“So you’ve told me.” Sebastian pulled the glass to his mouth, the ice cubes within tinkling as they collided with each other. He swallowed the remainder of liquid before setting the glass down. “Yet here you are, wandering the halls, after I’ve asked you to lock yourself in.”
Technically, she had locked herself in. It just hadn’t lasted that long. A not-so-smart decision in retrospect.
His height forced her to tilt her face up if she wanted to meet his gaze. His close proximity forced her to swallow again.
“I’m not afraid of you.” The trembling in her voice didn’t aid the lie. “I wouldn’t still be here if I was.”
In the dark, she couldn’t be certain, but she swore something flickered in Sebastian’s eyes. Before she had a chance to further scrutinize her finding, he leaned closer, planting his hands on either side of her. With the desk at her back, Alice had no place to turn. No direction to look for safe harbor, but at him.
Sebastian kept his face just above hers, his body heat conspiring to confuse her. She breathed in his scent, his air, and fought to keep previously dormant hormones under submission. Then he lowered his head before his lips brushed hers in a barely there caress, and all plans to act aloof went out the window.
“With a heart beating that fast,” he said, meeting her mouth again with a soft touch, “if it’s not fear, then it must be...excitement.”
Chapter Five
If anyone else would have discovered his pet project, he would have been enraged. Even now he wondered at why he was letting his dick do the talking instead of his brain. Then again, every time Alice came near him, blood went free-falling from his head to another area further south, in a rush.
Instead of working on one of a million things that required his attention, he’d chosen to sit in the dark, brooding over the woman who lured him as if a siren. At first glance, he’d thought she didn’t have what it took to capture his attention, but for every second he spent with her, the more that belief faded.
He wanted her so badly every bone in his body ached, every muscle tensed with fragile restraint. When he told her to be afraid of him, he meant it. Hundreds of years of discipline turned into a jumbled mess when he touched her. And when he kissed her, like now? Forget it.
These innocent, stolen meetings of his lips and hers were supposed to help him remember himself. To remember she was a stranger, a human, someone who shouldn’t stir his emotions. Instead, all they did was make him forget himself in her taste. Her feel. The way she clung to his shirt as if afraid he would disappear. God, how he understood that desperation.
Bast tore himself away from her mouth. “You truly are fearless.”
Heightened vision saw her face cloud over. “No, not really.” She sighed. “Things just couldn’t get much worse, is all.”
“What are you running from?”
She hesitated before replying, “Everything.”
“Except me, a complete stranger. Who others might caution you to run from.”
“Get over yourself. Since I’ve met you, you’ve been under the weather.” She released the mouse, as if forgetting she’d held it in the first place. Not like the little gadget would have done her any good should he have wanted to hurt her, but he liked seeing her grab it. She wasn’t as careless about her safety as he’d first thought. Alice widened her stance, putting both hands on her hips. The frown she gave him rivaled the best mother’s around the world. “Besides, if you were really going to do something, you would have done it by now.”
A fair point. Maybe his control was better than he gave it credit.
“Now,” she continued, turning away from him, “tell me about this genealogy chart and why one half is so bare. I’m pretty good with these things.”
Licking his lips, removing the last trace of her taste, helped settle his roiling emotions. Moving his focus to the chart soothed the remainder.
He normally didn’t share this little project with anyone. Not even his men. For some reason, Alice’s reaction to it intrigued him. What could it hurt to show her?
The screen saver had kicked in, so Bast hit one of the keys. He turned his shoulder, blocking her view when he typed in the password, which allowed modifications to be made on the document. Together they stared at the complex diagram, which grieved him every time he tried to put it to rights.