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“Oh.”
“I mean, a driver.”
“That makes more sense. Kind of.”
He held his hand out and she took it, delicate fingers curling around his. “I assume you want to get out without being seen?”
“I’d rather not parade back through the ballroom, now that you mention it.”
“You don’t want to advertise that you’re leaving with me?”
“Not so much. Can we keep it clandestine? That’s pretty sexy, really.”
“You’re ashamed,” he said.
A slash of color faded into her cheeks. “Maybe a little.”
“Because you want me so much.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s bad to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think having sex with a stranger is pretty bad.”
“But you sort of like the idea of being a bad girl, don’t you?”
The color in her cheeks deepened. “Seriously, let’s go.”
“We’re going to have fun,” he said, tugging her down the empty hall. Fun was the wrong word for it, though. He could already sense that.
But it would be a release.
And he needed one. More than he’d realized.
When they got into the elevator and the doors closed, he felt the tension wrap around them like a cloak. Thick and heavy. He thought it might suffocate him. He could have her. Push the stop button and push her against the wall. Work it out in five minutes. Take the edge off the intense need.
But it wasn’t what he wanted. Not really.
He wanted to make them both wait.
Wanted to have her to himself. A whole night. A night to play with his demons instead of shoving them down deep. He would feel worse if he didn’t get the sense that she was doing the same. That she was about to perform an exorcism, using his body as holy water.
That suited him just fine.
But the wait didn’t.
“These elevators are effing slow,” she said, letting out a long breath as a five flashed across the light board at the top of the wall.
“They are a bit. I hadn’t noticed until now.”
“Me either. They seemed normal until tonight.”
Four, three, two, L. Thank God.
The doors opened and he walked out ahead of her. He didn’t touch her. Not again. Because it would be too tempting. It would be too much. He was on the edge as it was, and one more brush of her soft skin on his and he would lose it completely.
He picked up his phone. “Car. Up front. Now.”
The lobby doors opened just as his black town car pulled up to the front of the building.
He opened the door and waited. “Get in,” he said when she approached and paused.
She obeyed, lowering her head, the lights from the building shimmering over that hair, still contained in the tight bun. Heat burst through him, starting in his gut and spreading outward, pooling in his groin.
He got in and closed the door. “The Black Book Hotel,” he said to his driver before leaning back in the seat and pressing a button that put up a black divider between them and the man in front.
They hadn’t exchanged names. And that suited him just fine. He didn’t need a name to know that tonight she was his. Though, she might feel differently.
“Did you want to exchange names?” he asked, not sure, if she did, if he would be honest or not.
“I sort of like it like this.”
“Do you?”
“Not being me for the night? It works.”
He’d been right about the demons. Maybe she had a husband or boyfriend. Or it was related to what she felt she owed Jason. He didn’t care. Didn’t care if she loved someone else, as long as tonight, she didn’t think of anyone else.
None of that would come between them tonight. Nothing existed tonight but the fantasy. But a few blessed moments of feeling like there was something in his life that wasn’t beyond him.
“I’m going to kiss you again,” he said. “Come here.”
She was across the car from him, her seat belt buckled. She pressed the button slowly and then put her hands on the seat, crawling to him slowly, on her hands and knees.
Everything in him tightened to the point where he thought he might break. It was the practical way to move across the car; he knew that. But there was something about it that grabbed him by the throat and shook him hard.
His eyes dropped to her breasts, emphasized by the motion, pale and round, spilling over the top of her black dress. Her red lips were parted slightly and it was so easy to imagine them wrapped around his cock. And her hair loose, wrapped around his hand...
Not yet.
He captured her face and leaned in, kissing her firmly, his tongue sliding along the seam of her mouth, delving in deeply when she parted for him. A muffled sound escaped her and he captured it, kissing her harder.
Lust, need, fired through him. All heat and desire, the kind he’d never known had existed before. He’d tasted it. On the edge of dreams, with fantasy women, when he woke up, sweaty and wrapped in his sheets, slick with shame and release.
But never in reality. Because he’d always held a part of himself back. And he’d imagined he always would.
Not tonight.
He kept kissing her, their bodies separate, need roaring through him. He wanted to tug her up against him, to feel those delicious curves pressed against his body, but he was determined to wait.
