Her face softened, became even more stunning. “I wouldn’t.”

“But I did. You’ll have to forgive me.”

She stepped back. “I hate when you use that tone of voice.”

Inclined toward self-preservation, I didn’t allow the smile I felt to show. “But it makes you wet.”

Tossing a glare at me over her shoulder, Eva moved to the window and stood in the same spot I’d occupied that morning. Her ponytail showed off her beauty—and left her no way to conceal her emotions. Hot color rose in her cheeks.

Did she know how often I thought about tying her up when she was riled like this? Not to cage her or leash her, but to hold that vibrant energy of hers, that lust for life I’d never learned to have. She gave that to me, surrendered it fully.

“Don’t try to control me with sex, Gideon,” she said with her back to me.

“I don’t want to control you at all.”

“You manipulate me. You do things . . . say things . . . just to get a particular response out of me.”

My arms crossed as I remembered her kissing Kline. “As do you, which we just discussed.”

She faced me. “I’m allowed to, I’m a woman.”

“Ah.” I smiled then. “I knew that.”

“You’re such an enigma to me.” She sighed and I could see her letting the lingering resentment go. “But you’ve got me pegged. You know all my buttons and just how to push them.”

“If you think I don’t spend a good percentage of every day trying to figure you out, you’re not paying attention. Think about that while I handle this meeting, and then we’ll say good-bye properly.”

As I sat in my chair, her gaze followed me. I adjusted the fit of my headset and paused when I realized she was staring. She liked looking at me. And hers was the only avid hunger that had ever made me feel good about myself. I’d never had the knee-jerk defensive reaction to her sexual interest that others provoked. She made me feel loved and wanted in a way that wasn’t the least threatening.

“Watching you get into business mode makes me hot,” she explained, her voice just husky enough to prevent me from fully focusing on work. “Sexy as hell.”

My lips twisted wryly. “Angel, behave for fifteen minutes.”

“What would be the fun in that? Besides, you like me bad.”

Damn straight.

“Fifteen minutes,” I reiterated. Considering I’d planned for the meeting to take close to an hour, that was a major concession.

“Do what you have to do.” Eva stopped by my chair and bent over like a pinup girl to breathe in my ear. “I’ll find something to occupy myself with while you’re on the phone playing with your millions.”

My c**k was abruptly, painfully hard. She had said something similar to me when we’d first started dating, and I had dreamed of it in the weeks since.

I would have told her to wait, but I knew she wouldn’t. She had a determined look in her eye and a taunting swing to her h*ps as she circled my desk. I’d f**ked up and she wanted to get a piece of her own back. Some couples punished each other with pain or deprivation. Eva and I, we punished each other with pleasure.

The moment she stepped out of view, I logged into the meeting without activating my camera and I muted my microphone. All half-dozen participants were actively discussing the materials Scott had provided. I gave them a moment to register that I’d logged in . . .

. . . and used the time to stand and open my fly.

Eva kicked off her heels. “Good. It’ll go easier on you if you cooperate.”

“You don’t actually believe having your mouth wrapped around my dick while I’m on a videoconference is going to be easy at any level.” Even then, the team in California was chiming in with greetings through my headset. I ignored them for the moment, thinking only of what was about to happen right there in my office.

Only weeks ago the possibility that I’d play while working would’ve been nonexistent. If Eva had been wired any differently, I would’ve made her wait until I had the time and attention to devote fully to her.

But my angel was a dangerous lover, one who got off on the thrill of being this close to discovery. I would never have known I enjoyed that edge if not for her. There were times I wanted to f**k her for the entire world to see, so it would be known definitively how completely I possessed her.

Her grin was pure wickedness. “If you liked things easy, you wouldn’t have married me.”

And I was going to marry her again, as soon as possible. It wouldn’t be the last time. We’d be renewing our vows often, reminding each other that we made a promise to be together forever, no matter what life threw at us.

Lowering gracefully to her knees on the far side of my desk, Eva set her hands on the floor and prowled toward me like a lioness on the hunt. Through the smoked-glass surface of my desktop, I watched her move into place, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

Anticipation coursed through me, the rush of the challenge and erotic expectation. Everything about my wife gave me pleasure, but her mouth was in a class by itself. She sucked me off as if she were starved for my cum, as if the taste were something she was hooked on. Eva gave me head because she loved it. Watching me unravel while she did it was just a bonus.

I adjusted the spread of my fly and pushed down the waistband of my boxer briefs, studying her face as I revealed how she’d affected me. Her lips parted as her breath quickened, her body shifting back until she was sitting on her heels like a supplicant.

Settling into my chair, I absorbed the unaccustomed feeling of restraint around my thighs and the pull of elastic beneath my balls. My reaction was swift and unpleasant, the sensation of being bound dredging up memories I kept ruthlessly buried.

Reconsidering, I started to roll back in my desk chair, my heart rate rising . . .

Eva swallowed me.

“Fuck,” I hissed, my fingers digging into the armrests as her fingers dug into my hips.

