Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle (Play with Me, Snowfall, and After Midnight) by Lisa Renée Jones Page A

memory lane is over.
    Reality comes to me with a hard slap at the sight of Terrance walking toward us. Damion and I are touching each other in public, and Terrance is the one who called Kent. Those two things represent another chapter of this nightmare.
    “Make sure he doesn’t get back on the property,” Damion tells Terrance as we meet upwith him, and I take the momentary distraction of their conversation to dart under Damion’s arm and around Terrance.
    “Kali!”
    I hear Damion shout, but I do not stop. I spot an open elevator and slip inside moments before it closes. I hesitate only briefly, then punch the button for the office floor. If I go to my room, Damion will follow, and I will cave and let him in. I can’t talk to him until I figure out what I’m feeling. Not right now. I
won’t talk to him
right now.
    Hugging myself, I wait for my floor, trying to stop the shaking. Damn it, I’m weak. I don’t want to be weak. The elevator dings for my floor and I exit. Dana is on the phone and waves at me, giving me a smile I just can’t return. At my desk, I all but fall into my chair and will myself not to cry. I grab a stack of mail and start opening it, trying to stay sane.
    I know the moment Damion is in the lobby, the scent of him blistering my nostrils. He is like a drug. I think I’ve become that to him, too. He is risking too much for me. I have to leave here, and him, and it’s going to destroy me.
    Suddenly he is standing beside me, towering over me. “Let’s go talk.”
    I don’t look at him. “No. Not now.”
    “Kali—”
    I turn to him and snap, “Not. Now.”
    “Yes,” he says, turning my chair to face him, his hands on the arms. “Now.”
    “Write me up, Damion, fire me, but I am not ready to talk.”
    “Hey, Kali—”
    The sound of Dana’s voice makes me cringe, and I can’t even look at her. “I, uh,” she stammers from behind me, and I hear her departing steps.
    “Either come with me,” Damion warns tightly, “or I’ll pick you up and carry you.”
    “Don’t even think about it.”
    He pulls me to my feet and drags me into his office, shutting the door and locking it. I try to escape and at least put distance between us. His hand comes down on my arm and he turns me to face him.
    I blast him. “You just told the whole damn place that we’re together when we haven’t even really been together. Why would you do that? Why?”
    He maneuvers me against the wall, framing my body with his. “We are together, and ifyou didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t have signed that notarized letter.”
    “We
aren’t
together, and now we won’t ever be together. I have to leave. I can’t stay. I can’t let you get fired over me.”
    “I won’t let you go, and I won’t get fired.”
    “I had a right to privacy. Terrance should have asked permission to share my personal affairs, and don’t tell me I signed a form or I might hurt you right now. Kent and my alcoholic asshole father—who thinks if he puts ‘functional’ before the ‘alcoholic’ it’s actually acceptable—weren’t supposed to know I’m here. If I wanted them to know, I would have told them.”
    “Kali—”
    “And I didn’t run away from those people, like you accused me of. I chose to shut them out and be happy. This was supposed to be my place and now it isn’t. Now they know I’m here and everyone here knows about us.”
    “This is your place, Kali, and I’m not letting you go without a fight.” His fingers twine in my hair, tilting my head back, forcing me to look at him. “We might be new, Kali, but we’re damn good together.”
    “What about—”
    “We’ll figure it out. Together, Kali. We’ll figure it out
together
.” And then his mouth closes down on mine, his tongue stroking past my lips, his palm molding me close to him. I try to resist, but it’s more because I feel I have to, because I should. Only I don’t want to resist this man. Not now and not since the moment I met him. I