"Divorced?" Laura repeated once Celene hung up the phone.

"Well, technically, we're calling off the engagement, but 'divorce' has a rather dramatic ring to it, don't you think?" Charlie joked.

No, she didn't think. She couldn't think. Charlie was supposed to marry Celene. Laura had laboured night and day to extinguish her feelings and accept it as the unchanging truth.

Now, the idea of them being separated was so foreign – so utterly inconceivable – that it drifted aimlessly in the sea of her thoughts, its anchor long cast away with Laura's fantasies of her and Charlie together.

Desperate for direction, Laura's mind scrambled and spat out a solution to the only problem she could solve.

"Theatrics aside, we need to make sure Jack shuts up and this doesn't get out," she said. "I'll have our lawyers suppress the media with a gag order and slap Jack with a cease and desist. Even if she had a back-up stash of seditious material, she won't be able to legally disseminate them."

She turned to Charlie for a response, but he sat relaxed on his couch, studying her with intense curiosity.

Fuck. She'd forgotten how easy it was to drown in his eyes. She wrung her hands, as if to knead the nerves from her flesh.

Their engagement was the dam that suppressed her wild enamour for him.

The dam had just burst open.

"Let's celebrate," Charlie's voice sliced through her thoughts as he launched from the sofa and headed towards his open kitchen, the back of his white shirt wrinkled with the worries of before. Laura admired the way it held his broad frame in a tight hug, and how his tailored navy pants curved around his hips.

She bit her lip. Her guilty pleasure now came without the guilt.

He rounded past the dark-wood island and disappeared behind his towering steel refrigerator, before yelling out. "I don't have any fruity liquor with me, but..."

"I'm not drinking," Laura shouted back.

"Oh?" He peeked his head from behind the fridge door. "Why not?"

"I'm going to cut back. I've come to realise I do some pretty stupid things when I drink." Her eyes fell to the floor, anchored by embarrassment. "Especially around you."

"Yeah, you certainly have a penchant for that, don't you?" he chuckled. "Well, if you're not drinking, then neither am I."

He pulled a glass bottle of cold tea from the cooler and scooped two cups from the black marbled countertop before heading back out. Laura eyed the bottle with curious wonder.

"It's not earl grey, but I brewed it myself. I'm a sorry Brit, after all." Charlie poured the cloudy white drink into their glasses. "Give it a swig."

She pressed her lips to the cup and took a gulp. The cool liquid slid across her tongue, its light, fruity taste coating her senses, before sliding gleefully down her throat. She couldn't remember why she ever needed alcohol in her drinks.

"This is wonderful, Charlie," she gushed. "What's in it?"

"White tea, with a hint of mint and lemongrass." He smiled, taking a sip of his own. "Glad you like it."

She nodded as she nursed her drink in silence.

"What's the matter?" Charlie asked, staring at her nervous nibble on the lip of the glass.

Laura inhaled to speak, but the words burrowed deep into her chest. It was too good to be true. Charlie – the forbidden fruit that was so disturbingly desirable, who had proven his wily smarts in business, who had teased her beyond her emotional limits – was now single.

And he wanted her.

"Well?" He slid down the smooth leather of the couch, his murmur tickling her senses with tantalising promise. As he entwined a finger in a lock of her hair, she breathed in, remembering how marvellous his hands felt on her.

She had run out of reasons to resist him.

Charlie traced his electric touch down her neck, drawing out a sigh between her parted lips – lips that he devoured with his own, crashing against her like waves against a hungry shore, the urgent tide lapping across her tongue and licking every last inch of her being that ached for his taste.

The fortress that she had built crumbled under his kiss.

She leaned into his embrace, abandoning her glass on the coffee table, and coiled an arm around his shoulder, pulling herself onto his lap. She returned his ferocity with the insistent pull of lip between teeth – no bite was enough to satiate her lust for this man. Her legs braced against his thighs, hardly realising her dress had ridden up until she felt his hand slide in and give her butt a squeeze.

Her palm planted against his chest and she ran it across the delicious curves of his biceps before pulling back from their kiss, studying his eyes with tentative concern.

"Would your father be okay with this?"

"My father..." he chuckled, clenching his jaw and gazing at her with the impatience of interrupted desire. "He's always had nothing but high praise and honeyed words for you. Laura Rain, his young prodigy, his diamond in the dust. It didn't matter what other people said. It didn't matter what his own son thought."

