"Her?" Brent stammered, peering between me and Axel with widening eyes and lifting eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

Axel held fast, stiffening beside me. "Positive."

His energy—hot, irritated, keeping his true words in his mouth before he splattered them all over Brent's face—was difficult to be near. It riled me up, made me want to stand up and scowl at Brent the same way he was.

"She botched your younger sister's wedding," said Brent, sounding too sure of himself to match his hesitant expression, the trembling of his lips. He stood tall, but he was fumbling for coherence; Axel intimidated him, surpassed him in every way, and he knew it. "Didn't she? You'd want to hire her again, give her another chance? I promise you that we have much better planners—"

"—no." Axel's fist tightened. I felt the anger in the gesture, the heat of his skin, the tension radiating up his arm. "She didn't botch anything. On the contrary." His voice darkened as he raised his fist, loosening it so he could smooth over his shirt. "She was excellent. Vivienne saved the event several times."

Brent scoffed. "I doubt that." His fake facade of pride and bravery was on the verge of collapsing, but he wasn't quite finished with the pretense yet. He was holding on, insistent that I sucked, that I was a nobody who did nothing right.

Axel flinched, and in that one, simple gesture, I gathered how much he loathed Brent. He was doing everything he could not to launch across the desk—conveniently placed between him and Brent, I thought—and strangle my boss. Or to whip out his phone and call his lawyers to proceed with suing Brent for being a dick.

"Vivienne Clarke is an asset to your company, Mr. Bowers," he said, in the steadiest voice, with only a hint of a crack through the surface. Someone who didn't know him would think he was being polite; but having heard him use this intonation before, towards me, I knew what it meant.

He was edging towards an explosion. Like that night on the balcony, when I told him who I thought he was, and was sorely mistaken.

"She's your best asset, in fact," he continued, seething, "so I insist. She's the only one I'll accept from your firm. I'm more than happy to bring my business elsewhere if you keep declining to let me hire her."

Brent's face flashed red, and so did his eyes in the second he snapped them to me. Then he inhaled a sharp breath and smiled the fakest smile I'd ever seen. "I insist that we have better planners in this firm, including myself. Why, I've been behind many of the recent celebrity weddings in the L.A. area, and I think—"

"—I think you should let me choose who I want to work with, as one of your most recent celebrity clients." Axel's hip was so close to mine, I wanted to grab it, hold on for dear life as he took us on this crazy ride.

Going up against Brent, like this, was exhilarating and refreshing. And also, an incredible turn-on.

I'd never seen Brent struggling so much to contain his fury, to bite back his words. His favorite past-time was to mention how awful I was, but Axel wasn't letting him; Axel was dominating him. God, it was hot.

Brent blinked and cleared his throat. "If you're sure, then."

"I'm sure." Axel's arms lost some of their tension. "I don't see why it matters so much, considering the percentage your firm makes off all this. Have I not been one of your most generous donors since I hired Vivienne for Violet's wedding?" Brent nodded and opened his mouth to reply, but with one swipe of his hand through the air, Axel silenced him. "I thought so. Vivienne Clarke is who I want, and that's final."

Vivienne Clarke is who I want. I knew it wasn't said the way I wanted it to be—that he wanted me, my personality, my presence at his side—but the words still caught me off guard.

I liked hearing them.

I shuddered, only then realizing how I'd been sitting so upright my spine was aching. I'd been so absorbed in the moment, in the back-and-forth power plays between my atrocious boss and the man I'd been sleeping with, that I'd forgotten where I was.

Brent opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and let out a small, nervous chuckle. "Well. Then it's settled."

Axel set a hand to his hip. "Not quite. If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with Vivienne." He side-glanced at me. "Alone."

I gulped, all my emotions striking up my throat and clogging it. I couldn't reply, couldn't move; of course, I wanted to be alone with him, but it was dangerous.

Because being alone with him meant sexual tension, which meant a struggle, which meant more nights of passionate nightmares about his naked body.

