Page 25 of Wicked Dares
Of course, humiliating myself in front of strangers wasn’t enough. Fate had to make him powerful too.
Oh my God. I press a trembling hand to my heart. Any second now, it’s going to leap out of my chest and flee from the building.
What am I going to do?
And I have to go back in there with the coffee. I’m not even supposed to be making the coffee. I offered to because the secretary training me on the admin systems needed to take an important call.
I reach the breakroom and head over to the espresso machine. The sleek black counter shines beneath the recessed lighting as I lean against it. My hands are shaking so much I can’t even pick up a mug.
“So, this is work?” comes a voice from behind me.Hisvoice.
Every nerve ending in my body sparks awake and my spine goes ramrod straight.
Slowing my breathing, I turn to face him.
Seeing him up close leaves no room for doubt. It really is him.
And now that we’re alone, all I can feel are his hands on me, his mouth tasting my skin, and him… buried deep inside me.
The memory tightens my chest like a fist is clamped around it.
Unsure of what to do, I get lost in a kerfuffle of bringing my hand back to my chest, then resting it at my side, then it’s back on my chest seconds later. Shit, I don’t know what to do with myself.
“I… I didn’t know. I didn’t know who you were.”
I didn’t know I was climbing into bed with a man whose surname carries just as much power as the big celeb families in the country.
And I still don’t know his name.
He steps closer, stopping a pace away. He tilts his head in that casual kneel-down-and-worship-me manner as a grin slides across his lips.
“Levi Vale,” he says, looking me up and down.
God, I was right. He’s a Vale.
Levi Vale. As inValeGlobal, the renowned investment company where I hoped to spread my roots and grow. It was supposed to look good on my resumé, a foot in the door for a future where I hoped to get into marketing.
How in the ever-loving fuck did I manage to have a one-night stand with a man who’s practically my boss?How?
This is the kind of thing that happens in messy TV dramas, not to me.
“You’ve gone pale, Butterfly.” His voice drips with amusement.
And Butterfly... The name hits differently now, with more menace.
More ownership too. But maybe it always sounded like that, and I was too fascinated with him to tell.
“I should go.”
His grin widens. “Thought you were making coffee.”
I look back at the machine. “Oh. Yes. Yes, I am.”
“What’s your name?” His voice deepens, and the potent interest in his eyes grows. Like knowing my name suddenly matters.
I stare at him as if he just asked me to speak an alien language.
But all he did was ask me my name. The one element of secrecy we weren’t supposed to disclose.
