Chapter 17

She’d only lasted another thirty-six minutes after Tobias’s last email, to which she hadn’t dared to reply.

Instead, she’d mingled with everyone, while trying to think of reasons why she should or should not go and see Tobias at his office this late on a Friday night.

And none of the reasons mattered.

Too late, she was there now.

“Savannah?” He got up slowly, his forehead a crisscross of creases and his eyes pinning her in place from a distance of twenty feet. She slipped through his door which had been ajar, and closed it behind her. Something hot and slippery coiled around inside her, making her legs weak as she stood watching him.

“So you decided to take me up on my offer?”

“Here I am,” she replied, breathless from the sheer shock of being here, in his office once more, alone with him. And she was probably about to make a complete fool of herself. She had to get her heart beat under control, her breathing too, before he did that thing he did so well—which was to display a cool air while she whimpered internally in his presence.

“And here you are,” he said softly. He looked tired, she decided, as she stepped slowly towards the center of the room. His pale blue shirt didn’t look as sharp as it normally did, and though his eyes sparkled, the skin around them looked tight. Moving his hand to his cheek, he scrubbed his face, as if he was still surprised to see her.

“You didn’t come?”

“Where?” He was playing ignorant now, was he?

“To my birthday drinks. I invited you.” She waited breathlessly, even though she must have sounded like a four-year old waiting for her party guests to arrive. She took a few slow and tentative steps towards him, hearing only the whooshing of air in her ears. “So you did,” he replied slowly, moving around his desk and taking a few steps towards her while heat raced along her body. It wasn’t so much that he was advancing closer, or the way his gaze burned right through her, or the way his lips parted. It wasn’t even the way her body was reacting to him—it was the anticipation of what might follow—what she wanted, and she had a pretty good idea, that he wanted the same thing. A reconnection, a sign, a flicker of that same interest flashed before her eyes. “Then why weren’t you there?” she asked, in a low whisper.

“Are you disappointed?” He asked, slipping his hands into his pockets while his gaze locked onto her. He stood not more than a foot away from her now, and already the slow burn of liquid heat started to spiral inside her, spreading out towards her chest and stomach. “Everyone else was there, Briony, Matthias, Candace, Chloe…and some of the other managers I didn’t invite.”

“I didn’t know you were planning such a big celebration.”

“I wasn’t. I didn’t want it but Briony seemed to think it might be a good idea. It was meant to be a small affair but it seems to have quickly grown.”

“You met Max?”

She grinned at the recollection. “I met Max. I had no idea.” His lips curled up in a knowing smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t come,” he said and she wondered if his words marked a possible return to how he had been before. He had a softer edge to him now, or was she getting it wrong again, with her body leaping ahead? She bit the bullet. “I didn’t think it mattered—you not being there but if I’m to be honest, it did.” Now that she’d put her feelings out for him to see, she waited while her insides tumbled like a crazy sea, awaiting his response, for the glimmer of something more.

“I don’t usually—”

“Attend these types of events. I know. Briony told me.”

“You asked Briony why I wasn’t there?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly,” he echoed, his voice soft as silk. “I’ve been respecting your wishes, Savannah. You said you wished you’d never met me and you wanted nothing to do with me.” She swallowed. So that’s what he’d been doing?

“Well…I…,” she tried to weigh her words carefully. “See, the thing is—” She looked at the egg-shaped glass paperweight on his desk, and tried to calm her insides down before she dared to look at him again.

One, two, three…

She lifted her eyes to him then, withering under the weight of his stare. Dare she lay her heart on the line? Tobias Stone had reawakened feelings in her which she thought had been buried for good after Colt and what he’d done to her. Men, romance and relationships hadn’t figured too high up on her list when she’d been preoccupied with trying to pay bills and survive. In despair, she’d sometimes wished for someone to be there, to help with raising her son, but a partner, a confidante, a lover for her? No, that part of it hadn’t showed up on her radar.

After Colt she had no longer wanted to put herself in such a vulnerable place again. But now…now this man had awakened her dormant desires. He’d helped her birth newly created sexual fantasies and surely she owed it to herself to sample whatever he offered, in whatever flavor, for however long?

She could no more close her mind to the emotional tie that bound her to him than she could ignore the physical reaction of her body to him.

