Wicked Intent

Chapter Four

“Stay the hell out of my files!” Tally slapped the Gallagher file on Lucian’s desk, right in front of his face.

He swiveled the chair around to face her, looking up at her broodingly. His thick, almost white, blond hair fell over his brow, lust glittering in his eyes.

“Don’t you even think about it,” she warned him, unable to still the harsh anger that pulsed in her voice. “If you touch me, I promise you’ll regret it.” He leaned back in his chair, watching her with narrowed eyes.

“This is an office,” she told him with cold disdain. “A place of business. This is not an orgy palace, nor is it your own personal fuck central. I will not be molested here on a daily basis.”

“I own the damned place,” he snarled back at her. “If I want to fuck in it, then I’ll do it on a daily basis, Tally.”

“Not with me.” She bared her teeth at him, her fists clenching with the need for the action. “I am not some weak-kneed office bimbo who’s going to spread out on your desk for your pleasure. I am a professional, Lucian, and I expect to be treated as such.” He rose slowly to his feet. She should have felt intimidated, instead she felt enraged.

“I never act in any other manner while conducting business,” he reminded her, his soft voice in no way disguising his anger.

“While we’re in this office…”

“Tally.” He never raised his voice, but the sharp edge had her brows lowering in growing anger. “This is my office. You’re my woman. While no longer conducting business, if I want to fuck the hell out of you, then it’s my choice and my prerogative.”

“Oh, is it now?” She crossed her arms carefully beneath her breasts. “And exactly who decided I was your woman?”

He smiled slowly. “Our woman,” he said, his voice dark and confident as he leaned closer. “Don’t doubt it, Tally. I know who you just came from. I know how hot you burned in his arms and I know damned good and well you would burn the same in mine. The pain in my balls was well worth the experience. So never doubt you haven’t been claimed.”

The hard throb of ownership in his voice sent tremors of excitement racing up her spine even as a firestorm of fury raced through her blood veins. But it was his words that shocked her. He had felt that? They could sense what the other felt? That information she would use later; for now, she had Lucian’s attitude to deal with.

He was taller than her by quite a bit. Her head barely reached his upper chest, so she was forced to tilt her head back as she allowed smug disdain to fill her expression.

“Do you really think you can control me with sex, Lucian?” she asked him, her voice cold, filled with loathing. “Do I really appear to be such a twit that all you have to do is fuck me to handle me? You have another think coming.” She punctuated her words with a forceful jab of her finger into his hard, muscular chest. “No one handles me. No man controls me. Not now. Not ever.”

He glanced down at her finger. Slowly. A second later his gaze speared into hers once again.

“I’ll control you, Tally,” he told her, the tone of his voice whispering of a sexual dominance, an excitement she had only imagined before. “We’ll control you, and I promise you, when we do, you’ll beg for it.”

Her lip curled as a snarl begged to be free. In her life, she could never remember being so furious, so intent on slapping a man to his knees as she was now. And she would have. She could have. If only she could force the required words past her lips.

Her repertoire of cutting phrases refused to come to mind now.

“And you’ll learn just how quickly your own arrogance will kick your ass,” she informed him coldly before spinning away and stalking to the door. “Stay the hell out of my file cabinet or do the damned filing yourself. Your choice. I won’t warn you again.”

“Tally.”

She stopped at the door, turning back to him slowly, fighting the compulsion to go to him, to give him what he needed, what they both wanted.

“You’re not fighting me, baby, or Dev. You’re fighting yourself. And I think you’re smart enough to see that.”

“You’re wrong,” she told him softly. “Now, I just left Tweedle Dee in the park with my kneecap imprinted on his balls. Keep fucking with me, and I’ll slam yours up your throat. I’m going back to work now.” She gave the information, pretending she had missed his earlier admission. Revenge was best dealt in surprise, she chuckled to herself.

She swept from the room before he could respond, before she could glimpse any knowledge or emotion in his expression. She had a job to do. A job she enjoyed, and she needed to remember that. Even if Lucian and Dev refused to. And she had revenge to plan. An exacting, satisfying revenge before her fury ended in bloodshed.