How to Trap a Tycoon, Elizabeth Bevarly [best smutty novels txt] 📗

And just like that, the temperature in the tiny room skyrocketed. Outside Severn College , it might be a cold and snowy morning. But inside the carrel, at that moment, it was a torrid, volcanic afternoon. And she couldn't help thinking then that they were both frightfully overdressed.

Of course, she was probably getting way ahead of herself there.

"Is it hot in here?" Adam asked suddenly.

Then again…

He shrugged off his coat and tossed it onto the swivel chair that Dorsey had relegated to the corner—about two inches away. Then he pushed up the sleeves of his sweater, ran both hands briskly through his damp hair, and leaned back against the counter again. And he continued to watch her guardedly.

"Why did you come here?" she asked.

"Because your mother told me I'd find you here."

"You spoke to Carlotta?"

He nodded. "I went to your house first, and she told me you were here"—he nodded toward the half-full box—"cleaning out your stuff. Ghandi?" he asked before she could comment, noting the framed photograph.

She nodded. "I'm a big fan of passive resistance."

"Is that why you haven't tried to see me?"

She gaped at him. "I tried to call you. You were never in. I just assumed you didn't want to see me."

"I wanted to see you," he assured her immediately. "But I figured with all the stuff going on in your life in the aftermath of Lauren Grable-Monroe, the last thing you needed was to have me there complicating things. I wanted to give you—both of us—a little time to let things blow over."

She gazed at him with hungry melancholy, wishing she could put words to how very much she had needed him over the last few weeks. Instead, she only told him, "You wouldn't have complicated anything, Adam. I could have used you."

He gazed back at her in silence for a long time, and she wished she could tell what he was thinking. "And did you?" he finally asked. "Use me, I mean?"

She shook her head. "No. Never. Lindy was totally wrong about that. About all of it."

He sighed heavily. "It really pissed her off that she couldn't have you arrested or sue you for anything."

Dorsey wasn't sure she would ever stop looking over her shoulder where Lindy was concerned. Feigning. nonchalance, she said, "Did Lindy, uh … did she ever say anything about, oh … hiring some guys named Vito and Sal to come, gee, I don't know … break my legs?"

He chuckled. "Actually, I did hear her on the phone talking to someone name Vinnie who owed her a favor, but…"

"What?" Dorsey asked, alarmed.

"Turned out she was just lining him up to do a little landscaping for her."

"Oh."

There was another long, taut moment of silence, then, "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked again. "I mean … I thought we were friends, Mack," he added softly. "Hell, we were a lot more than friends. Why didn't you just tell me the truth?"

"I tried to," she said. "I really did. But every time I started to say something, I just…"

"What?"

Dorsey sighed. "A picture would pop into my head that was so clear and so scary that it kept me from saying a word."

"A picture of what?"

This time she was the one to study his face, the face she had missed so much over the last several weeks. "I kept seeing you," she told him. "Looking at me the way you're looking at me right now. And I just couldn't bring myself to tell you the truth, because I couldn't stand the thought of you looking at me that way. And now it's not a thought, it's a reality, and you're looking at me that way anyhow, and I … I can't stand it, Adam." She curled her fingers into impotent fists at her side. "I hate it that you hate me, and I don't know what to say or do that would put things back to rights."

"Oh, Mack…" He reached for her then, pulling her close, folding his arms over her shoulders. "I don't hate you," he assured her. "I could never…"

With a soft growl of frustration, he cupped one hand over the nape of her neck, skimmed the other up and down along the soft fabric of her sleeve. He tucked her head beneath his chin and just held her, and Dorsey couldn't believe she had actually forgotten how good it felt to be this close to him. As miserable as she'd been during the last month, she hadn't honestly realized until now all that she had been missing. Because finding herself back in Adam's arms was like living out every fantasy she'd ever had. The scent of him surrounded her, his heat mingled with her own, and his nearness set her heart to racing like a thoroughbred. Never in her life had she imagined anyplace could feel as perfect—as right—as this.

"I've spent the last month trying to figure out what I'm feeling," Adam told her, "and the only feeling I've managed to identify is confusion. You're not who I thought you were. You're not the Mack I came to know and lo—" He halted abruptly, then hastily continued, "And you're certainly not Lauren Grable-Monroe. I thought I knew you so well. And it turns out I don't know who you are at all."

She looped one arm loosely around his waist, then opened her other hand over his chest. And she found some small measure of encouragement in the way his heart was hammering hard beneath her fingertips. "I'm Dorsey," she said softly. "That's who I've been all along. It's all I've ever wanted to be. To anybody."

"Dorsey," he echoed. But he said nothing more, only pulled his head back to look down at her, arching an eyebrow in idle speculation as he studied her face.

"I don't expect you to understand," she told him. "I'm not sure I completely understand myself. But … I'm not just Mack. Mack is in there, certainly, and