Free Dazzled: Reckless Desires - final ARC by J.K. Harper

him now, almost instantly wishing she hadn't. Something was changing in his eyes. The green flecks seemed more pronounced. Brighter, somehow. The sheer desire that sizzled between them—it was palpable. Like a living thing. As if he was calling to her, driving her toward him with some sort of indomitable force. A force she really, really wanted to give into, despite her rational side contending that this was only the road to emotional danger and professional madness.
    "I've been watching you all evening. Wanting you." The liquefying deep bass of his voice quickened her breathing despite her attempts to control her ridiculously aroused body. “And I always get what I want."
    That self-assured note managed to shake Lacey back to a semblance of her usual strong self. "Oh, really, Mr. Bernal? Always?"
    She really didn't mean for that to be a leading question. But the sudden blast of hunger in his eyes, and what she could swear was a deepening intensity of his addictive scent bathing her in his outrageously primitive pheromones, clearly told her she'd just thrown down the gauntlet.
    "Yes, Ms. Whitman." He prowled closer, trapping her with his stunning eyes. "I do in fact always get what I want."
    "Is that a fact." Her voice sounded like she was panting a bit, darn it. Not exactly like the cultured, professional employee she strove to be. "And what exactly is it you want right now?"
    Another step, and his face was inches away from hers. Her rational side instinctively battling for control over the body that desperately wanted to find out exactly what it was he wanted to have, she could hardly breathe as his proximity struck a match to the hot flicker of sheer lust she'd been attempting to douse all evening.
    "I thought I made that clear the other night, Lacey. I want you.” The sheer male possessiveness in his tone sent a knee-knocking shiver racing through her. “I want to taste you. To touch you. To hear what your voice will sound like when you can't say anything other than my name. "
    With each descriptive word he said, Lacey's brain cells promptly fell over and played dead. Acutely aware of the pulse banging in her throat, which she knew he noticed because his eyes strayed to it with an expression she couldn't quite decipher, and her rapid breathing that she just couldn't seem to control, she tried one last weak plea for rationality. "We—we already discussed this. You're my employer. You hold a position of power over me. This isn't something either one of us can do."
    She sounded thoroughly unconvincing even to herself.
    “Oh, yes, it is.” His hot breath brushed over her cheek as he added in a whisper, “No consequences for either of us. I promise that. And no regrets. Just stolen pleasure as I bend you over that desk of mine, as I've been fantasizing about doing all evening.”
    Oh. My.
    Well, in that case, all her protests about propriety were really unnecessary.
    “That...sounds just lovely,” she said like an absolute idiot, her libido roaring through her like an out-of-control freight train.
    “Excellent,” he replied, his lips just grazing her ear before turning and hustling them toward his office.
    Lacey struggled not to topple over as Sebastian propelled her down the wide hallway. Her every sense surged within her, electrifying her body to the point that it felt almost painful. As he strode alongside her in his ridiculously gorgeous tailored suit, the formal vest and tie matching the soft umber tones of her own fancy dress, she could absolutely understand why nearly every woman at the ceremony had been sliding glances at the man like they wanted him to lick them like they were ice cream.
    She was pretty sure he'd just promised he was about to do that to her right now.
    They reached his sumptuous office in record time, Sebastian barely pausing to press his hand against the small, tasteful security panel beside the door. The panel lit up as his handprint registered, the door slid open, and the dark, fierce,