A Deal with the Bossy Devil (Bad Billionaire Bosses, #1)

by Kyra Parsi

“You really can’t stand me, can you?” “Isn’t the feeling mutual?” He sucked his lips into his teeth, then said, “Yeah… we’re going to need to put a short pause on this charming little dance of ours.”

“Sorry,” he eventually said, amusement tilting his deep voice. “I didn’t hear him come out over the deafening sound of all the chemistry we don’t have.”

“If you boop me one more time I’m going to bite your finger.” His grin turned devilish. “Is that a promise?”

“Fine. Yes,” he said. “You are… stubborn, and exasperating, and a massive pain in my ass.” I clicked my tongue. “Worst seducer on the planet.” His lips twitched. “But you are also aggravatingly, inconveniently… maddeningly beautiful, Ariana.”

“I’d have recognized you from a mile away. And I did, every time I caught a glimpse of you in the office. You’re impossible to miss.”

“You’re so fucking pretty it’s annoying,” he chided, his voice dropping to a low, molten gravel. “I hate how much I love looking at you. I hate it, Sanchez. And I can’t tell what I’m more angry about anymore, all the bullshit you put me through, or the fact that your lips are so fucking plump and pink.”

“Look at how pretty you are when you blush,” he murmured approvingly. “I never stood a fucking chance. It really is too bad that we don’t have any… chemistry.”

And that was exactly what I wanted to do—rip him apart. Tear into his sanity, his patience, his shirt. I wanted to… I needed to… I didn’t know which one of us moved first. Whether he grabbed my waist, or I seized his shirt. Whether he pulled me to him, or I yanked him to me. We collided like two dying stars, our mouths crashing into each other with hungry desperation as everything exploded.

He’d broken me. He’d broken my brain, shattered my willpower to bits, and still had the audacity to maintain enough self-control to keep his stupid hands to himself. I wanted to break him.

“You weren’t,” he said, his glassy gaze finding mine again. “Just so we’re also clear as to where I stand, you weren’t just some girl I fucked. I may not be your friend, and I may not be your boyfriend, but that’s only because you don’t want those things with me. Not because I don’t want them with you. It wasn’t just sex for me. I have… very real feelings for you, Ria. If it were up to me, we… things would be very different between us. But at least now there’s no confusion as to where we both stand.”

Is it because you know he’ll make you happy? And you don’t think you deserve it?

“Knew it,” he breathed a second before my arms looped around his neck, my lips crushed against his, and I stopped being an idiot. Finally.