The rush of wet heat over the sensitive crown of my c**k was shockingly intense. Hard suction tightened around me and a satin-soft tongue massaged the perfect spot. Through the pounding of my heart, I heard the team questioning whether my webcam and headset were working properly . . .

Straightening my spine, I slid forward and activated my feeds. “Excuse the delay,” I said briskly as Eva took more of me. “Now that you’ve had the chance to review the deck, let’s discuss the steps you’ll be taking to implement the recommended adjustments.”

Eva hummed her approval and the vibration reverberated through me. I was hard enough to drive nails and her slender fingers were teasing me, stroking with just enough pressure to make me want more.

Tim Henderson, the project manager and team leader, spoke first. I could barely focus, seeing him more from memory than the monitor in front of me. A tall, painfully thin man with pale skin and a wild mane of dark curls, he liked to talk, which was a blessing considering how dry my mouth had become.

“I’d like more time to review this,” he began, “but off the cuff, I’m thinking this is a seriously accelerated schedule. Some of this is great and I’m excited about seeing what we can do with it, but phasing into consumer beta testing is at least a year away, not six months.”

“That’s what you told me six months ago,” I reminded him, my fist clenching as Eva took my c**k to the back of her throat. Sweat bloomed on the back of my neck when she pulled off, her mouth a hot velvet suction.

“We lost our top designer to LanCorp—”

“And I offered a replacement, which you declined.”

Henderson’s jaw tightened. He was a coding genius with a brilliant creative mind, but he didn’t play well with others and was resistant to outside intervention. That would be his prerogative . . . if he weren’t eating my time and money.

“A creative team is a delicate balance,” he argued. “You can’t just plug a random person into the void. We’ve got the right man on the job now—”

“Thank you,” Jeff Simmons interjected, his angular face breaking into a grin at the praise.

“—and we’re making progress,” Tim went on. “We—”

“—keep blowing through your self-imposed deadlines.” My tone was gruffer than I intended due to my wife’s wickedly agile tongue. Soft, playful licks from root to tip were driving me half out of my mind. My thighs ached with strain, the muscles hardened by the force it took to keep me in my chair. She was following the line of every sensitive vein, stroking over the throbbing ridges with the flat of her tongue.

“While creating an exceptional and groundbreaking user experience,” he shot back. “We’re getting the job done and we’re doing it right.”

I wanted to bend Eva over my desk and f**k her. Hard.

To do that, I needed to get through the damn meeting.

“Excellent. Now, you just need to do it faster. I’m sending out a team to help you achieve the objectives on time. They’ll—”

“Now, wait a minute, Cross,” Henderson snapped, leaning closer to the webcam. “You send some corporate bean counters over to breathe down our necks and you’re only going to slow us down! You need to leave the development to us. If we need your help, we’ll ask for it.”

“If you thought I’d give you my money and be a silent partner, you didn’t do your homework.”

“Uh-oh,” Eva murmured, her eyes bright with laughter beneath the glass.

I reached beneath the desk and cupped her nape, squeezing. “The app space is highly competitive. That’s why you approached me. You presented me with a unique and intriguing gaming concept, and a one-year development-to-rollout timeline, which was judged by my team to be reasonable and achievable.”

I paused on a breath, tormented by the feel of warm lips gliding up and down my raging dick. Eva was working with purpose now, driving me on with hard pumps of her fist. There was no more buildup, no teasing. She wanted me to come. Now.

“You’re looking at this from the wrong perspective, Mr. Cross,” Ken Harada said, running his hand over a blue goatee. “Technical timelines don’t make allowances for an organic creative process. You don’t understand how—”

“Don’t make me the villain here.” The urge to thrust, to f**k, was clawing. Aggression built in me like a tidal wave, forcing me to fight for any semblance of civility. “You guaranteed on-time delivery of all elements on a schedule you created and you’re not holding up your end. I’m now forced to help you keep the promises you made.”

The artist slumped back in his seat, muttering under his breath.

Tightening my grip on Eva’s neck, I tried to slow her down. Then I gave up and started moving her, urging her roughly to suck faster. Harder. To drain me. “This is how this is going to play out. You’ll work with the team I’m sending. If you miss another deadline, I’m pulling Tim off oversight.”

“Bullshit!” he shouted. “This is my f**king app! You can’t take it from me.”

I needed finesse but had none, my brain hazed with the animal need to mate. “You should’ve read the contract more carefully. Do that tonight and we’ll revisit tomorrow after the team arrives.”

After I come . . .

Tingles raced along my spine. My balls drew up. I was a minute away, and Eva knew it. Her cheeks were hollowing with the force of her suction, her tongue fluttering over the sensitive underside of my cockhead. My heart was pounding, my palms damp with perspiration.

Staring into a half-dozen angry faces with a riot of protests exploding from my earpiece, I felt the orgasm hit me like a freight train. I fumbled for the mute button and let the groan tear from my throat as I spurted powerfully into Eva’s greedily working mouth. She moaned and milked my dick with both hands, pulling and squeezing as I kept coming in a flood I couldn’t stop.