Damn.

Caught in the empty outer office where James’ secretary should have been standing guard, but was absent instead.

“I’m not running from you,” she denied the charge calmly, despite the fact that she knew she was running. Every chance she could get for now on. “I was heading home. I’m finished for the day, Sax.”

He stood in front of her, too close, but she refused to retreat. She had run from her ex-husband for years—that was humiliating enough. She wasn’t going to back down from another man. Especially one she knew as well as she knew Sax. One that could make her senses sing with pleasure. Her body rock in orgasm. Her mind dissolve with no more than a touch. God, she was hopeless.

He towered over her, tall and broad, his shaved head gleaming in the light above them. Teak dark flesh was emphasized by the charcoal gray of his suit and his dark, chocolate eyes. Eyes that warmed as he watched her, just as his smile did.

How was she supposed to fight him and herself?

“I’m getting tired of waiting on you, Marey.” Sax didn’t beat around the bush. “You’re tempting me into that little kidnap fantasy we discussed before. You might think hiding from me is achieving whatever objective you’ve set, but I can assure you, baby, the day is going to come that I’m not going to let you run any longer after yesterday.”

She felt the flush that suddenly washed over her face.

“You really need to forget about that,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her breasts as he braced his arm against the doorway, leaning against it casually.

He was about as completely yummy as a man could get. Yummy enough that her mouth watered with the thought of tasting him, her hands itched to touch him. And she knew every muscle under that skillfully tailored jacket was as hard and tight as that bulge behind the zipper of his slacks. A bulge well capable of satisfying a woman in any and every way.

She risked a quick glance down. Oh, hell yes, definitely yummy.

“You can touch if you want.” He was openly laughing at her as her gaze flew back to his. “After yesterday, there’s really no sense in being shy, honey.”

Marey cleared her throat, not so much embarrassed and never shy, as she was aware of the tightrope she was walking. Fighting herself was hard enough. She didn’t know if she could fight him as well.

Not considering the years of dreams and the silly emotional attachment she had developed to him after her divorce. Why she was running now made no sense to her, and she doubted it would make any sense to anyone else.

“That’s all right,” she finally replied calmly, refusing the invitation to touch him. “I do need to leave though, if you don’t mind.”

“Leave with me.”

The offer left her stunned. Her eyes widened, her breath stuttering in her chest as he stared back at her somberly, intently. It was tempting. So very, very tempting.

“That’s not a good idea, Sax,” she finally whispered. “You know it’s not.”

“You can’t keep running,” he finally sighed. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep chasing after you. How long are you going to let Vince run your life like this?”

She glanced away from him, turning back as he straightened from the doorway and came closer. She stepped back, then stopped. She wasn’t going to run from him. But God, how could she handle…

Her swift indrawn breath was fully audible as his hand lifted, smoothing down the silk covering her arm. The caress had her nerves tingling, but when his hand gripped hers where it rested on her other arm, she shuddered in response. The back of his hand brushed her hard nipple, sending shards of awareness whipping through her.

Her clit caught fire, swelling, burning out of control from no more contact than the back of his hand brushing the hard point. Her pussy clenched in empty hunger, reminding her that even her vibrators suddenly lacked the satisfaction she had once found with them.

“Sax, this isn’t smart,” she whispered. “You know it’s not.”

His head lowered, his lips smoothing over her forehead as she stared up at him. The warmth, the velvet roughness of the kiss had her eyes closing and weakness sweeping over her.

“I want you, Marey,” he whispered as his lips moved along the side of her face to her ear. There, his teeth caught the sensitive lobe, tugging at it erotically as she shivered, her arms unfolding, pressing against his hard chest, her fingers curling in the silk of his shirt. “Yesterday was just a small treat. I want all of you. Hot and wet, moaning beneath me as I show you just how good we can be together. Wouldn’t you like that, baby?”

She stood, dazed, pleasure sweeping over her as he lowered one hand to the curve of her buttock, his fingers shaping the flesh as his teeth raked her neck.

“Do you remember how good it was? I do. Buried snug and deep up that sweet ass. I want to bury in your hot little pussy next. Deep and tight while I feel you milking me, hear your wild little moans in my ears.”

“You’re not playing fair,” she whispered, feeling the pleasure streaking through her womb, striking between her thighs and making her clit swell and throb with arousal.

She was so weak. Too weak.

“I’m not playing,” he whispered a second before his teeth raked her neck again and his hand clenched the flesh of her rear. “Not in the least. Remember that, Marey. This isn’t a game, and the next damned time you refuse to open that door to me, it’s coming down. You can say no if you don’t want to be touched, but I’ll be damned if I’ll worry if you’re lying in that house bleeding to death or already dead. Don’t make that mistake again.”

His voice had her shivering in trepidation. He was serious. Too serious, and she knew it.

He straightened then, staring down at her broodingly, his eyes glittering with a sensual hunger and an emotional intensity that shook her to the tips of her toes.