"Charlie..." she whispered, the brick of realisation weighing down her heart. "I thought he was going to make you CEO."

He chortled, the sound a mixture of bitter amusement. "Me? You were always going to take the throne."

"Stop teasing me!" she exclaimed, her eyes falling from his as she pulled her hands from his arms. "There's no way your father would choose a small-time worker like me over his own son."

"If I was teasing you..." he trailed a series of soft kisses across her collar, the coarse stubble of his chin grazing across her cleavage. "... you'd know it." He grasped her hand and played with her slender fingers. "Give yourself more credit, won't you? You've done great work for our company. If my father didn't promote you, I would have."

Guilt ate into her gut like a wicked barb. "Don't you resent me for it?"

Charlie smirked. "No. Well... Not anymore." He snaked his arm around her waist. "But that was in the past."

"Wait," she returned, stopping his advance with her palm. "Not anymore?"

He sighed. "I wasn't the most upstanding son. My father never hesitated to make it known. So when I heard him talking about this young successor, I resented it. And when I saw you... it only made me madder."

She cocked her head. "Seeing me made you madder?"

"Yeah. Not only were you my father's favourite – so quick and intelligent – you just had to be so fucking hot."

A silly grin formed on her face. "Who knew drilling you would get you so worked up?"

"Drilling?" Charlie echoed, a mischievous smirk sneaking over his lips as he loomed over Laura. "So that's what you've been thinking about."

He ran a hungry palm down her mauve dress, the fabric crinkling beneath his insistent pull, the thin straps slipping down the slope of her shoulders and falling away to the couch, revealing her breasts cupped by the purple lace of her bra.

Laura blushed, the skin of her chest prickling shy, but her smile widened in seductive pride.

"I may or may not have worn this for you."

A dark shadow crept across his gaze as he drank in the sight of her in the delicate undergarment – but not for long, as he launched forward with clenched jaw, tugging impatiently at her dress, now just a pesky veil over the rest of her body.

"Let's see what else you've been hiding from me," he demanded, sliding the fabric off her hips and discarding it onto the floor.

"Nothing special," she teased, her thumb running furtively over the matching seams of her thong.

Stormy lust clouded Charlie's expression, stirring an excitement in her belly that tingled mercilessly down to her purple-clad core. His fingers trailed over her inner thighs in a tantalising creep.

"Here's what you get for being such a fucking tease," he murmured, his touch inching closer at a painful pace. "Two can play this game."

Laura's breath shortened as she felt his fingers crawl towards her with a torturous lack of urgency. She bit down on her lip, concealing her agony, writhing her hips against the growing bulk in his pants.

"Not if you break first," she whispered.

A nonchalant hum flowed from his lips as Charlie's hand found the fabric of her panties and grazed across her centre, sending a jolt shooting up her spine. She clutched the back of the couch, the agonising anticipation building into an intolerable swell beneath the lace – the frustrating cloth that stood between her and a world of pleasure.

Laura squirmed, but Charlie was unrelenting.

He nodded at her bra.

"Take that off," he commanded.

Like an obedient girl, she reached back to unclasp the hooks, but she wasn't letting him get away with an easy reveal. She peeled the garment from her skin, keeping the front plastered to her chest, and grinned back at him.

"You're not getting a free show, Spectre. You have to return the favour."

Grunting in mock annoyance, he pulled away to unbutton his shirt, and Laura mourned the momentary loss of his touch.

But the view that was unfurling before her made up for it.

The stifling collar of his work shirt cracked open, revealing Charlie's delicious collarbone that, until now, Laura could only enjoy in stolen gasps and glances; now, it stared at her with seductive impunity, daring her eyes to wander farther south with his hands as they teased the buttons free.

With one last pop, the gap in his immaculately ironed shirt fell open, and with urgent lust Laura ran her hands over the lean lines of his belly and hungrily pressed her lips against his.

"You took away my view," he muttered unhappily into the kiss. "Whatever will I do with you?"

He yanked her bra off and tossed it off the couch, before travelling his touch up her thighs and across her exposed ass, hitting the slim cloth of her thong. He danced across the fabric, grazing the bundle of nerves hiding within.

The electrifying impact shot her back up in an arch and she gasped.

As if fuelled by her shock, Charlie pressed on, his fingers flirting with her flesh that swelled and wept beneath the cruel fabric.

"Charlie..." she whispered, her hips grinding down with helpless hunger.

