Read Off Limits for Free Online Page B

imagination, or is she actually blushing?
    Before I can determine, she leans back in her seat and tosses her head. The motion makes her curls cascade over her other shoulder now. There’s something irresistible about that completely untamed, unruly hair, paired with her perfectly poised everything else—the shirt I’ve been making fun of, for all its slight immodesty, is neatly ironed, and seamlessly tucked into her knee-length pencil skirt. Every inch of her makeup is spread across her face as if she puts it on with a ruler in the morning—which I wouldn’t put past her, honestly.
    But that hair gives her away. That hair tells me that little miss prim and proper has a wild side hidden somewhere underneath the prissy work clothes and wicked glare. And I want to be the one to unleash it. Something tells me that Chloe will be as fucking relentless in bed as she is in the courtroom.
    “Look, if we’re going to work together, can we lay out some ground rules?” she says, her voice stern and commanding.
    The stern, sexy librarian look is strong with this one. “Fine by me. I love rules and regulations—though I should warn you, I’m very good at finding loopholes.”
    She lets out a little half-laugh at that, then proceeds to look even more annoyed, like she wishes she hadn’t let on that she finds anything I say funny. She holds up a finger. “First of all, stop trying to sleep with me.”
    I heave a deep sigh and rap my knuckles on the tabletop gently to stop her right there. “Is that what this is about? Chloe, sweeets—” She glowers. “Not a fan of sweets? Okay. Chloe, despite what I know you’ve heard about me, I take my job quite seriously. I am not trying to get in your pants. Or up your skirt.”
    Not strictly true. I can’t stop thinking about getting up her skirt, actually. Every goddamn minute lately, it feels like. I can’t so much as pass her in the hallway of the office without being in serious immediate danger of getting hard. Never mind after hours, when I’m alone in the privacy of my apartment, free to fantasize about everything I want to do to this woman. Every dirty thing I want to say to her while I’m buried balls deep in her tight, hot little pussy. Every way I want to make her beg for mercy.
    That is, when I don’t feel so frustrated by her that I could scream.
    Yet, for a moment after I say that, just a split second really, I could swear that a new expression flickers across her face. Not anger, not even annoyance, or the mild disdain that seems to be her base level feelings toward me. For a second, Chloe MacIntyre looks almost . . . disappointed.
    And for an even briefer second, as I watch those soft, red lips drop into a frown, then curl back into an angry pout, I could swear that I am, too.
    Any other time. Any other place.
    I give my brain a good internal shake. Do not go there, Davis. Chloe MacIntyre is a shark. She’d eat you alive.
    “Well, good,” she’s saying, and I have to agree. Glad we’ve cleared the air. She opens her mouth to start on some other pronouncement, but as I glance away, my eye snags on the clock over the door.
    Shit.
    “On that note, I’ve got to run to my next appointment.”
    “You have a lunch meeting?” Her gaze follows mine to the clock, which reads 12:10pm.
    Fucking hell. I’m late. I push to my feet and grab my files, stuffing them into my briefcase. “Yes,” I say, with my back to her, so she won’t notice the evasion on my face. Somehow I doubt it will slip past Chloe’s notice.
    “With who? Can you reschedule? We still have to prep for our meeting tomorrow, and—”
    “Afraid it’s urgent. Email me anything you need me to catch up on.”
    She stands too, now, and plants her hands on her hips. I assume she’s trying to look threatening, though the fact that she’s only about 5’9” even in the towering heels she’s wearing doesn’t help.
    “You’re the one who insisted we spend more time on this case.”
    “We have. And