But it was too late; Brent was already moving towards the door, grumbling under his breath. "I'll let you use my office, because hers is catastrophically small."

As he closed the door behind him, I rolled my eyes. "Gee, I wonder why that is."

He'd been the one to assign me to the smallest, most closet-like space to do my work in. No window, barely any room to move; but I was used to it.

The instant the door clicked shut, Axel's shoulders slumped, and he groaned. "I fucking hate that man." He blew out his cheeks and dropped into the seat beside mine, more relaxed than I'd ever seen him. "I can't tell you how difficult he was to deal with when I first asked to hire you."

"He's the worst," I said, containing my need to congratulate Axel on keeping his cool better than any of the other employees here ever had. Some of us had spoken up to Brent, even tried to report him to HR—but he was HR. He was everything in this firm, and we were all stuck until we found something else; somewhere with non-abusive management.

"I hate your company," said Axel, his deep, brown eyes meeting mine fully, for the first time. "But it's you I want."

It's you I want. I knew he spoke of the wedding planner, not me, the woman he'd played around under the sheets with. But the comment still inflamed my cheeks, my heart, made my center pulse with need for him.

"Estelle wants you too," he added, "and won't tolerate his bullshit. Good thing I'm the one handling all this." He huffed. "She'd have slapped him with a lawsuit. As in, actually slapped him."

I giggled at the image, which I could picture Estelle doing. "I got her email and confirmed with her. We were waiting for...well...this, I suppose. For you."

Axel licked his lips, and I couldn't look away. Couldn't quit picturing those lips on mine, on me, trailing down my neck and between my breasts and under my—

"Right, so..." Axel stood up, readjusting the lapels of his pristine navy jacket. "This is happening, then?"

I figured I should rise, too, because if I sat there with him towering over me, I'd let my gaze wander to whatever was eye-level, and at that moment, it'd be his crotch.

"It's happening," I said, rising from the chair and pressing down on the wrinkles on my pants.

He watched me get up, his eyes roving over my body, my curves. He didn't lick his lips again, but his mouth was open enough for me to see his tongue dancing inside.

"When can we get together to discuss details? Because I'd rather not do it here, with him," he threw his thumb over his shoulder towards the door, "in the vicinity. He irks me."

"That's putting it lightly." I tried to put some distance between us and moved to the other side of the chair. The heat coming off him in waves was no longer angry; it was hungry. It was desire, dripping from his eyes, wrapping its sexy arms around me and yanking me closer.

I wanted to be closer, but I knew better. Axel and I...we were dangerous for each other. Forbidden to touch. Forbidden to even be close.

He was gorgeous. Godly. So authoritative, talking back at Brent, leashing his rage in such a composed, sexy way. Everything about the past ten minutes sat with me, boiling on the inside, and all I wanted was to jump in Axel's arms and kiss him a thousand times. To thank him for defending me, thank him for being here. But also to rip his clothes off and delight in his delicious body one last time.

Because it would have to be the last time. There shouldn't even be a last time, but I wanted it. Craved it.

How fun would it be for him to fuck me here, on Brent's desk? A clap-back towards Brent's attitude. Vengeance sex. What a perfect way to release tension, to get out all our frustrations. How exciting to think of getting caught by him, too, and him not being able to do or say a thing, because Axel was his most important client.

I wondered if Axel was thinking as I was. His gaze kept switching from my eyes to my cleavage to my legs; as if calculating the risks of heaving me onto the desk and plunging into me without making too much noise.

I wouldn't stop him. I couldn't stop him. But I knew I should.

"Estelle informed me she wanted us all to meet soon," I said, backing up again, since we kept getting closer despite the chair between us. Like the universe pushed us together, desperate for us to do what we weren't allowed to. "So, whenever works for you is fine with me."

"Whenever," he said, not one second after I'd finished my sentence.

