Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Anton

What is this?

I have never experienced anything like this sensation surging through me? It's base and potent and primitive and undeniable. It's as if Charlotte Madigan was created to drive me wild with need and hunger and an emotion I am too terrified to contemplate.

I've never had such an instant and undeniable attraction to someone.

Ever.

The second I looked into her eyes, I was hers. Like our souls were forged for each other.

I tried to protect her from it. I wanted to let her get away.

And then she kissed me.

She is kissing me.

I yank her to my body, our hips colliding, aligning. The blood in my veins is already surging to the most honest organ of my body, turning it hard. Charlotte moans into our kiss, the sound as greedy as my lips are on hers. I bunch the back of her shirt into my fists, holding her where I want her to be forever.

It is madness, this consuming desire, but it is also truthful. I want to surrender to it. She is mine. I am hers.

I nip at her lips, and she makes another sound, igniting concentrated lust in my being. With a guttural growl, I bury a hand into her hair and tug her head back, bowing her neck so my lips can claim its smooth, creamy skin.

"Oh…" She rolls her hips and clings to me, the boxing gloves still on her hands. "Y…yes…"

I press her closer to me, sliding my hand down over her exquisite rear end as I move my lips up the side of her throat, to her ear, nipping her lobe.

She trembles in my arms, a soft whimper falling from her. It turns my blood to molten desire.

"Anton…" she whispers, my name a ragged pant. "I…"

I crush her mouth with mine, my tongue mating with hers before I once again nip and bite and suck a hungry path down her throat to the sublime curve where her neck becomes her shoulder.

I've never lost myself to want like this. It's not enough. I want more.

I want to explore every inch of her body with my mouth.

Lifting my head, my breath shallow and quick, I gaze down into her half-shuttered eyes. Passion and pleasure smolder in their depths, and my cock throbs.

She wants me as much as I want her.

"The meeting can wait," I declare, my voice a husky growl. "I want to be inside you. I want to make you come. N?—"

She jolts back a step, out of my arms, and my entire existence cries out in protest.

Breasts heaving, lips parted, she studies me.

"Charlotte?" My heart aches. I've fucked up.

Swiping the back of her boxing glove over her lips, she closes her eyes. "What am I doing?"

I don't reach for her no matter how much I want. She is in control of this. Of us. Of what has ignited between us. I know exactly how I'm feeling, and what I want to do with that feeling, but Charlotte needs to reconcile the physical inferno between us.

Come to terms with it.

I can wait.

I think.

Heat licking through my veins, I swallow. "I will see you in the meeting," I say gently.

Opening her eyes, she looks at me over the side of her boxing glove. I wish I knew what was in her head. She's so intelligent. Far more intelligent than me. I drive fast cars, she designs them.

My gut knots, and with a single nod, I turn and stride away from her. Out of the gym, heading for Equis's HQ in the Paddock.

Why did I make her first two weeks at Equis hell?

Because you're scared, the insidious voice whispers in my head . No matter how much you want her to be impressed with you, you know you will fail, and she will reject you like everyone else.

That voice. The voice of my late father, who drove me to success by bullying me incessantly. Until I doubted everything.

Even a year after his death, I still hear it, and I still hate it. Because sometimes it speaks the truth.

But for some unfathomable reason, the idea of Charlotte Madigan rejecting me hurts more than anything I've ever contemplated.

Why?