"What is it?" he returned nonchalantly, prodding at the soaked cloth. "Tell me what you want."

"I want this off." She tugged at the thong. "Now."

He smirked and pulled the skinny garment clean from her skin, his eyes taking their time with the view of her body.

"Much better than I imagined," he muttered, running a hand over her bare breasts.

"Fantasising about me?" she teased. "Tell me what else your dick has thought of."

He gripped her waist and nudged her back onto the couch, her hair splaying and blending into the black leather, voracious hunger flickering in their eyes. He trailed his hands down her legs before spreading them apart and glaring at her.

"Definitely a lot of this."

She cried out as his tongue lapped the burning spot that wept for his touch, writhing against him, fingers buried in his feathered locks, begging him to deliver her to unending bliss. He kept his pace against her clit, meat thrashing wildly against flesh, pushing her ever closer towards release.

"Charlie..." she gasped. "Coming..."

With a sharp sigh, she broke.

Lowering her back from its arch, her lungs heaved for air. He flicked his tongue over her twitching button with one last lick, sparking a jolt through her spine, before climbing over her and planting a kiss on her forehead.

"There's one more thing that's been haunting my dreams." His blue eyes dove into hers.

She bit her lip, her mouth curled into a teasing smile. "If I make your dreams come true, can I have that promotion?"

"My darling," he chuckled. "You can have my whole life."

Her heart fluttered. Darling. She never thought that word would sound so wonderful on his lips.

She ran my hands down his spine, watching his eyelids flutter shut, his lashes falling with the slope of his nose.

Slowly, she lowered his crotch into hers.

The lines in his jaw tensed as he breached her walls, his length burrowing into her flesh, filling her with delightful mass. She gripped his thighs, digging anxiously into his tightened muscles.

"Does it hurt?" His gentle concern seeped through heavy breath. "I'll go slow."

His tip nudged past a tight spot in her and she gasped, thrusting her hips out. She curled her legs around his waist and buried him deeper. "No. Go faster."

A satisfied smile lit up his face – a divine portrait of fulfilled lust – as he pumped, the thwack of their flesh resounding through the sprawl of his suite. She bit down to muffle her cries, but he gripped her jaw and growled through clenched teeth.

"Don't. I want to hear you come."

She released her lips and exhaled a hungry breath.

"Faster," she moaned.

With quickened pace he thrusted harder, his meat pumping relentlessly into her, the raw spot within her building into an unbearable swell. He shifted his hand and wrapped it around her throat, the forceful move stoking a dark blaze in his eyes as he rammed faster.

"God," she seethed, pleasure mounting to an intolerable peak. "There!"

"Here?" he taunted, pushing every single button buried within her.

"Fuck!" The next hit threw her over the edge and she was sent, her muscles trembling helplessly as she clawed into his back and clung to the never-ending high. With one final thrust he pushed in and released.

A soft sound escaped his lips, and only a second later did her brain register it as the contented sigh of her name.

♥

The luxurious touch of silk on skin barely registered in Laura's mind – it was currently occupied with a different kind of sensation.

Charlie's warm embrace enveloped her being as she nuzzled into the crook of his neck, staring into the full blackness of his bedroom ceiling. The duvet was kicked carelessly away; he'd attempted to wrap her naked skin, but she perfectly liked the way his body radiated endless warmth.

It must have been an hour since they'd collapsed in his bed and enjoyed each other's wordless company. Bliss clouded Laura's brain with the memory of Charlie's touch – until it thinned away.

Slowly, doubt began to seep back into her mind.

Sure, she liked Charlie, and he fancied her back. But this wasn't some college romance – she was falling for a man whose troubled past she knew nothing of.

The tyranny of uncertainty terrorised her being.

"Charlie, I have to know. What happened to you and Celene in college?" She paused. "What happened to you?"

She felt his ribs tremble with a hum as he shifted his weight.

Laura braced herself. This was it. The Talk that pushed them beyond breaking point. That demanded the unreasonable payment of honesty. That always scared the wolves back into their den.

She craned her neck up, forcing her vision to pierce the darkness of Charlie's room and meet his eyes. The ocean in his gaze – usually brimming with fervour and ferocity – was now cloaked in the black of the night.

He inhaled a belaboured breath, his fingers tapping against her waist in hesitant contemplation, before finally releasing a sigh.

"You're not going to like me very much after this."

♥