“The thing is?” He asked, softly, as her gaze slipped to the top of his open shirt. He’d taken off his tie and her eyes fell to the hollow dip below his Adam’s apple. She stared back at him, not trusting where her mind was taking her or the way her body was loosening up around him.

“Now that things are better for me, now that time has… taken the edge off what you said to me…” Damn it, why wasn’t he interrupting her so that she wouldn’t have to twitter on? He watched her intently, making her conscious of herself until heat made her face blush, with lust, or desire, or from embarrassment, she wasn’t sure which. “Now that I…I’m…I…” In a fit of exasperation she threw her hands up in the air, brushing her fingers against his chest by accident. “I don’t understand this myself. I don’t know what this is.”

He stepped closer to her, so that there was no more than a passage of air between them and she dared not move back. It was now or never.

“You don’t know what this is?” he asked, his voice so low it could have been a vibration. His breath hot and minty, kissed her skin, and the smell of woody cologne teased her senses, making her breasts heavy, her insides light and stealing the breath from her lungs. He was responsible for this nuclear reaction of emotions in her body and mind, and yet he stood here so calm and unshakeable. How the hell did he manage to do that when she was melting to liquid inside?

“Don‘t you have anything to say?” She asked, desperate to know about his feelings.

“I said what I needed to say that day. And it’s still the same,” he said softly. She shook her head once, her eyes zoning in on his lips. “And what was that?”

“That I need you. I still want you.” He slipped his fingers around a lock of her hair and pushed it behind her ear. The feel of his skin against her face jump-started her memories, making her pant faster.

“You do?” she murmured, seeing only his lips, and yearning to taste them again. He nodded.

“You feel like that still? The way you did before?” She asked, wanting to know for sure.

“How was I before?” He dropped his head and his hooded eyes stared back at hers, burrowing deeper into her soul.

“Interested.”

“You think I’m not interested?” His lips were a finger’s width away, her body craving his touch. “I can’t tell with you, she murmured, letting his fingers entwine with hers. “You’re always so unpredictable.”

“Does that make you uneasy?” His lips almost grazed hers.

“You make me uneasy.” She could feel his breath, hot against her skin.

“And does that excite you?”

“You excite me.”

“That’s quite a change in opinion, Ms. Page,” he murmured, this time his lips brushed against hers fleetingly, only for a second so that she wasn’t even sure she had imagined it.

“Don’t you go starting on that Ms. Page business,” she said irritated, and then because she couldn’t wait a second longer, “Kiss me.” His lips fell onto her mouth and she moved into him, relaxing and falling into the hard feel of him, and taking in his taste and smell, and his familiarity. His was the touch she had missed and dreamed about for weeks. He parted her lips with his tongue and swirled it over hers. “You taste of champagne,” he said, when they finally broke apart, his lips wet, his husky voice setting off alarm bells in her lower region.

“You taste of mint,” she breathed, fixing her arms around the back of his neck and forcing him to dip his head towards her again. As their kissing became more intense, she felt his excitement against her heated body.

Now that there was no interruption, now that the office was empty and it was only the two of them, now that she knew exactly what she wanted—she felt shameless. “Take me, here, like you promised,” she breathed nibbling his ears and the soft skin underneath. His cologne promised excitement and desire and took her back to that first time when she had accidentally ended up on the 30th floor. “Savannah.” He moved his face away, surprise lighting his features. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it. It sounds forward, I know, but it’s what I want. I don’t say things like this, I don’t do things like this, Tobias, but you make me…” He slammed his lips into hers again, their bodies tight, hard and desperate against each another. She felt his hands slide under her coat and move slowly over the curves of her waist and hips and she hitched a breath as sparks crawled along her skin. Her nerves fizzed with excitement. “God, you drive me insane,” he rasped, resting his forehead against hers to take a breath.

She let her hands slip down and rest on his biceps, her fingers feeling along the contours of his hard and thick muscles. “I need to feel you inside me,” she gasped, drunk on desire, her body on fire. It was intoxicating, being around him, feeling and tasting him and she was desperate for all of him, needing him with an urgency that almost scared her. She wanted him to fill her up, to plunder her body, to do those very things she had been thinking and dreaming that he would do to her.

