Anne Marsh - Off Limits / Ruled

Maybe I could be like Marissa Mayer and have a nursery built into my office? The nanny could be based there, so I could still be one of those hands-on Pinterest-type mummies. Wolf would never even need to know I’d hired someone to help.

But Jack would. He’d hate that. A baby crying when I’m trying to talk to him about tariffs on our Chinese imports? No, he’d probably seduce the nanny and then I’d have to either fire her or kill her.

Okay, now who’s getting ahead of themselves?

But Wolf has caught me watching him and his heart is so on his sleeve he might as well be a cartoon character, with one of those thought bubbles popping out of his head. I have to let this opportunity pass me by. He’s not right, and when he realises that I’m not going to leave Jack and move to Manhattan, working with him will become a nightmare.

I look away.

Right at Jack.

He’s standing in front of me.

The band has started to play and I’ve been so lost in imagining the hell of my future with Wolf DuChamp that I haven’t realised.

‘Did you like the speech?’

‘Looking for compliments?’ I sip my champagne, pleased at how quickly I’m able to recover. ‘What’s the matter? Wasn’t she suitably impressed?’

His eyes clash with mine. He’s angry. Ooooh. Why? Have I hit the nail on the head somehow?

‘Are you wondering if I can please a woman in fifteen minutes?’

He shifts his body infinitesimally, but enough to spark something low in my abdomen. Anger. Resentment. Heat. Warmth. Need.

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.