. Like there’s a hidden meaning I don’t yet know.

‘Yeah. Let’s go.’

Chapter Two

I’LL SAY THIS for Jack. He knows how to do this. Late-night entertaining is clearly his forte.

His office is dimly lit and he’s switched on some kind of acoustic guitar album that’s humming low in my abdomen. The vocalist has a husky rasp and it’s doing very strange things to my equilibrium. He mixes two martinis with a maraschino cherry in each.

I arch a brow as he hands me mine. ‘I hate cherries.’

‘Interesting,’ he murmurs, his eyes hooked to mine. ‘Why?’

I stare at it and swirl the glass, sipping the alcohol and wincing as the slightly medicinal flavour assaults my back palette. ‘They’re weird. Plasticky.’

‘Not the real ones.’

‘No.’

I swallow, wondering at the way my gut is churning and my pulse is racing. I need to bring it back to business. It’s the reason I’m here with him.

‘The server in Canada can pick up the slack, but it’s going to slow things down.’

‘By how much?’

‘Just a few seconds’ lag. It’s unavoidable, given the distance.’

‘A few seconds?’ He shakes his head. ‘There’s nowhere closer?’

‘Not that can handle this amount of data.’

He throws his drink back in one motion. ‘And Wolf thinks that’s acceptable?’

He says his name with obvious derision.

‘You think he’d go to the effort of flying out here to propose it if he did?’

‘Well, he’s banging you, right?’

I can’t hide the angry intake of breath. Sure, he’s always rude. And demanding. And I’ve learned not to give a shit. I don’t expect the same courtesy from Jack Grant that most people pepper into life. But this is too far even for him...even when we’ve been flirting all night.

‘His suggestion is professional,’ I return softly. A warning lurks in my words. Does he hear it?

Apparently not. Jack is like a cat with a mouse.

‘But you are fucking him?’

‘God, Jack,’ I snap, standing up.

His eyes follow the fluidity of my movement. They’re narrowed. Assessing. He’s reading me like a book. But I’m too angry to care. Too worked up, as well. He’s halfway to being drunk, and he’s obnoxious, and since he pulled me hard against his body I’m a bit mushy.

I hide my mushiness, though. I hide it behind a veil of anger. ‘That’s none of your damned business.’

His eyes flick to mine. There’s a lazy arrogance in his features but anger palpitates off him.

‘He works for me. You work for me. If you’re fucking him I want to know.’

‘What I do in my own time, and with whom, is up to me. Until the day it starts affecting my job performance you should just butt out.’ I jut my chin, my eyes sparking with his. ‘Got it?’

He looks calm, controlled, but I know there’s an undercurrent of emotion just beneath the handsome surface. Because I know Jack. Probably better than anyone else on earth.

‘You don’t strike me as coy,’ he says.

‘Because I’m not.’

I step backwards. The wall is behind me. I brush against it, feeling cornered and unbelievably confused and turned on by this strange turn of events.

‘So answer the question.’

‘Am I fucking Wolf?’ My question emerges as a husk in the night.

‘Yeah.’ He moves forward. An infinitesimal step. ‘You know everything there is to know about me, don’t you? So why keep your secrets?’

I open my mouth to say something snappy, but shut it again. He’s right. I know a lot about him. Not the ‘everything’ he claims, but a lot.

‘You could always lock your door if you want to be more private about your love-life.’

‘Sex-life,’ he interjects swiftly, on autopilot, and I know it’s because of Lucy that he’s so emphatic on this point.

I don’t know anything about his wife. I presume she was a nice enough person—although agreeing to marry Jack does make me question both her sanity and her judgement. But maybe he was different before she died. Maybe his bastard impulses weren’t so apparent?

‘So you’re going to live out the rest of your life like this? Moving from one woman to another, never getting to know a thing about them beyond their cup size and their sexual proclivities.’

His eyes drop to my breasts and I can tell he is assessing my cup size. Crap. My nipples strain hard against the flimsy fabric of my dress—it’s too tight for a bra, and sadly I don’t really need one.

His smile is self-satisfied and I want to slap it off his face. I fight the urge to cross my arms and cover my involuntary reaction.

‘I’m trying to get to know more about you right now,’ he says.

My pulse is hammering hard in my veins. His revolving-door bedroom flashes before me in an instant. The number of mornings I’ve arrived to find him asleep after a busy night of... Best I don’t imagine that right now.

