Anne Marsh - Off Limits / Ruled

He strides to the chair across from his and holds it out. Shooting him a look laced with my fiercest resentment, I sit down, careful not to so much as brush against his fingertips. Fingers that have now been inside me—that have not just touched me, but have breached my barriers and found my throbbing heart.

Fingers that have undone me.

I am holding my breath again. Is that how I’m going to get over this little hurdle? Suffocate myself? Is that even possible? I’m pretty sure we have some breathing trigger in our brains, but my brain is a bit pissy with me so maybe it would conveniently forget about the button.

I push air out consciously, quietly, and he takes his seat.

‘Anyway...’ I prompt impatiently.

His smile is a flicker. Is he laughing at me? Arrogant arsehole! That’d be just like him. See? That’s the problem! I know him. I’m not one of his other women. I know that he is as bastardy as he is sexy.

‘How did you sleep?’

I blink at him, my eyes wide. ‘You’ve already asked me that.’

‘You didn’t answer.’

I expel a sigh that speaks of anger. ‘Like I always do. Seriously, Jack. My desk is covered in paper. I have to get to work.’

‘I’m your work,’ he says with a shrug.

Insolent bastard.

He leans forward, and while his face is casual there is an urgency in the flecks of gold that fill his eyes. ‘Did you see him last night?’

I want to remind him of the salient fact I pointed out the night before. It’s not his damned business. But I’m not sure I can say that with such conviction now that I’ve tasted his mouth; now that I’ve been stunned by his desire.

Can I skirt around his question?

‘You’re my work? Okay, the thing is I have the New York guys waiting on contracts, you have a meeting in a week that I have to prepare for and Athens wants your input—which means my input—on a lease agreement. And I need to—’

‘Quiet.’

God! Don’t hate me, but when he’s bossy I love it. And he’s almost always bossy.

I glare at him across his desk; it’s best if he doesn’t know that this is just about my favourite version of him.

‘You’re fucking telling me to be quiet?’ I lean forward, and we’re close now: almost touching. ‘Seriously?’

‘You’re pissed off.’

‘Damn right, I am.’

His laugh is soft. Throaty. Hot. ‘Because we didn’t finish?’

I flick my eyes shut. My cheeks are hot. ‘What do you need?’

‘Are you in a relationship with him?’

‘Who?’

‘Wolf DuChamp?’

I hide a smile. ‘So you do know his name?’

‘Now I do.’

His expression is unreadable. But deep inside me something stirs. Hope. Because isn’t there an implication there that he knows about Wolf because of me? Because he wants to know about my life?

‘So? What’s the deal?’ he asks.

‘Are you jealous?’ The words are a challenge; they escape unbidden.

His response is razor-sharp. ‘Why would I be jealous?’

Crap. A stupid challenge, apparently.

‘Forget it.’ I scrape the chair back and stand, my eyes not inviting argument. ‘Is that all?’

‘You haven’t answered me. How can it be all?’

I expel a breath angrily. ‘I like him.’ I shrug.

It’s true. Not romantically, necessarily. But he’s a nice guy. Good-looking. It doesn’t matter that I’ve already ruled out a relationship.

‘Are you fucking him?’

My expression is ice—even I can feel the chill that spreads through the office.

‘Isn’t this the question that got us into trouble last night?’

He stands up, slamming his palms against the desk, his eyes lashing me. ‘Are you fucking him?’

It’s loud. Not quite a roar, but close to it. I’m startled. This is outside the bounds of anything that’s happened between us and we both know it. Then again, I guess we’ve obliterated boundaries now. They—like me—are in a state of flux. Changeability that is unpredictable and not good.

‘Go to hell.’

I turn around and walk out of his office, but my knees are shaking and I feel really weird, as if I could cry—which, for your information, I haven’t done in years. I literally don’t cry. Not at sad movies. Not when my cat died.

But I’m shaking, and if he follows me I’ll be really lost.

He doesn’t.

I storm over to my desk. I wasn’t lying or exaggerating. Piles of paper clutter every available inch of the thing. I turn my back on them and stare over the Heath, my eyes brooding.

This is a damned nightmare, isn’t it?

My brain nods along smugly. Told you so.

Chapter Three

IT HAS BEEN a week and I’m still here. What’s more, my brain and I are almost friends again. I have been behaving. Working hard, speaking politely, keeping my sexy, kinky ‘if only’ thoughts hidden behind a mask of disinterest.

Of course it helps that I’ve hardly seen Jack.

He’s been in Tokyo for four days, on a trip I would usually do with him.

Here’s how it would go: Private jet. Limousine. Luxurious hotel accommodation—his apartment there is being remodelled. Meetings. Late-night debriefing.

You get the picture, and you no doubt see the risk.

‘I have too much on,’ I said when he’d decided he needed to go personally. ‘Seriously, there’s no way I can leave the office now.’

He ground his teeth together, looked at me as though I were pulling some soppy, emotional crap and then he nodded. ‘Fine.’

He’s due back today and my desk is no clearer—it’s just a different heap of papers that covers it now. My phone bleats and I grab it up, my nerves not welcoming the intrusion.

Perhaps my impatience conveys itself in my brusque greeting.

‘You sound like shit.’

The cackling voice brings an instant smile to my face. ‘Hi, Grandma.’

‘Where’ve you been, lovey?’

‘Oh, you know...’ I eye the paperwork dubiously. ‘Living it up.’

‘If only. Let me guess. You’re at work?’

‘You called my work number, so I suspect you know the answer to that.’

Another cackle. ‘Are you coming to see me any time soon? I have something for you.’

‘Another lecture on my priorities?’

‘You’re a smart girl. You know your priorities are out of order.’ She sighs. ‘Take it from a woman at the end of her journey. There’s a big, beautiful world out there, and even if you devote your life entirely to travelling you’ll still never get to see everywhere and everything.’

‘God, that makes me feel both nauseated and claustrophobic. It’s saccharine and overly sentimental even for you, Grandma.’

She laughs. I love her laugh. My grandma shines a light with her smile alone.

‘Everyone’s allowed a bit of sentimentalism at some point, aren’t they? Especially at my age.’

‘I travel everywhere,’ I point out, flicking my calendar onto my screen and scanning it. ‘In fact I’m off to Australia next week.’

Crap. With Jack.

‘Oh, yes? That wouldn’t be a work trip, would it?’

I grin. ‘No. And by no, I mean yes—but I imagine I’ll still get time to pet a koala.’

‘You know they’re not just crawling around the streets? You actually need to go bush to find one.’

I burst out laughing. ‘“Go bush”? Grandma, you’re a Duchess. I think it’s in the manual that you’re not allowed to “go bush”—or go anywhere, really.’

I’m not joking. Grandma really is a Duchess. She married my grandpa, who was a decade her senior and had come back from the Second World War with what we’d now know as post-traumatic stress disorder. She was a nurse, and his family hired her to care for him—to “fix” him. She quit on the first day. There wasn’t anything wrong with him, she declared. He was just different.