Page 83 of Shark’s Edge

The words earned him my huge smile against his neck. Maybe tiny miracles were possible—because his confession officially flushed the anger I’d sworn not to surrender. With his courage, he’d cleansed it from me. With his honesty, he’d stripped me. The nakedness felt nice. My vulnerability felt right.

So beautifully right . . .

Sebastian hitched away from me. I didn’t let him get very far. With a determined tug at his jacket lapels, I pulled him right back in—and then compelled my mouth to dive too. I thanked myself for it as soon as his carotid jumped beneath my tongue. As I kept nipping and nuzzling, he gifted me with a low, lusty moan.

I lifted my mouth up to the crevice of his ear. It was heaven to breathe in the musk of his skin as well as the sage and coconut of his expensive shampoo. The intimate scents gave me the extra jolt of courage to whisper my next words.

“I think I know what we can do.”

A new groan poured out of him. His massive body shuddered beneath my roving touch—especially the part of him growing faster than all the rest. “Fuck,” he husked. “Abbi . . . ”

“You suggested it just yesterday. Something about a preview of our naughty weekend, right on your desk?”

“Yeah. I—I remember. But—”

“But what?”

“Things have changed, Red.” But while he asserted it, he hardly moved away from my nibbles at his neck and my strokes between his legs. “We’ve got to acknowledge that.”

“Umm . . . I think we already have.”

His nod, more succinct than I’d expected, preceded his reluctant drag back. The same conflict ruled his face as he set me back at an arm’s length too. Though lust still glittered in his eyes, he relented the rest of his features to his CEO scowl.

“Outstanding. Glad we’re in agreement, then.”

“A-Agreement?” I stammered it, still dizzy from the figurative revolving door into which I’d just been tossed. “What?”

“That I’m not going to handle this issue by fucking you on my desk.” He rapped a knuckle on that very surface as he moved to his central location behind all his monitors. Did he have any idea that just by talking about that now while reembracing his dark and imposing side made my sex clench for him in at least ten new ways?

“But you do want to handle it now.”

“Never a question of whether I wanted to, baby.” He scooped up some loose papers and a courier package in which they looked to have arrived. “It’s just a matter of whether I should.”

I dropped my hands. Balled them into fists. “How the hell are we back to this already?”

He lifted his head, every crease and furrow once more etched on his bold features, and brandished the sheaf of papers in his tight grip. “Little life lesson number hundred and fifty-three, courtesy of my colorful past.” He squeezed his eyes shut as his lips contorted. “People like me don’t get to leave the past in the past.”

As he spoke, I looked long and hard at him. But more prominently, at those damn papers in his hand.

The hand that practically shook with tension.

“Sebastian?”

I unrooted myself from my spot and stepped carefully back around the desk. Not that he noticed. Though he dropped the papers back to the desk with a graceful sweep, he stared as if the scribbles on them were rendered in blood. I would have assumed as much when taking in the steel pole of his spine, the tension across his shoulders, and the renewed clench of his jaw.

“Hey. Hey. Shark?” As I stepped closer to him, I had the impression of navigating invisible shadows around him. The unease of his aura was that thick and cryptic. “What’s going on?” I pressed. “What are you . . . ”

He reached up and formed a hand over the one I rested on his elbow. But it was his eyes that wrenched the words out of my throat. I’d expected more shadows in their dark-blue depths. There were none. His gaze was close to black, the color of midnight during the winter solstice.

He was as still and as silent as that long cold night. But he moved at last, sliding the three sheets of paper over to me.

As I accepted them, my fingers trembled. Right before my eyes popped wide with shock. And incredulity. And horror.

“Do you see now, Abbigail?” His words were like accusations. His aura was gallows grim. “Do you see now why I’m not the Prince Charming to give your virginity to?”

I slammed the handwritten note back down. The motion made it possible to move all the way in front of him and then to reach in and grab him by the biceps again. “All right. So that may be the case—but right now, you need to bring your A game to what we’ve got going on here.” I pivoted at the waist to tap on the letter now lying on his desk.

He suddenly jerked as if I’d decked him. “What we’ve got going on?”