Determined to prolong the torture because there was something about it—this lust that bordered on pain—that appealed to him in a way that was beyond description. Beyond comprehension.
It wasn’t even his own deprivation that mattered. It was hers. She wanted more. And he wasn’t allowing her to have it. He had her on the brink with just a kiss, and he knew it. And he had the power to deny her pleasure, and right now he was using that power.
The car stopped and he pulled away from her. “Ready?”
She nodded slowly.
“You get out first,” he said.
She did, as she slid past him and opened the car door. She got out and stood on the sidewalk, waiting for him as people walked past, her breath a cloud in the cold air.
He got out, shutting the door behind him. “Walk ahead of me,” he said. “I want to watch you.”
She did, and he followed, his eyes on the elegant curve of her neck, the delicate line of her spine. And her ass. So round and perfect.
She went through the revolving door of the hotel and into the lobby, and he continued in behind her. He liked this. Liked the feeling that she was putting on a show, in public, meant only for him.
Her legs demanded at least an hour devoted to a fantasy starring them exclusively. Sky-high black pumps emphasized the length and the sleek muscles. The seams of her stockings—damn, he hoped they were stay-ups—centered so perfectly in the backs of her calves, a tease, a hint that she was some sort of sweet old-fashioned girl. Which made him want to do bad things to her even more.
He could picture her now, without the dress, stockings and shoes on, bent over a piece of furniture, just waiting for him to take her....
That was going to happen. At some point tonight, he would be sure that it did.
Another damned elevator.
She got inside and leaned back against the walls. The doors started to close and he had to jog to make it in time. He stuck his arm in between them, then slipped inside, letting the doors slide shut behind him.
“That was naughty,” he said.
Her cheeks colored and she met his gaze. “Sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you do that?”
She lifted one shoulder. “I’m not sure.”
“Are you going out of your way to misbehave?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“It’s almost like you want some consequences,” he said, his voice tight, making it almost impossible to breathe. He wasn’t sure what he was saying anymore. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking.
Except that it was hard to think with all of his blood just south of his belt.
But fantasies, erotic images, didn’t require much thought. He could think of so many ways to punish her....
No. He had to have a limit.
“If I did?” she asked, sounding breathless. Excited. Aroused.
Damn. This woman was a lit match against a pool of gasoline inside of him. Sitting there, dormant and under control for so many years.
Yeah, he’d known it was there, but he’d done his best to ignore it.
But with her, he was on the verge of exploding. And it was too late to go back.
“I can give them to you, baby, but I’m not sure exactly what you expect.”
“I’m not sure, either. Only that...you make me want things... I don’t know what I want,” she said, her eyes never leaving his. “You’ll have to show me.”
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. He took her hand in his again, her fingers icy now. Nerves. It made him feel like the asshole he very likely was.
He was a stranger. Much larger than her. And here he was, taking her back to a hotel to play power games that not even he knew the boundaries to.
He might just have a spot in hell next to his father yet. The kind of man who said he only wanted to protect women, while he used and manipulated them.
No. This isn’t the same.
Isn’t it?
He shut down that thought and held her more firmly, walking toward the room and checking his phone before keying in the code on the ornate door.
“Ladies first,” he said.
Katy shivered as she walked into the hotel room. There was nothing restrained or modern about their surroundings. It was like a vampire whorehouse. Black fleur-de-lis wallpaper gilded with ornate sconces. A sumptuous bed with deep purple velvet pillows and a black bedspread. Everything about it screamed dark seduction, which was appropriate, since that was what she was in the middle of.
And she didn’t know what she’d been thinking. Not in the car when she’d crawled over to him, not in the elevator when she’d tried to... Had she been trying to make him angry?
No. Because she hadn’t really thought it would make him angry. But she’d thought it might provoke a reaction.
Earn her the threat of punishment.
And there was something about it that she liked. Something about the edge of danger that was wrapped in gauzy sensuality that she found irresistible.
Something that made it feel real and present. It was a desire she’d always known she’d had, but had never, ever been brave enough to go and get.
Until him.
This moment, this man, was like coming up to the surface for air after years of being held underwater. And all she could do was gasp for breath. Take in everything she possibly could.
Because it wouldn’t last. This feeling, this moment, wouldn’t—couldn’t—last.
He closed the door behind them, the sound so final. Strangely arousing. Because this was it. The point of no return.
