Whatever I give Sutton he takes, even the trembling almost-kiss that seems to be all I can manage. If he really has been with a thousand other heiresses, they must know how to kiss better than this. I’m all rapid heartbeat and heavy breaths and sharp little whimpers.
He doesn’t seem to mind, shifting so his body is closer to mine, a steady presence that manages to soothe me. My back hits the wall of the hotel, and in the cool surface I can make out the gentle embossing of fleurs-de-lis. I’m the princess and the pea, my heated skin sensing even the slightest bump beneath layers of cloth. Who knew she was just turned on?
His hands are on my waist, and I have to move my body, have to gasp against his mouth, hoping he’ll understand. There’s an ache at my breast, and the only thing that will fix it is his touch. He takes the permission with a groan of surrender, cupping me through the filmy fabric of my dress.
On his tongue I taste the wine and the chocolate we had for dessert. I taste the man underneath, something elemental and addictive.
My mind is cloudy with the sensation of him, his touch and his taste. His rough breathing, the proof that I’m affecting this powerful man as much as he’s affecting me. I tug at his clothes, yanking at his shirt as if I can tear it away from his flesh.
“Slow,” he murmurs, his voice rough. “Steady with you.”
Like I’m a horse. The thought makes me laugh, though it’s a little wild. He swallows the laugh, too, drinking me down like he’s been dying of thirst. This stops being about Christopher Bardot and my revenge against his control. It starts being about the very male, very aroused body pressing against me, and all the elemental ways he wakes me up inside.
His thumb sweeps over the curve of my breast, searching, soothing, until my nipple becomes hard. And still he moves his thumb, back and forth, driving me insane. I make little whimpers because I can’t do anything else; we could have done this downstairs. He’s right. It’s terrible, but he’s right. I would have let him do anything, everything, if only it will calm this ache.
“Please,” I say, panting, pulling at the buttons on his shirt. “Come inside.”
He sinks his teeth into the flesh of my bottom lip, like a punishment, and I yelp because it only hurts when he pulls away. His eyes are a deep ocean blue, at the very bottom of the earth. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I say, but it’s really a hiss in the quiet hum of the hallway.
“Because we don’t have to—”
“Oh my God, if you say that you know better than me, I’m going… I’m going to… I don’t even know what I’ll do, but it’s definitely not have sex with you.”
My head falls to the side, because I’m fed up with men who tell me what to do, fed up with myself, because I keep falling for them, and that’s when I see his hand in a fist against the wall. All that frustration pressed against the pretty wallpaper, because he doesn’t want to rush me.
It warms me enough that it’s a surprise when his mouth nips my throat, making me jump. He nips me again, a little lower this time. And then moves the edge of his teeth along my collarbone. There’s something primal about him. Something dangerous and possessive, but he doesn’t use his power to control me. He kisses me lower, between my breasts—and then even lower, on my stomach through the dress. That’s when I realize he’s on his knees.
Somewhere between the kissing and now, this man sank to his knees. He’s on the threadbare carpet, looking up at me. It’s like having a wild animal bow to you in the jungle. I’m panting, afraid to move.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, even though I want to say, Don’t stop, don’t stop.
“The goodnight kiss.”
“We already did that.” My lips feel swollen from what he did to me. It was more than a kiss, more than a claiming. He changed the molecules that form me, made me crave him. An ordinary peck will never be enough after this. Not when I know what’s possible.
He shakes his head, slow and determined. “Not yet.”
Without breaking eye contact he reaches down to the hem of my dress, pulling and pulling the fabric, revealing inches of my bare leg. It’s indecent, what’s happening in this hallway. At the very least we should be inside the room for this, but I can’t bring myself to stop him.
The dress is held up in bunches, the delicate silk spilling from between blunt fingers. I know the exact moment when he sees what I’m wearing underneath—the sharp intake of breath. There weren’t any panties in my carry-on bag to wear with this dress.
I only packed boring, utilitarian things to wear when confronting Christopher Bardot about my mother’s hospital bill. There was no way I could have guessed that I would end up backed up against a wall by this man, my dress ruched up to my waist, exposing my bare pussy to the world—or at least anyone on this floor who decides to open their door.
They would be shocked to see me, not only my bare sex. They would be shocked to see the way my upper body leans against the wall, needing its support, one shoulder strap of my dress fallen loose, my eyes heavy-lidded with acquiescence to whatever happens next. There’s a sense that I’ve done more than submit to him; that I’ve ordered him to his knees. Not with words but by need. Everything about his broad shoulders and his hard features speak of power, and it’s an unspeakable thrill to realize that he bows to me.
God, what power a woman can wield.
One hand holds my skirts while the other runs up the outside of my calf. The inside of my thigh. His knuckles brush my sex, and I let my legs fall open. “Please, I need—”
“I know what you need.” His voice is like the rush of wind between two mountains, something that my body recognizes as eternal, that he was here before me.
That he’ll be here when I’m gone.
His fingers touch me with agonizing lightness, exploring, teasing. Letting me remain open for discovery. Is that part of what makes this hotter, knowing anyone might walk in on us? He has unending patience, even though I can see his arousal in the line of his suit pants where he kneels. I can see the arousal in the haze in his blue eyes, in the hard set of his jaw.
He’s like Atlas, cursed to carry the weight of the world. Strong enough to actually succeed in such an impossible task. Of course that makes me the world—and that’s how it feels, when he leans forward to place a chaste kiss on my thigh.