Joss Wood - Redeemed By Passion

“Things will seem better after you’ve slept.”

Teresa stepped away from him and walked away, dropping into the sleek office chair behind her desk. She placed her hands on the table and her amazing eyes flashed blue fire. “So if I sleep, will I wake up and find that my brother didn’t gate-crash Matt’s party, you didn’t hit him, he wasn’t seen on YouTube and I didn’t have to force him to stay in rehab, with him insisting that he’s not an addict? Will that just all go away with some sleep?”

She had him there. “No.”

“Exactly.” Teresa scratched her forehead and she released a long stream of air and her shoulders fell from somewhere near her ears. “I don’t want to fight with you, Liam.”

“I don’t want to fight, either.”

“But I can’t deal with you right now. Right now I have another commission, an event to organize, and everything is riding on it.” Teresa picked up a pen and rolled it between her palms. “I can’t be distracted and I need to focus. And I really do believe that it’s better that we not see each other anymore.”

“BS,” Liam shot back. “You’re just feeling overwhelmed. Possibly scared.”

Teresa nodded. “Sure I am. But maybe I am also trying to protect you. I’m not good for you, Liam.”

Liam slapped his hands on his hips, anger coursing through him. She sounded too much like his mother, who’d made her own disparaging comments about Teresa over the past few weeks. Not good enough, a tart, so little class. They were both wrong but there was only one person whose mind he wanted to change. “I’m a big boy. I don’t need you protecting me.”

“No matter what I say, there are people out there, including your mother, who believe I had an affair with your father, who think I’ve only latched on to you because I have my eyes on your company.”

He didn’t give a rat’s ass what other people thought and, honestly, he didn’t care much what his mother thought. “So? Let them think what they want.”

A pencil hit his chest and dropped to the floor. Liam looked at it, raised one eyebrow and returned his eyes to Teresa’s face. On the plus side, she had color in her cheeks. She also looked like she was about to blow.

“Liam, listen to me. You and me, it’s... Whatever the hell we had, it’s over! Whatever it was, it’s done.”

Liam sent her a steady look. “I’m not trying to be a jerk, Teresa, but it’s not as easy as that.”

“Just go, Liam. Please.”

God, this woman was as stubborn as a boulder. He could tell her that their attraction hadn’t died, that it would take more than her calling it to end this craziness between them. They couldn’t just switch off the taps and walk away. Like her, he couldn’t define what they had but it sure as hell wasn’t something that could be simply and easily dismissed. He’d tried that several times and it never worked. But that argument wouldn’t work with her so he latched on to what was tangible. “Linus’s will stipulates that we still have to work together at Christopher Corporation for a whole year.”

His statement detonated fireworks in her eyes. And not the good kind. “The corporation? That’s what you are thinking about?”

Well, no. He was thinking about taking her to bed but knew that if he made that suggestion he might leave her office minus a few of his essential body parts.

And that thought pissed him off, big-time. And once he acknowledged his anger, it took on a life of its own. He’d been worrying about her for days and he had to storm her citadel to check whether she was okay.

Teresa placed her fingertips on her forehead. “We can’t keep doing this, Liam. At some point we have to accept that we are bad for each other.”

Liam surged to his feet, walked over to her chair and placing his hands on her waist, pulled her up. He gripped her luscious butt and yanked her into him, allowing his hard erection to push into her stomach. “Feel that? That isn’t bad, dammit!”

Teresa looked up at him and he could see her body warring with her brain, each equally stubborn. He dipped his head down and slapped his lips against hers. Her mouth immediately opened beneath his and he swept inside, determined to show her that desire like this was worth fighting for, holding on to, keeping. Yeah, they weren’t great at communicating but this, this they could do. This they couldn’t fake, lie about, deny.

As for the other stuff, they could work on it...

Liam felt Teresa soften and when she pressed her breasts into his chest, he slowed his kiss down, needing to savor her, to explore her intense combination of flavors. He could taste her hazelnut-flavor coffee, toothpaste and a tart sweetness that was all Teresa. Pulling her jersey up, he placed his hands on her lower back, easily spanning her slim waist. The smell of soft, fragrant, heated skin drifted up to his and he felt his knees soften, his head swim. This was the only woman who’d ever managed to create fog in his brain, remove the saliva from his mouth, shut down his thought processes.

Not for the first time Liam decided that she scared the crap out of him.

Liam pulled back from the kiss and lifted his hand to hold the back of her head, his fingers pushing up and under the loose bun she habitually wore. Risking her ire but needing to see her hair down, he pulled out her pins and her thick blond hair cascaded over his hands, down her back. With her hair down she looked softer, more vulnerable and younger and, if that were at all possible, sexier.

Teresa rested her cheek on his pec and lightly placed her hands on his waist as if she couldn’t decide whether to hold him or not. “Stop fighting me, Teresa, and let me hold you.”

Teresa stiffened in his arms and then he heard her long sigh and slowly, so slowly, her arms moved around his body and she buried her nose in his shirt.

“Everything is so messed up, Liam.”

And she was, as she always did, trying to handle everything herself. “I know, honey.”

“I can’t let you help. I don’t know how to accept help,” Teresa said, her voice so low he had to bend his head to hear her soft words. “I need to sort this out myself, Liam.”

He dropped a kiss into her hair. “Why?”

Teresa took her time answering. “Because people have told me, all my life, that they would be there for me. Then they left.”

“I won’t do that to you, Teresa.”

Teresa pulled back, pulled her teeth between her lips and when Liam looked into her eyes, the pain within them nearly dropped him to his knees. “Maybe, maybe not. But I can’t take that chance because you, disappointing me again, is a step too far, a bridge that will blow up once I cross it. I’m not strong enough to cope with that, as well as the rest of my life falling apart. Frankly, Liam, I’m starting to believe that I’m not very strong at all.”

Teresa walked over to her desk, stared down at it and tapped her finger on the sleek wood. He watched her profile as her eyes moved from her desk to the window to right at the view of Elliott Bay. When she spoke again, he heard her uncertainty and, dammit, the fear in her voice. “I need some time, Liam, probably quite a bit of it.”

“I can’t give that to you,” Liam replied.

Christopher Corporation, and the terms of his father’s will, demanded her presence and involvement in the company. And besides, if he gave her the space she demanded, wouldn’t he be doing exactly what she expected, running when she needed him to plant his feet and stick?

“My brother owes money to dangerous people. Money that I am in the process of trying to find. I have a high-society, over-the-top wedding to organize in two weeks’ time so that I can save my company’s reputation and buy us some time with those previously mentioned mobsters. And I still need to face Matt Richmond and apologize once again for ruining his gala evening.”