The fucking prick.

  But as employees shout out their good nights one by one, as the elevator dings time and again, my mind steers back to Rowan.

  To her text earlier.

  To how goddamn sexy she was as she stood there and negotiated with me in that tight fucking sweater.

  To the handshake we shared that’s going to complicate matters more than I’d like but now might take so much more pleasure in—because fuck Rhett.

  To the goddamn things I’ve been craving to do to that body of hers.

  My phone vibrates and when I see Rowan’s name I groan. She better not be blowing me off. Unless of course the blowing me off has to do with her being on her knees with her lips wrapped around my cock.

  “Rowan.”

  “The office is empty. The lock on the elevator doors has been activated with the master key. The cameras have been turned off.”

  My cock twitches as I stand from my desk. “Someone’s trying to earn the merit badge for preparedness tonight.”

  “Someone has to take control.”

  “Is that what this is called? You taking control?”

  Her laugh is deep and throaty. “It’s called come and find me.”

  Most definitely.

  “Care to give me a hint?”

  “I’m somewhere where you can sit and eat.”

  “My face.”

  Another laugh that has my balls drawing up. “Sounds promising,” she murmurs and then the line goes dead.

  I’m out of the office and walking down the hall, hands already undoing the buttons on my shirt cuffs as I go. The lunchroom is empty, and I stand there staring at the beige wonderland of tables and chairs.

  Where else do people eat in this place?

  The outdoor patio. I’m on the move to the other side of the floor and push open the doors. No one is there, but I do find a rather sexy pair of black leather panties draped across the middle of the table.

  The vision of her wearing nothing but those and heels has me grabbing my cock and adjusting it through my pants. My phone vibrates in my hand. “You left something behind,” I say.

  “Mmm-hmm. It’s okay to have to work hard for what you want, Holden.” Her voice is seduction and silk. It owns me in the best kind of way.

  “Another clue,” I demand.

  “Be resourceful.”

  The line ends as I rush to the human resources department. Going past one cubicle after another, checking under the desks as I go. My shirt front is unbuttoned. My belt is hanging loose. When I hit the last desk, a red lacy bra is hanging from the exit sign over the door.

  I snatch it down and run the fabric through my fingers.

  My cell rings.

  “Red. Black. Leather. Lace. What’s your preference, Mr. Knight?” she purrs in greeting.

  Mr. Knight. I’d love to hear her say that when her mouth is wrapped around my cock and it’s hitting the back of her throat.

  “You.” I grate the word out. “My preference is you.”

  “Then you’re going to have to work a little harder to find me.”

  “It’s all fun and games, Rowan.…”

  Another throaty chuckle. “And then what? And then Rowan gets fucked?”

  “You’re goddamn right she does,” I mumble as the call ends, and I move down the main corridor like a policeman, clearing each room as I go.

  Another pair of panties—crotchless I might add—greets me outside of her office door. A place I covered on my way to the lunchroom so I know she’s on the move.

  “Rowan,” I call out to her, the desperation thick in my voice.

  My phone alerts a text. Warmer.

  I move into her office and when I do, I hear a pair of feet pad down the hallway, but by the time I get back out there she’s nowhere to be found.

  I chuckle. Even my laugh is strained with need as I move from office to office. From space to space. The sound of footsteps catching my ear every couple of minutes.

  She’s going to end up in my office.

  Wasn’t that the gist of all our texts earlier? Her. My desk. Fucking her on it.

  I quietly move toward it and am surprised when I step inside and find it empty. More than surprised. I’m fucking desperate.

  I pick up my phone and text. Another hint?

  But my text goes unanswered as I head to the conference room to double-check its many places to hide. And I’m just about to head in there when movement catches the corner of my eye through the crack in the door.

  Rowan is slinking down the hallway and coming straight for the conference room. I stand behind the door and wait for her. She pushes the door open, slowly, quietly, and from one beat to the next, I have her body pinned against the wall.

  She yelps out a laugh, but her chest is heaving and her eyes are wide, lids half-hooded with desire. Her pulse jumps erratically from where my hand rests like a necklace around her throat.

  “Olly olly oxen free,” I whisper.

  “You found me. Now what are you going to do with me?” Her warm breath hits my lips, each word adding gasoline on the fire.

  “Oh, Sunshine, there’s a lot of things I want to do with you. To you. In you.” I dart my tongue out to wet my lips, and it’s only then that I take her in. All of her. The jacket she had on that I didn’t question has now fallen open to reveal the fucking sexiest bra and garter set I’ve ever seen. There are straps and lace and a mix of leather, and her nipples are spilling over the bra’s edge while her pussy is bare beneath the garters that are hanging down her thighs.

  Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

  This woman is going to be my undoing.

  My fucking demise.

  Her outfit. Her body. The pout of her parted lips. The seductive look in her eyes. Her panted-out laugh.

  Fuck waiting.

  I want.

  And so, I take.

  I slant my lips over hers and steal every fucking breath of hers in a no-holds-barred kiss.

