The air in the boardroom was stagnant, thick with the scent of expensive cologne and the lingering electricity from their first encounter. Sloane sat across from Julian, her spine a rigid line of defiance, her tailored suit acting as armor. She had spent the last forty-eight hours scrubbing the memory of his hands from her skin, trying to convince herself that the raw, animalistic hunger they’d shared was a momentary lapse in judgment—a chemical reaction to hatred.
Julian, however, looked like a man who had just won the lottery. He didn't look at the documents spread across the mahogany table; he looked at her. His gaze was a physical weight, sliding from her composed expression down to the pulse jumping in her throat, then lower, to where her thighs were pressed tight together under the
