This gains his full attention. He closes the laptop and spins the chair around. He’s wary about my questions and demeanor. He should be. His gaze travels over me—my bare legs, wet hair saturating his white shirt, making it nearly transparent over my breasts—and a hard edge frames his features.

His body language states he’s in no mood to play, not after chasing me down in the freezing river. But all we have is this game. One winner, one loser.

And I refuse to lose.

“Because I’m a scientist,” he says curtly.

I fiddle with the top button of his shirt. “But this isn’t a lab with other scientists. It’s just you and me. Who do you wear it for?”

He adjusts his glasses, a maneuver geared to prevent him from staring. “I wear it because it’s who I am.”

As opposed to a kidnapping megalomaniac… I keep that to myself. Instead, I undo the button and let my fingers skim down to the next one. “You’re something else, too,” I say.

Alex crosses his arms, his gaze drops to the exposed skin between my breasts. “Blakely, whatever this is…stop.”

I undo the second button, then the third, letting the shirt fall open. A tease, a taunt. A peek at the bottom swell of my breasts. Alex has stopped trying to avoid looking as he stares openly now.

“You’re lonely, Alex.” I leisurely run my fingers down the seam of his shirt. I stop to undo the last button. “I noticed it out there, while you held me pinned to the ground. I felt your desire to make a connection, to be inside me.” I push the shirt open, giving him the full, unobstructed view of my body. “How long has it been since you’ve been with a woman?”

His breath comes as a sharp intake of air, his gaze dragging over me unhurriedly. “Physical indulgence hasn’t been a priority,” he admits. “I’ve told you before that you’re a beautiful woman—” he meets my eyes “—but it’s only lust, Blakely. What you witnessed out there was just primal, cardinal lust. Nothing more. A normal, basic bodily reaction to stimuli.”

I walk toward him and stop only inches away. “Basic bodily reaction to stimuli,” I repeat as I drop my hand to my thigh and roam upward, touching the tips of my fingers to my sex. He watches intently as I rub myself. “You make it sound so technical and impersonal, detached.”

“With you, it would be,” he fires back.

I straddle my legs on either side of his thighs, placing my hands on his shoulders. “And is that wrong?” I slowly lower myself onto his lap. “I have needs, too. Locked away out here, no one else around to see, or judge.”