them as he was to us. Brice remembered the last day his father ever hit him. He hadn’t returned on time after one of his late night football games. Instead of going right home, he’d decided to have some fun with one of the cheerleaders. He was hours past his curfew, but he thought if he was careful and quiet, he would be able to slip into the house unnoticed. That hadn’t been the case. For some unknown reason, his father decided to wait up for him. Why had he that night? When the smeared lipstick was seen on his cheek, he gave Brice a backhanded slap across the face. Brice wasn’t sure what possessed him to do it, but he grabbed his father and jacked him up against that wall. “Touch me again and it will be the last thing you ever do.”
His father never laid another hand on him, though he wasn’t so sure about his siblings. He was too young at that time to take the weight of responsibility for them all on his shoulders. By the time he was out of college, he was the liaison for all family issues that arose between his siblings and their father. Most were still in college, and he made sure they had an apartment of their own instead of moving back home after they graduated. Of course, he’d only accomplished that by working for his father at Poly-Shyn. The day he walked out of that company, they must have felt as though he walked out on them.
That’s the furthest thing from the truth. I did this for all of us. He knew someone needed to break away, make a secure, new path for them all. He had hoped they would want to one day join him in running this new company. Unfortunately, they were no more interested in working for him than they were in working for their father. Who could blame them? We are both assholes.
Brice hadn’t realized how much time had passed. And people wonder why I don’t like quiet time. Still with his towel wrapped around his waist, he walked over to the closet on the far wall. He pulled out a clean pair of boxers and removed the towel, throwing it off to the side.
That was when he heard the sound of something breaking on the floor behind him. Spinning around, he saw Lena with what used to be his coffee, now mixed with the remnants of a ceramic mug on the floor. As he gave her a full-frontal, her mouth was wide open. It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.
Though she appeared shocked, Brice noticed her eyes roaming up and down, taking in all of him before she turned away, flushed, and scurried from the room. His body filled with want for her. I need her or a cold shower. With his boxers in hand, he walked to the office door he had left open earlier and slammed it closed. Damn, I want her.
Chapter Five
P ure muscle. Lena had to force herself to look away, but only after taking in every sweet, sexy inch of him. The only thing that had changed over the years was how more defined and cut he was, if that was even possible. This man doesn’t need Photoshop. How she wanted to run her hand over his broad shoulders and biceps to his chiseled pecs and rock-hard abs. And when her eyes roamed even lower, her pulse raced as she yearned for what once was. Though it seemed an eternity, only a brief second had passed, yet she saw him growing hard before her eyes. God, you’re perfect. Instantly she felt a familiar heat growing within her. It had been so long since she’d felt his lips and hands caressing her and making her beg for more as he entered her deeply. God, I want him. Would one touch be so bad? That was a stupid question, one she didn’t need to answer. Pull yourself together. There’s no room in your life for that. Walking out of his office, she ignored the broken cup and coffee on the floor. She would call housekeeping because there was no way she was returning to his office to clean the mess until he was back in the lab.
As she sat at her desk, she could hear her heart pounding in her chest. All week she’d successfully avoided speaking to him. Mostly because he never acknowledges