I could have sworn his breath was fire, blaring up to me, its scorching caress over my cheeks bringing me too close to losing control.

"If this is my contract..." I swallowed, sensing his approach before he even started. "Then I'm one hundred percent devoted to—" I caught myself before I said you, "—to it. And only to it. No other jobs."

I bit my tongue as he reached his hand out, as if to touch me; but then I realized he was trying to shake it. I came down from my high almost at once, half-happy, half-sad that he didn't want me as badly as I wanted him. Just a handshake; formal and polite and reserved.

"We'll communicate about all those details, then," he said, his sultry voice the complete opposite from his rigidity.

Maybe he did want me. Because his arm was taut, his fingers hardly moving as he waited for me to join my hand to his. The glow in his eyes was intense, so much so it pulled me in, and I didn't even think before I slid my fingers between his.

Electricity shot through me the moment we touched. It was that same shock I'd experienced when he stood beside me, but now it shocked me, flowed through and sizzled all my nerves.

We stood in silence, gaping, and the brief flare of lust in his eyes told me he felt that electric current, too. He felt the pulse of need whoosh through us. He felt—

Our lips crashed and our tongues twirled within seconds. There was no stopping to breathe, no stopping to think. We were dizzy with want, unwilling to pause and understand the consequences of our actions.

Making out in my boss' office? It was everything I'd fantasized over, but never thought would happen.

Axel hefted me up by the ass and deposited me on the desk, not making a sound. He pried between my legs, and at once I sensed his erection rubbing up against the seam of my pants. God, he was so hard, so fast.

I remembered what that was like. What he was like. The in-and-out motion of his cock and the way it sent me soaring—

"Axel," I let out, along with a muffled moan as I buried my face into his shoulder, "we can't."

He was thrusting into me, his penis desperate to get past my clothes and plunge into me, where it belonged. His hands wandered over my front, grabbing at my breasts, massaging them through the shirt fabric.

Fuck.

"I know," he grunted low, like a growl, "but I just..."

My heart ran wild, my body caving to my arousal. I wanted him, needed him, right then and there; but by the time we took clothes off and found a condom and got started, Brent would burst back in and catch us. And as appealing as that idea had been minutes ago, it now terrified me.

"I missed you," he whispered, his lips tickling along my earlobe. "So fucking much."

"I..."

My voice caught in my throat. The more I felt his dick sliding against my dampened pants, the more I knew this had to stop. Now. We'd get carried away, we'd get deeper into this spiral of fucking and regretting it and fucking again...

I missed him too. I craved him. But I couldn't say it. If I did, this would go too far.

I pressed my hands to his chest and pushed him away. "Stop." I bit the insides of my cheeks and hopped off the desk as I fixed my jacket, my shirt. "This is...no, Axel."

He wiped his mouth and gave a quick nod. "Yeah. Yes." He shifted about, fixing his pants to hide his enormous erection. "You're right. I'm sorry, I got..."

"Carried away," I said for him. I rolled my shoulders and swallowed down all the arousal, all the flashing images of what might have happened had I not stopped us.

Fucking fuck.

I couldn't do that. Being around him like this, having to pretend like every time we kissed, I wasn't falling for him; it was too much. The way our bodies meshed, the way we were attracted to each other, unable to not touch one another, it was too risky. My career depended on us keeping our hands to ourselves.

"Mr. Levine," I said, inclining my head as I marched past him, struggling not to let my chin dip. "A pleasure working with you."

The door opened as I was about to put my hand on the knob.

Mr. Bowers appeared, eyebrows raised, and he mouthed, "so?"

"Mr. Bowers will discuss terms and contracts with you," I said, speaking loud enough for Axel to hear. "I'll be in my closet—um, I mean, office, if you need me."

I rushed out without another word, without turning to glance at Axel, without bothering to explain anything to Brent.

Away, away, I needed to be as far away as possible before Axel's eyes and body and voice enraptured me to the point of no return.

☼☼☼