‘Are you afraid I’ll judge you?’

I open my eyes to find him right in front of me, his head bent, his body just a hair’s breadth from me. A soft moan escapes me before I can catch it.

‘You? You think you’d have any right to judge me after parading half of England through here?’

‘Not half of England,’ he murmurs, a smile shifting over his face. ‘Half of London, maybe.’

‘How do you justify it?’ I ask, feeling a dangerous pull towards a line of questioning my brain is shouting at me to back away from. ‘You think Lucy would be happy that you’re fucking your way through a smorgasbord of women just because you won’t have an actual relationship? Is there a sliding scale of monogamy that the dead expect?’

A muscle jerks in his cheek. I recognise that I’m stirring him up and still I don’t stop. I’m angry, too! He doesn’t have a monopoly on thwarted desire and pent-up frustration.

It feels good to goad him! So good!

‘You think what you do is fair to these women?’

His smile spreads slowly, but it is cold, angry. ‘I don’t hear any complaints.’

Boom! It’s the proverbial match to the fuel of my anger. I explode.

‘You boot them out before you even know their names half the time! Where, exactly, would they lodge their complaint? My God, Jack. Of all the chauvinistic, selfish, careless—’

He lifts a finger to my lips, silencing me with the touch. His eyes on mine are intent. Heat builds inside my blood, at fever pitch now.

‘You know...’ His fingers dip into my drink, fishing out the bright red orb at its base. ‘You have a tendency to be judgemental.’

My sharp intake of breath is dangerous, given his finger’s closeness to my mouth. He runs it across my lower lip and I don’t pull away. He holds up the cherry with his other hand. My eyes slip to it of their own accord.

‘Haven’t you ever discovered that you like something you thought you hated? Haven’t you ever been wrong?’

I shake my head, not really sure of the question he’s asking. He surprises me by lifting the cherry to his own lips and sucking it into his mouth. I watch for a moment, and as his finger drops from my mouth I try to say something. I’m not sure what, and I’ll never have a chance to find out. He brings his lips to mine, pressing the cherry into my mouth, rolling it around before sucking it back into his and crushing it.

The flavour is all around me and I no longer care. Because it is dwarfed by something else: the taste of him. Cherry flavour is on his tongue, evaporating in the flame of our kiss.

His lips crush mine, silencing any words, sucking them out of me, and a new heat spreads in my body. His kiss is punishment and it is possession. I cannot explain it better than that. It is a moment of clarity in which my anger seems to evaporate temporarily before it is back and I am kissing him—just as hard, with just as much fury.

My tongue lashes his and my hands are in his hair, rough, pulling at him, and I am kissing him as though I am still shouting at him with my touch.

He groans angrily and his body weight holds me to the wall, his strong legs straddling me, pinning me where I am. I think my brain is trying to tell me something, but I can hear nothing above the pounding of my heart and the rushing of my blood.

Desire is a whip, and it is lashing at my spine.

He drags his lips lower, nipping the skin of my shoulder with his teeth and teasing the racing pulse-point in my neck with his tongue. I groan, tilting my head back, knowing I need to stop this madness but accepting we are past that.

A line has been crossed. Not just crossed! Obliterated! There is newness to this. But I want to shape it, not be shaped by it. I need to be in charge—at least to some extent.

‘Why do you care?’ he asks, bringing his mouth back to mine and kissing me with enough force to hold my head hard against the wall. His hand drops to my dress, lifting the hem, and his fingers slide between my weak, shaking legs.

‘Care...?’ I mumble. What is he talking about?

He breaks the kiss but I have no space to think—not when his fingers are sliding inside me, his hand easily pushing aside the barrier of my flimsy underpants.

Oh, my God. I’m about to come. I swear, I’m this close. He swirls his finger around my wet muscles, teasing me, feeling me, and I am his. Completely.

‘Why do you care who I fuck?’

The question is a gruff, deep demand.

I blink my eyes, trying to think straight. But he moves his thumb over my clit and I shiver, trembling in every bone of my body as I feel the wave building around me.

‘I don’t,’ I snap through gritted teeth, sweat sheening my brow.

My eyes are shut, so I don’t see him dip his head forward. It is a surprise when his mouth clamps over my breast, his teeth biting down on my nipple through the silky fabric of my dress.

