Free Mad for the Billionaire by Charlotte DeCorte Page A

closer. I erased the space between us. “I don’t want to end things like this.”
    “You don’t.” The planes of his face sharpened, making him look like a beautiful predator. “Then how would it please you this time?”
    “I don’t want it to end. I mean, I don’t want…” I peered into his gaze, begging without words for him to understand what I wasn’t brave enough to say out loud.
    If he saw my message, he gave no acknowledgment to its existence. Ruthless, he pushed me harder. Alexander’s words shot out rapidly. “Then what do you want, Sophia?”
    You! I want you!
    “I want…I want…” I whispered, terrified to say it out loud.
    Alexander stalked forward. Each step drove me back. “What do you want, Sophia? Do you want to walk out of here and pretend that what we had never meant anything? Do you want me to pretend along with you?”
    I knocked into a chair. He didn’t pause in his methodical pursuit. He tumbled it over on its side.
    “I’m not going to do that, Sophia. I’m not going to pretend but I will offer this—one minute.”
    “One minute for what?” My voice trembled, a pitiful soft excuse of sound for a grown woman. Alexander’s leashed aggression aroused more of the same. I had the insane urge to drop to my knees and kiss his feet.
    I should’ve been scared of him, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know exactly what I was feeling but I knew I’d felt this way before when our fights went too far and his cultured manners disappeared in a wash of rage.
    I’d always been remorseful and ashamed of those times, thinking something was very wrong with me to be so excited.
    Once he backed me halfway between the desk and the door, Alexander stopped. “One minute to decide.”
    A heartbeat passed. Then another. “I’m listening.”
    “If you stay, you’re agreeing to open the door to whatever may happen between us. If you leave, you’re closing the door. That’s it.”
    I swallowed hard. My palms dampened. Nervous, excited, and afraid, I still didn’t know whether to run towards or away from Alexander. I opened my mouth but no words came out. I was mute with longing and frustrated desire. I didn’t want a minute. I wanted a lifetime.
    Alexander then stated with terrible finality, “Just so we’re clear, you can walk out that door and we’ll never speak of this again. The past will stay in the past and I’ll be out of your life, permanently, in three months.”
    No!
    “Alexander, I…I…” Curses fell from my lips in frustration. Why couldn’t I get the words out?
    “Forty-two seconds.”
    “What exactly will happen between us?” I needed to know what to control, how to parse out my emotions.
    “Whatever is natural and right. Thirty-six seconds.”
    “I can’t just…I mean…what if it we can’t get over the past and it just blows up in our face?”
    “Then it happens. But at least we tried. Twenty-four seconds.”
    I quickly thought of my life with and without him. The obsession rose up, tainting me with memories too disgraceful to stomach at the moment. And Alexander was here, wanting me to take the plunge again.
    Later doesn’t have to matter, does it? I don’t think so. I have him now .
    “Nine. Eight. Seven.”
    “Stop!” I threw my arms around his neck and pulled his head down towards mine.
    Right before our lips met, Alexander commanded, “Say it out loud. Closed or open?”
    “Open.”
    Alexander tunneled his long fingers through the hair at my nape. “I won’t let you close the door on this, Sophia, so be very sure that you mean what you say.”
    “I mean it.” I hungered for his lips, wanting them on my mouth and body more than I wanted anything else.
    Alexander’s mouth crashed against mine. His tongue plunged into my hot, open mouth. I moaned loudly that I wanted more. My thighs parted and Alexander’s thigh slid between them. Skirt riding up high, I rubbed my core against the hard muscles. I mewled with pleasure when he pressed his leg against me