Page 19 of Untamed Billionaire's Innocent Bride

She kissed him and kissed him, and when she pulled her mouth away from his she fully expected him to follow her.

But he didn’t.

She couldn’t begin to describe the expression on his face then, or the steady sort of gleam in his gaze as he reached over and traced the shape of her mouth.

“Good girl,” he said, and she knew without having to ask that he was deliberately trying to be provocative. “It’s nice to know that you can keep your promise even after you get what you want.”

“I am a woman of my word, Mr. James,” she said crisply, remembering herself as she did.

And suddenly the fact that she was sitting on him, aware of all those parts of him pressed so intimately against her, was unbearable.

She scrambled off him and had the sinking suspicion that he let her go. And then watched her as if he could see straight through her.

And that was the thing. She believed he could.

It was unacceptable.

“The only thing you need to concern yourself about is the fact that you will soon be meeting your family for the first time,” she said, frowning at him. “It wouldn’t be surprising if you had some feelings around that.”

“I have no feelings at all about that.”

“I understand you may wish—”

“You do not understand.” His voice was not harsh, but that somehow made the steel in it more apparent. “I was raised in an orphanage, Lauren. As an orphan. That means I was told my parents were dead. When I was older, I learned that they might very well be alive, but they didn’t want me, which I believed, given no one ever came to find me. I don’t know what tearful, emotional reunion you anticipate I’m about to have with these people.”

Lauren was horrified by the part of her that wanted to reach over to him again. This time, just to touch him. It was one more thing that didn’t make sense.

“You’re right, I can’t understand. But I do know that Mr. Combe will do everything in his power to make sure this transition is easy for you.”

“You are remarkably sure of your Mr. Combe. And his every thought.”

“I’ve worked for him for a long time.”

“With such devotion. And what exactly has he done to deserve your undying support?”

She flexed her toes in her shoes, and she couldn’t have said why that made her feel so obvious, suddenly. Silly straight through, because he was looking at her. As if he could see every last thing about her, laid out on a plate before him.

Lauren didn’t want to be known like that. The very notion was something like terrifying.

“I see,” Dominik said, and there was a different sort of darkness in his voice then. “You are not sexual, you tell me with great confidence, but you are in love with your boss. How does that work, exactly?”

“I’m not in...” She couldn’t finish the sentence, so horrified was she. “And I would never...” She wanted to roll down the window, let the cool air in and find her breath again, but she couldn’t seem to move. Her limbs weren’t obeying her commands. “Matteo Combe is one of the finest men I have ever known. I enjoy working for him, that’s all.”

She would never have said that she was in love with him. And she would certainly never have thought about him in any kind of sexual way. That seemed like a violation of all the years they’d worked together.

All she wanted—all she’d ever wanted—was for him to appreciate her. As a woman. To see her as something more than his walking, talking calendar.

“And this paragon of a man cannot stir himself to return home to meet the brother you claim he is so dedicated to? Perhaps, Lauren, you do not know the man you love so much as well as you think.”

“I know him as well as I need to.”

“And I know he’s never tasted you,” Dominik said with all his dark ruthlessness. It made her want to cry. It made her want to...do something with all that restlessness inside her. “Has he?”

Lauren could barely breathe. Her cheeks were so red she was sure they could light up the whole of the city on their own.

“Not answering the question is an answer all its own, little red,” Dominik murmured, his face alight with what she very much feared was satisfaction.

And she was delighted—relieved beyond measure—that the car pulled up in front of the Combe Industries building before she was forced to come up with some kind of reply.

But she didn’t pretend it was anything but a reprieve, and likely a temporary one, when she pushed open the door and threw herself out into the blessedly cool British evening.

Where she tried—and failed, again and again—to catch her breath and recover from the storm that was Dominik James.