“But…but…” it was the first time she’d heard him stutter. The first time that Tobias Stone had lost his smooth lines and ice-like composure. “We don’t have to do this, now, Savannah.”

His hesitation infuriated her, especially with his obvious hardness betraying his noble excuses. “It’s all I’ve thought of for weeks.” She’d said it out loud now and she couldn’t unsay it. She could no longer keep her feelings in check, even knowing who he was, and how he could be. She wanted him; she wanted to put the past behind them and to start again. “Don’t you want this, Tobias? Is it just me?”

“I want you,” he croaked, his fingers deliciously piercing into her bottom. She instinctively ground her hips into him, her need for him almost uncontrollable when he stared at her like that, his hands sliding over her body. He seemed to be weighing up his options.

What was he waiting for? “If you think I’ve come here to blackmail you or —”

“Shush,” he said, pulling her tightly against him so that her breasts squashed up against his chest. “Let’s not restart any of that. I told you I was sorry.”

“Then show me that you’re sorry.” She was being upfront, but the dirty thoughts she’d been secretly harboring about him now rose up and staked their claim. All the pent-up frustrations and feelings that had accompanied her sleep, or ran amok in her brain while she sat at work trying to take her mind off him, now flared out of control. She had been a passionate woman once, before Colt had beaten it out of her. “Show me, Tobias, before I get embarrassed and change my mind.”

“I would love to show you,” he murmured, nestling his lips along her lower lip and biting it. “I’ve wanted you the whole time.” She mewled against his mouth and snuggled closer to him, feeling the hard line of his chest and stomach, and his hands, big and strong, now resting against her lower back. He leaned in and gave her a slow, lingering, teasing kiss. The kind of kiss that set her insides on fire. The kind of kiss which made her ache for his mouth on her breasts and his fingers lower down. She slipped onto his desk, forcing him to lower his head and lean forward so as not to break their kiss. “What do you say?” she asked, pulling away and starting to lean backwards.

“Not here,” he rasped and grabbed her wrist, pulling her off the desk. He moved towards the door but when he opened it she heard a voice outside. She froze, hidden out of sight behind his body.

“Tobias. Are you still working here, this late?”

“You can talk. I had last minute things to work out.” The shadow of a moving body flitted by. She stayed behind him while he stood at the door with it open a little, so that it exposed only his face. She couldn’t help but run her hands down the fabric of his shirt, her excitement at the idea of what was to come making her body suddenly alive, as if sparks of electricity danced across her skin.

“I’m heading home. Enjoy your weekend,” the voice sounded far away.

“I will.” Tobias replied. As if the sudden lull had turned up his desire, he turned and grabbed her hard, kissing her with such force that it took her breath away. Like two people who had never kissed before, they went at it and she was sure he was going to take her here now, on his desk, or his couch, or even on the floor. It didn’t matter where because she was so wet for him, she could no longer wait for him to glide inside her. Lips and mouths sucked and nipped as his hands slid over her body.

“Follow me,” she heard him mumble before he pulled her along and walked towards the elevator. She knew exactly where he was heading.

And about time too.

Her heart thundered like the shot of gunfire and she was vaguely aware of him fiddling around with the elevator buttons. As soon as they were inside, once the doors closed, he was onto her. Another kiss, wet and languorous, engulfed her in heat from her breasts all the way to her toes. Her nerves tingled with sultry pleasure, and every inch of her skin ached for the touch of his lips.

And then she remembered what she had on and pulled away in shock.

Off-white underwear.

She couldn’t let him see that. If ever there was a show-stopper, this was it. She would have made an effort if she’d had any inkling that her night was going to end like this. But oh dear god, off-white old panties and an unflattering bra? A man like Tobias, she was sure, had bedded models in the real classy stuff she saw in magazines. Naomi would have been all satin and lace.

She couldn’t compete.

“What is it?” he asked, sensing her hesitation as the elevator doors slid open. He was still holding her hand as they crossed the thickly carpeted hallway and she stared at the black wallpaper. She had a feeling that once she passed through that door, that there would be no going back. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not ready,” Tobias told her, his voice solemn.

To hell with it. She was ready; she was so slick with heat and lust and it wouldn’t matter—not for too long—what color or state her undergarments were in.

“I’m sure,” she breathed, as he opened the door to the penthouse. “Are you?”