I pushed off the desk and threw myself back into the chair. I pushed it back on its wheels so there was some breathing room between us and so I had space to think.

“You buy in, I’m taking that as your agreement to stay for the long haul. No more running, no pretending that the grass is greener somewhere else, and I’ll agree to keep my hands off of you. We’ll be business partners and nothing else.”

I could see my offer shocked her. Her mouth moved like she was trying to make words, but none would come out. I understood the way her tricky mind worked, so I lifted both of my eyebrows up and told her, “You are not going to fuck me and forget about me like you think you can do, Key. We are so much a part of one another that separately we are almost unrecognizable. You are so deep down inside of me I feel like I’m missing pieces of myself when you aren’t around. If keeping you here where I can see you, where I can smell you, where I can breathe the same air as you means that I know you’re safe, happy, and whole, I will keep my hands and my cock to myself.” It might kill me but I had endured worse torture and torment in my time.

Key blinked those stormy eyes at me as the words sank in and she must have read the resolve on my face. She wasn’t going to take me to bed and try to burn me out like she did with all those other boys in her past. I wanted all of her, and once I had her, I was keeping her forever, but for that to happen she needed to give herself to me for safekeeping. She didn’t have to trust me, but she did have to love me.

“No sex?”

“Oh, there will be sex. Tons and tons of sex, but none of it will be between us if that’s what it takes to get you to agree.”

She harrumphed and slid off the desk so she was towering over me in those killer heels. I was glad she was back in her right skin.

“Business only?”

I nodded solemnly and ran a tired hand over my face. It was a deal with the devil, but we both knew she was going to make it anyway.

“Very lucrative and profitable business only, and if for some reason the cops shut me down, I’ll return your investment plus fifty percent of my own.”

“How much did you sink into this place? And how much do you expect me to buy in for?”

I shrugged. “I spent enough to make it what I wanted and you can pay in the same Race did. Two hundred K. I’m the primary backer, so my word is law, but if you see something not working or a way I missed to bring more money in, we can have a discussion.” Race had actually put in double that amount, but I wasn’t about to tell her that, and no one had ever accused me of being honest.

She whistled. “That’s a lot of money.”

“You have it.” She would hate to know that I knew exactly what her bank balance was. It paid to have a computer hacker on the payroll. There wasn’t much about her I didn’t know, both inside and out.

“I do have it. I just don’t know if I want to give it to you.” It sounded like she was talking about a lot more than money.

“We open this weekend, so you don’t have much time to decide.”

“I feel like I never had a choice. The second you showed up in Denver, this was all bound to happen because you always get your way.”

I shook my head slightly. “Not always.” We both knew that.

Her eyes sparked with charcoal flecks and she took a step closer so that she could bend down and put her hands on the arms of my chair. She leaned closer and closer until her mouth was hovering a mere millimeter away from mine. When she spoke, the words danced across my lips and tasted like victory and fate.

“No, not always.” Her lips pressed into mine and I had to curl my hands around the arms of the chair to keep from grabbing at her.

She teased the clamped seam of my lips with her tongue and lightly scraped her teeth across my bottom lip. I wanted to toss her backward on the desk and bury myself inside her with no finesse, just pure, animalistic lust. She brushed her lips back and forth and laughed lightly as I bit down on my already injured tongue to keep from reacting. If I mauled her now, it would undo any progress I might have made with her.

She pulled back and reached out to run her finger over each of the high arches of my eyebrows. It was the softest, gentlest touch I had ever felt from another human being and it made me focus on her pulse even more heavily than the one in my veins.

“Fine. I’m in. I’ll write you a check.”

I couldn’t speak, and if I tried, all I would be able to say to her was that she needed to get naked so I could taste her. She was going to kill me if she didn’t surrender soon. I was going to get up and move away from all the temptation she emanated when she moved her hand so that it was cupping my cheek.

“Oh, and one more thing . . .” The smile she gave me had my hard-on dying and me gulping in legitimate fear at the degree of mischief and trouble I saw in it. “I don’t have a place to stay since I left Denver in such a hurry. You don’t mind me coming to stay with you until I get situated, do you? If not, I can always call up one of my old friends, or one of my old customers from the club.”

She practically purred the last words, and I felt my resolve to keep things professional turn into a cement block in my gut. Shit. What was I supposed to do with that? Avoiding touching her, breathing her in, dreaming about her naked at work was one thing. Trying to keep my desire in my pants while she was in my private space, my retreat away from this world, would be impossible. But she had me backed into a corner and she knew it.

“You can stay with me for as long as you need to, Key.”

Both her eyebrows shot up and she licked her bottom lip. She was already launching her first salvos at me. She was a fighter just like me . . . she just used different weapons. Hers were infinitely more effective.

“Shouldn’t be a problem if we’re just going to be business associates, right?”

I groaned and muttered every dirty word I could think of in a language I knew she wouldn’t understand.

“Right.”

She gave me a fake smile that showed all her teeth and the challenge shone in her eyes. She was always fierce and ready to fight me. It shouldn’t be the kind of turn-on that it was.

“It’s good to be home. I have plans, Nassir, big plans.”

I sighed. “It’s good to have you home, Keelyn.”

She flicked her wild hair and pushed off the chair as she sauntered toward the door. “Let’s see how long you think that.”