  It’s angry and hungry and she tastes as fucking desperate as I feel. There are no thoughts. No choreographed moves. We’re a mess of hands and lips and groans and pleas.

  Her jacket falls. My pants are shoved down. We shuffle toward the conference room table, where chairs are shoved aside and her ass is lifted onto the wood table.

  “You’re a fucking cock tease,” I say against her lips as she reaches out and wraps her fingers around my dick.

  I hiss out a breath. Then moan out a groan.

  “And what a nice cock it is.” She lifts her eyebrows in a taunt as I fight the urge to fuck her hand.

  “I thought you said we couldn’t do this again.”

  “I changed my mind.” She squeezes her hand tighter and my eyes all but roll back in my head. Does she not realize how fucking hard it is to have a conversation when your cock is being stroked by a woman who is dressed like she is?

  “You changed your mind?”

  “I’m fickle like that,” she murmurs and leans in for a kiss that causes me to grow harder—if that’s even possible.

  “I’ll take fickle. I’ll take angry. I’ll take fucking all of you.”

  “I think it’s supposed to be me taking all of you.”

  “You will be. Make no mistake about that.” I run my hand through her hair and tug it back to force her to look up at me and to expose that sexy line of her neck. Her smirk taunts as much as her body tempts. “I haven’t stopped wanting you since that first night we met.”

  “I know. It’s hard to want you as much as I do when I’m supposed to hate you.”

  I lick the line of her neck and love that her body jerks from the sensations it evokes. “And now you hate that you want me so much.” I gently pinch her nipples between my fingers and her back arches, shoving them forcefully into my hands.

  “I do.”

  Our mouths meet again. With more hunger. With more desperation. With the words fueling our need until it burns so bright I swear to fucking god we’re going to combust.

  “Holden,” she murmurs between kisses. “Hold?”

  I love that her voice sounds as close to snapping as I feel.

  “Hmm?”

  She pushes her hands against my chest, our lips breaking apart and our bodies separating. She makes a show of standing from the edge of the desk. Because my legs are between her thighs, as she stands her arousal slides over my skin.

  Fucking hell.

  The thought. The feeling. The knowledge that I did that to her.

  Every part of me wants to push her back down and drive into her. Fuck her good and hard until we’re both lost in oblivion.

  “Sunshine.” It’s a strained two syllables as she steps into me.

  Her eyes flicker down the length of my body before scraping back up to meet my eyes. “Take me from behind.” She reaches down and strokes my cock as if her words aren’t fucking enough. “That way I can feel every fucking inch of you.”

  She leans in and kisses me like it’s her last breath before turning around, my hands sliding over her torso as she does, and then bends painstakingly slowly over the edge of the conference room table.

  I take in the sight. The lingerie. The curve of her ass. The pink of her pussy. The chills chasing over her skin. The moisture glistening for me. Because of me. It’s a goddamn concentrated effort to look up to her face when she turns and looks over her shoulder, saying my name.

  “Yeah.” I grunt the word out, my gaze immediately going back to my hand sliding between her legs and testing to make sure she’s ready for me. She’s more than ready, begging for me in the way her muscles tighten around me when I push three fingers in and fuck her with them.

  The way she pushes back on my hand. How she moans. The feel of my hands squeezing her ass. The way she smells—her perfume mixed with arousal.

  “Please, Mr. Knight,” she whispers.

  And the way she fucking sounds saying that.

  I line my cock up at her entrance and drive into her without warning. The sensation of her gripping around me consumes my thoughts. Snaps all control. Between the game and her outfit and her requests, I know once I’m fully seated, once I let her adjust to me, there will be no turning back.

  I grit my teeth as I bottom out in her. Her sharp gasp of pleasure mirrors my groan of bliss. I squeeze the sides of her hips and when she pushes back on my cock, I begin to move.

  It’s fast and desperate. I drive into her over and over, my mind lost and my body alive with every fucking sensation.

  Her pussy is the heaven I want to get lost in and the hell I can’t resist. It makes me want to take my time and at the same time drive into her until I can’t go any more.

  It’s her panted moan. It’s the tight, wet grip of her pussy. It’s the jolt of her ass as I slam against it. It’s her hands reaching back and gripping the edge of the table.

  It’s the pressure building, stroke after stroke, moan after mewl. Spreading from my lower back to my balls to goddamn everywhere.

  It’s her calling out my name as her muscles tighten around me over and over as her orgasm slams into her.

  It’s me losing all sense of reality as mine follows shortly thereafter.

  I buckle under its intensity. My hips jerking as I lean forward and press my forehead to her back.

  Exhausted.

  Sated.

  Consumed.

  It’s sex.

  Just mind-blowing, incredibly awesome sex.

  Not my finest work to date. Not even fucking close.

  But hell if it’s not something I’ll forget anytime soon.

  “Olly olly oxen free,” Rowan says and then we both laugh.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Rowan

  I sit in my car in the parking lot and stare up at the light on in Holden’s office. I replay the events of the last few hours.

  The decision to pursue Holden that opened a box I sure as hell hope isn’t Pandora’s.