“Hurry and run,” he said mockingly. “Or you might not have the chance to get away again. The next time I have you cornered, I’m going to fuck you until you never dare to run from me again. You won’t be able to breathe, let alone deny what we both want.”

She blinked in shock. Run.

She moved quickly around him and did just that. Reluctantly. Straight home, to her room, to her bed, eyes closed and vibrator running as she fought to ease the craving for Sax’s touch.

Sax breathed out roughly, as she did just as he suggested—she ran. He was growing tired of this. She was more skittish now than she had ever been before. And it broke his heart. He could see the yearning, the pain in her eyes, and wanted nothing more than to ease it. To love her until the pain vanished and the happiness shone through, as it did with Ella.

Dammit, he wanted her to choose, and there lay the bitter truth. He didn’t want to force her to accept him, he didn’t want to overcome her objections or override her shyness and fears. He wanted her to come to him. Arrogance? He snorted at that thought. Probably. But she had been running for so damned long that it was starting to grate on his ego.

“She’ll stop running, Sax.” Ella stepped from the office she had been meeting Marey in, her voice concerned, compassionate. “Sometimes she gets stubborn and you just have to let her wear herself down.”

A smile quirked his lips. Ella had been defending her friend for months now. That had begun about the same time James had informed him that Ella had refused to participate in another ménage with him.

“I’ve waited a long time, Ella,” he breathed out wearily. “I’m going to get tired of waiting soon. When I do, she might have more to worry about than Vince. She’s going to have to worry about me.”

Ella ducked her head, though he caught the amused curve of her lips.

“It’s something that perhaps you should consider,” she finally said as she raised her head, her gaze direct then, somber. “Marey doesn’t always reach out for what she wants, Sax. She’s too used to having it jerked away, just as she’s within reach of it.”

He wanted her to come to him. She had asked him, pleaded with him years before to leave her alone, to stop his campaign to seduce her, to hold her. He had promised himself then that when the time came, it would be Marey’s decision. Perhaps that was where he had made his mistake. He hadn’t known then the things he knew now. Her determination to hold herself aloof, to ensure she never lost anyone, nor was betrayed again.

He pushed his hand into the pocket of his slacks as he stared back at Ella, seeing the confident, sensual, loving woman she had become over the past year. She had run from James for nearly a decade, just as stubborn and determined as her friend was. She was happy now, glowing with it. Could he fill Marey’s eyes with the same satisfaction, that glow of a woman confident and well satisfied with what she found in her lover’s arms?

He lowered his head, staring at the rose carpet of the outer office as he fought to restrain the impulses that had been rising inside him for weeks now. After Vince’s attack on her, he hadn’t wanted her to feel as though she was confronting another extreme situation, a man unable to let go.

Perhaps instead of giving her the space to find the answers, he was doing as Ella suggested instead. Giving her a chance to hide. Marey didn’t need to hide anymore. She had been hiding for far too long.

Chapter Four

Someone was in the house.

Marey jerked up in bed later that night, terrified as she heard the sound downstairs. What the hell was it? Why hadn’t her alarm gone off?

There it was again. She blinked in the darkness. Was that a whistle? She stared into the dark bedroom, her heart racing, the sound echoing in her ears as she fought to wake up, to make sense of the sudden panic ripping through her again.

The new alarm system was supposed to be foolproof. Alerting the police and sounding a wail that would raise the dead if the house was breached. Evidently, it wasn’t as secure as the salesman had promised her.

There it was again. It was a whistle. And she knew that sound. The grating little tune was one Vince was fond of. He would sound it for hours at a time, working himself into a rage as he did so. It always heralded another accusation, another rage, and in those final weeks of their marriage, another physical blow against her.

Shit. She jumped from the bed, jerking her robe on as she grabbed her cell phone from the bed and punched in the sheriff’s number. This was insane. How the hell had he managed to get through the alarm and into the house? And why was he being so stupid?

“Sheriff’s office.” The dispatcher answered on the first ring.

“Janey, it’s Marey Dumont,” she snapped, her voice low. “Vince has broken into the house.”

She had gone to school with Janey, knew her husband and her kids. None of them liked Vince. Not that she could blame them.

“Stay with me, Marey, I’ll get someone on the way out there.”

Marey listened as Janey’s voice became more distant, imperative, as she called in the report.

“I have a car on the way, Marey,” she came back, her voice calm, cool. “I want you to stay on the phone with me, honey, till they get there. You say the alarm didn’t go off?”

“Not a peep,” she whispered. “I just happened to wake up when he made a sound downstairs. I don’t know how he got through.”

It didn’t make sense. Vince wasn’t the brightest light in the house, and electronically, his skills were nil. He would have needed the code to the gates as well as the door.

There was a crash downstairs.

“You fucking whore!” Vince screamed from the bottom of the stairs then, as something else could be heard shattering against a wall. Dammit, he was breaking her vases, she thought miserably. She had paid a lot of money for those damned things. Her insurance company was going to scream.

“Shit. Janey, tell them to put some lead on the gas,” she breathed out harshly. “He’s drunk and he’s pissed. How the hell did he get past my alarm?”