10. Helen #3
Riding on the tail of my wanton thoughts, those words made my cheeks flame. An unbearable burning flared between my thighs, and I rubbed my knees together under my desk. A breathy sound escaped me as I leaned back in my chair to escape the intoxicating air around him.
His lips cut into a damning smirk. “You blush so prettily when I call you a good girl, Monty.” And his voice was husky, low, coursing through me like a drug.
Something in between a gasp and a scoff leapt from my throat. “Bordel de merde! You’re insufferable.”
His mask slipped for a split second. Long enough to catch the downward quirk of his lips and the shadow that passed through his eyes.
“Perhaps, but you pay attention to me when I piss you off.” My chest splintered.
He cleared his throat as if nothing had happened and his devilish smile returned.
“Now come on, tell me what’s happened to get Bilbo and Gamgee right outside your office today. ”
The heavy tension remained, pressing on my shoulders like an unshakable weight.
Anxiety and desire swaddled me in a confusing cradle, rocking me back and forth in a storm.
Adrift in an endless sea, but I knew not to tell him I’d been followed.
Drake drifted in my shadow as the leviathan lurking in those turbulent waves.
The frothy, surging possession in his gaze warned me away from the truth as much as it warmed my insides.
“I have a lead on the money handler. For the masks.” Even though he stood over the desk, I looked down my nose at him. “I’m going to be paying him a visit once he’s located.”
“You are? Not an enforcer?” If I’d thought my diversion would curb his anger, I stood corrected. “That’s something I should be doing. We’re supposed to be working together to solve this, aren’t we? I’ll go.”
With each word my indignation rose higher, as did I. I stood from my chair, hands splayed on my desk, nostrils flaring, and eyes narrowed into blades meant to cut him.
“I’ve done my part for my family for ten years. You have no idea the things I’ve done and seen.” Venom dripped from my tongue. “Do not think for a moment that you can waltz in here and disrupt my life or everything I’ve worked for.”
“I don’t want to disrupt your life, Monty!
” Drake met my ire, voice grating. But his was agony and passion, not anger.
His shoulders dropped, and he softened. “I’m here to help you.
Let me help you. You’ve always been capable—fucking brilliant—I know you can handle yourself.
I know you can. But let me come with you, at least.” Something else hid beneath that plea.
Something I didn’t want to dig up and examine.
“Fine,” I blurted before my brain caught up.
Drake staggered back, a hesitantly hopeful smile brightening his face.
He sank into his chair—my office chair—that at some point since he’d begun bothering me, I’d started to associate with him.
Maybe it was on the first day he brought me a coffee.
Or when he realized I barely ate throughout the day and started fetching me lunches that I begrudgingly ate between meetings and tedious phone calls.
Things he’d done for me long ago when meetings were exams and phone calls were long hours of studying.
I opened my laptop and returned to work, heart racing under his intense stare.
Drake watched me with the same dark fire in his eyes that he used to on those long nights in the library before we slipped off to hidden corners to indulge.
“You keep staring at me. Please don’t look at me like that.” My tone wavered as I cut my eyes to him. He was already staring back.
“How am I looking at you, Monty?” His voice melted me like butter cut with a hot knife. It was warm and low, tragically poignant.
“Like you feel something for me.”
Drake’s throat bobbed, and his lips parted.
I could have heard a pin drop in the following silence.
It stretched too long without his outright denial—a denial I needed him to speak into existence.
For my own peace of mind, if nothing else.
Instead, he watched me with nothing short of remorse swimming in those rich brown depths.
A phone trilling snapped the delicate balance of tension in my office.
Drake sucked in a sharp breath before reaching into his front suit pocket.
His dark brows knitted together, and his upper lip curled with distaste as he glared at the screen.
After a brief huff, he rose from the chair and buttoned his suit.
“Looks like I have other duties to attend for the day, Monty.” A rueful longing in his expression struck me. Like he didn’t want to leave, but we both knew whatever message he’d received surely came from his father. He had to answer the call.
“Be careful.” I bit my tongue before the damn thing betrayed me again.
Drake paused in the doorway with one hand on the frame and his face down turned as if the floor held the answers to every question in the universe. He nodded, acknowledging my hurried words before whispering under his breath. “I still dream of you.”
He dropped that bomb, then exited my office. The bastard didn’t turn back, leaving me with a lit fuse and a prickling sensation in my eyes.