My stomach lurches as he drags his teeth along my nipple, pulling, making me throb with pleasure. And his finger pushes deeper, then draws out. My own wetness glides across my clit as he thumbs my nerves, and I am lost. Exploded. Gone.

Heat shoots through me, bursting me apart, and I am panting loud and hard as he moves his head to the other breast.

Shit. It’s too much. My muscles are clenching and my legs are hardly able to hold me up. I have had amazing sex, but something about this has blown all my experiences out of the water. Is it the illicitness of being with my boss?

My boss.

Jack Grant.

I groan in awareness of a moment I will undoubtedly regret, and then I groan at my weakness because I can’t stop. There is a compulsion—no. An awakening. It is an acceptance of a truth I have fought too hard and for too long.

Two years of looks, laughs, infuriating arguments and differences of opinion have been leading to this. Two years of finding him in bed and fantasising about climbing in with him. I have resisted because he is my boss and I love my job—and because he’s Jack-bloody-Grant. I have resisted acting on my deepest desires, but now I find it is impossible not to welcome his.

His hand drops to my side. His fingers dig into my flesh just enough to make me arch my back forward, but his hips rock me against the wall, crushing me with strength and passion. Hell, he’s good at this. So, so good. So much better than I imagined.

And I’ve imagined a lot.

I whimper—a sound I don’t think I’ve ever made in my life—as he brings his mouth back to mine, but the ghost of his kiss lingers on my breasts, making them painfully sensitised.

‘Now do you think women complain after they leave me?’ he asks, and he is stepping away, backwards, his eyes glinting in his handsome face as he stares at me with a confusing lack of passion.

There is colour in his cheeks and his chest is shifting hard, as is mine, with the pain of laboured breath. But his voice is steady and his eyes are cold.

His question doesn’t make sense. I lift a finger to my breasts. They’re tingling and swollen. I stare at him, unusually slow on the uptake.

‘I give them what they want. What you want.’

And he turns sharply, stalking across the room and grabbing another drink. His back is to me as he throws back the glass and swallows, but I hardly register the movement. Shock is seeping into me. Shock at what we’ve just done.

Holy hell!

Was he proving a point? I am trembling, moistness slicks my underwear, my dress bears the marks of his kiss, my mind is tumbled—and he is nothing?

Feminine pique stirs in my gut. I fantasise about slipping the dress from my body and storming across the room. About pushing him to the floor and straddling him, making him admit he wants me.

I know he does. I felt the proof of his desire hard against my stomach. But sanity is returning, and with it the realisation that we have done something very, very stupid. There is no turning back. No unwinding time. I need to salvage my pride and get the hell out of his office before I do something really stupid. Like ask him to finish the job he started.

‘I’ll email you a full report on the server’s feasibility tomorrow.’ My words are pleasingly stiff.

He grunts. ‘There she is. My cold-as-ice assistant.’

I straighten my back. I have never been his assistant and he knows it. He’s goading me. Spoiling for another fight?

I narrow my eyes. ‘Oh, I’m not cold,’ I hear myself say. ‘I’m very, very turned on.’

Perhaps my honesty surprises him. He turns his face, angling it towards me without actually looking in my direction.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and...blow off some steam.’

I walk out of there calmly, even though I am awash with doubt. Let him make of that what he will. If he imagines me going to Wolf... So what? If he imagines me going home to masturbate, looking at a picture of him, then let him.

I don’t know if I give a shit.

It is cold when I emerge from The Mansion, and drizzling with rain.

One of the decisions I made within six months of coming to work for Jack was to move to Hampstead, where he lives. The hours I work, I don’t want to lose any more to a lengthy commute.

The Mansion is at the end of a long lane that comes out near the Heath, and just around the corner from a happy little school is my townhouse. A Dickensian brick with a shining red door and window boxes that have been sorely neglected over the summer. I should have planted them with pansies and strawberries, as they were when I first moved in, but I’ve never got around to it.

I shoulder the door inwards and slam it closed behind me with true relief.

But then I make the mistake of shutting my eyes and there he is. Jack Grant...head bent forward...mouth moving over my breast. I curse darkly—a string of angry words that would have knocked my mother sideways if she thought I even knew such language—and stride to the mirror in my entrance way.