She gave a strong enough shove that he let her go at last. Because he’d decided to, she was sure.
Regaining her footing, she steadied herself. “So you’re not even apologizing. You just realized you’ve jumped the gun, that you didn’t get enough of me and want a few more rounds.”
He stroked his hands over his chest, as if tracing the imprint of her hands against it. “I want unlimited rounds. And I never thought it a possibility to have enough of you. I only wanted to be rid of my need for you. I no longer want that. I want to indulge that need, to wallow in it.” He reached for her again, slamming her against him, cupping one of the breasts he’d ravaged with pleasure. “And before I made that bloody blunder of following through with my no-longer-viable intention, you wanted nothing more than to binge on me, too.”
She pushed his hands away from her quivering flesh. “I’m actually grateful for said bloody blunder. It gave me the closure I needed, in the form of a vicious slap that jogged me out of my pathological tendencies where you’re concerned.”
He grabbed both her hands and dragged them up to his face. “Slap me back as hard as you like. Or better still...” He pulled her hands down, pressed them nails first over his chest. “Take your pound of flesh, Isabella. Claw it out of me.”
Trembling with the need to sink her nails and teeth into his chest, not to hurt but to worship him, she fisted her hands against the urge and stepped back. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Circumventing him, the soreness of his possession and the evidence of their intimacies between her legs making her gait awkward, made her curse him and herself all over again.
His voice dipped another octave, penetrating her between the shoulder blades. “I’m rescinding my ultimatum.”
That made her turn, that mixture of rage and swooning warring inside her. “You’re no longer threatening unimaginable punishments so I’d leave and never return? How kind of you.”
He covered the distance she’d put between them, eyes boring into her as if he wanted to hypnotize her. “You only need to end your partnership.”
Before she took him up on his offer of slashing her hands open on those razor-sharp cheekbones, or breaking her nails claiming a handful of those steel pectorals, he went on, “Give the Doctors Anderson a personal excuse. If you’d rather not, I will manufacture an airtight one for you and pay the penalty for unilaterally dissolving the partnership. But you don’t have to worry about that. I’ll arrange a far more prestigious and lucrative partnership for you. Better still, I’ll establish your own private practice or even hospital.”
Head spinning at the total turnabout he’d made, but more at the sheer nerve of his standing there orchestrating her life for her, the utter insanities he was spouting, she raised her hands. “Stop. Just stop. What the hell is wrong with you? Were you always a madman and I never noticed it?”
“I am definitely mad, with wanting you. And you showed me you’re as out of your mind for me. So you’ll stay and we’ll pick up where we left off, without the restrictions of the past. I’ll acquire a new residence for you close to me, so you won’t waste time commuting. You can have anything else you want or need. You can work with anyone in the world, have access to all the funds and facilities and personnel you wish for. I will accommodate and fulfill your every desire.”
He dragged her back to him, hauling her by the buttocks against his hardness, his other hand twisting in her hair, tilting her head back, exposing her neck to the ravaging of his tongue and teeth. His growl spilled into her blood at her pulse point. “Every single one.”
Her traitorous body melting inside and out for him, she felt she was drowning again. “Richard...this is insane...”
“We’ve already established I am, for you.” He punctuated every word with a thrust, and her voracious body soaked up the pleasure of every rough grind. “I discovered I have been all these years, but my training, and everything else, held it all in check. I no longer want to hold back. And I won’t.” He took her mouth in a compulsive kiss that almost made her orgasm there and then. He ended the kiss, transferred his possession to the rest of her face. “If you ever thought Burton indulged you, that was nothing compared to what I’ll do for you.”
Lurching, feeling as if he’d slapped her, she punched her way out of his arms this time, her voice rising to a strident shout. “I don’t want anything from you, just like I never wanted anything from him. So you can take your promises and offers and shove them.”
He caressed his body where her blows had landed, licked his lips as if savoring her taste. “I’m telling you everything on offer, for full disclosure’s sake. You’re free to make use of whatever you choose.” He captured her hands again, pressing his lips in her aching palms. “But I am compensating you for the termination of your partnership. That’s the one thing that’s not negotiable.”
She snatched her hands away. “Are you done?”
“I told you I could never be done with you.”
“Okay, I’ve changed my diagnosis. You’re not insane, you’re delusional. On top of having multiple personality disorder. I’m terminating nothing. And I already told you what you can do with your ‘compensations.’”
He tutted, all indulgence now. “I’m not letting you go until we get this settled. So let’s get on with it so I can leave you to get on with the rest of your day. You have new partners you have to let down easy after all.”
“‘This’ is already settled. And you’re letting me go now, Richard.”
Turning, she strode the long way back to the door. Though slower, his impossibly long strides kept him a step behind her.
At the door, he pressed himself into her back, plastering her against it, seeking all her triggers. But she was finally angry enough to resist and desperate enough to leave.
“Tell your damn pet door to open sesame, Richard.”
Taking a last suckle of her earlobe, sending fireworks all over her nervous system, he sighed. The sound poured right into her brain as he mercifully ended their body meld. But instead of murmuring the door open, he leaned on outstretched arms, bars of virility on both sides of her body, and pressed his hands against it.
So it also had palm-print sensors.
The moment the door opened, she spilled outside as if from a flooding tunnel.
Once she reached the elevator, he called out, “I’ve laid all my cards on the table. It’s your turn.”
Looking over her shoulder, she found him standing on his threshold, long legs planted apart, hands in pockets, the embodiment of magnificence and temptation. And knowing it.
She cursed under her breath. “Yeah, my turn. To tell you what I want. I want you to take your cards and go to a hell even you can’t imagine, where crazy monsters like you belong.”
He threw his head back and laughed.
She’d never heard him laugh before.
Rushing into the elevator to escape the enervating sound, she was still followed by his amusement-soaked question.
“Want me to pick you up from work, or will you finish your vital errand and come back on your own?”
She almost stomped her foot in frustration. The elevator buttons made as much sense as hieroglyphics in her condition.