  My brother’s betrayal.

  My partnership with the enemy.

  The incredibly erotic game of hide-and-seek sex that I’m rather proud of myself for making up with said enemy.

  How many more emotions can one person face in a six-hour period and not need serious therapy?

  I sure as hell don’t know, but what I do know is that there’s a soft smile on my lips and a giddy sensation in my more than sated body.

  I stare at the light and know he’s up there still working. Still plotting out how to take over the world. Still being the enigma he is.

  And I’m down here trying to separate the physical from the emotional. The personal from the business. My sanity from my reality.

  The man does things to me. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Things that no one else ever has before, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

  You deserve someone who makes you feel like you’ve been struck by lightning.

  Gran’s voice floats in my head.

  Her words.

  Her wisdom.

  “You’re crazy, Gran. I love you to death, but you’re batshit crazy if you think that someone is Holden.”

  I mutter the words into my empty car and yet my eyes are still on the window. Still waiting for one more glimpse of the man that I’m supposed to hate but suddenly desperately want.

  And the irony in all of it is that when I finally pull away from the lot and head home, heat lightning flashes in the distance, lighting up the sky and the clouds all around it.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Holden

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  Numb.

  Shoes squeak by on the floors. Machines beep constantly. Voices say terms I can’t even comprehend right now.

  But I can’t feel anything.

  Not how cold the room is.

  Not his dried blood on my hands cracking as I grip the arm of the chair so tight my knuckles are white.

  Not the tears that are sliding down my cheeks.

  Not the beating of my own fucking heart.

  Images flash through my mind. Images that will forever be burned there.

  Mason on the pavement.

  The back doors of the ambulance and watching through the window as the paramedic on top of the gurney pumped Mason’s chest as it drove away.

  My mom’s rushed footsteps and worried face as she ran into the waiting room to find me. Her frantic words. How cold her hands were as they pulled me against her and just held on as if a hug could make everything better. Could fix how broken Mase was.

  My mom crumpling to her knees when the doctor walked out, when he told us Mase was gone. That there was nothing they could do.

  The sound. It was a guttural scream that sounded like someone had ripped my mom’s heart out and handed it to her. It’s burned into my brain. I keep hearing it over and over.

  The dead weight. How heavy my mom was as I tried to lift her back up. As I tried to help her when I was dying inside myself.

  Mason. All the tubes and leads in his little body. All the medical stuff—instruments, rubber gloves, gauze, blood—dropped everywhere from them frantically trying to save him. His cold hands. His one shoe on, the other shoe off, and his big toe sticking through a hole in his sock. His wrist—the stupid blue-and-black friendship bracelet that I used to make fun of—looks so dark against his pale skin.

  I fixated on that bracelet. On the specks of blood on it. On its frayed ends. On the fact that I’ll never be able to make fun of him again.

  I repeat the words over and over in my mind. My one last promise to my little brother. To my best friend. To my shadow. Whoever did this to you will pay.

  It all replays in my mind as I sit in the waiting room.

  Over.

  This is my fault.

  And over.

  If I had gone outside with him, he wouldn’t have been hit.

  And over again.

  I killed my little brother.

  “Mr. Simpson?” a deep voice calls into the waiting room. It takes a second for it to register that he’s talking to me.

  “Yes. That’s me. But I’m not…” Not a Simpson.

  “Father of Mason Simpson?” the man asks.

  I shake my head. Even now there’s shame in the stupid response. “No father.” I swallow over the lump in my throat and the tears burning. “Brother. I’m his brother.”

  He makes his way over to me. His button-up shirt is strained over his stomach so that the spaces between the buttons are separated and show a white undershirt beneath. There’s a coffee stain on his right sleeve and a badge hooked on his belt.

  “Mother?” he asks, stopping before me and pulling out a small pad of paper from the breast pocket on his shirt.

  “She’s back there.” I motion toward the closed doors. “They had to give her a sedative to calm her down. She’s … I don’t know what she’s doing. They—the doctor or nurse or someone … told me I had to stay out here.”

  “I’m Detective Martin.”

  “Holden.” I choke over my own name.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” he asks, and I shrug as he does so. “I’m sorry, son. About your brother. That you had to go through that. All of it.”

  He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. All I can do is nod and stare at my hands as I run them up and down my thighs.

  “Yeah. Thanks,” I whisper. “Do you know who did it?” When I lift my eyes to meet his, I already know the answer. No.

  He gives a subtle shake of his head. “Not yet. We have some leads. A partial plate number—a person thinks. Possibly a white car.”

  “It was a white car. A Mercedes,” I say. “Two people in it.”

  “Thank you. That will help narrow down the license plate numbers starting with the vehicle. We’re also looking to see if there were any cameras in the area that caught anything.” He shifts and reaches into his front pocket. “This was at the scene. It belong to you?”

  My breath catches when he holds out the square silver lighter and places it in my hand. The weight of it makes my hand dip as I run my thumb over the engraved crest, the etching now stained with my brother’s blood.

  “No,” I whisper.