For one sliver of decency.
I might be a dick, but I refused to be a creep.
Problem was, she was looking at me like I was the one who’d saved her. Found her when she’d been wandering lost for years.
Two minutes later, the cab pulled into the drive at the hotel, and I tossed a bill at him.
Asshole was lucky that was my only parting gift.
Climbing out, I turned, dipped down, and extended my hand.
Emily took it, those legs so long as she slid to the side and stepped out into the night, and I wondered if she’d even noticed that I hadn’t asked her where she was staying. She just let me lead her into the posh lobby of the boutique hotel in Historic Savannah.
Old brick walls and dark hardwood floors made it feel like we were stepping into another time, like one of those old romance movies that screamed scandal and temptation.
Guessed it was no accident she was staying here.
I dipped down to murmur in her ear, “What room?”
“Four-Seventeen.”
I punched at the button of the elevator. A river of anxiety pulsed through my blood as I waited, that feeling only intensifying tenfold when we stepped onto the lift and the doors swept closed.
Boxing us in.
Sealing us off.
Just the two of us with our pulses pounding and our breaths filling the confined space.
Mirrors surrounded us on all sides.
I pried myself away, needing to put about two states between us.
Emily turned to face me, those blonde waves a sexy disorder where they’d been mussed by my fingers, her lips bruised and swollen from my kiss. Girl taunting me in that short red dress that screamed country and a pair of wedge heels, legs bare and leading to the promised land underneath.
And there she was, staring at me with all that innocent seduction she wore like a brand.
She looked like heaven.
Tasted like it, too.
I leaned against the railing, holding on to it like I was shackled by chains.
Forever condemned to hell.
Sounded about right.
“You are gorgeous. I hope you know that. I hope you look in the mirror and you see exactly what I see. I hope you know exactly how much you’re worth. Don’t you ever sell yourself short.”
My words were hard, coming across like a threat.
It was exactly what I meant them to be.
A frown pulled across her face just as the elevator jolted to a stop on the fourth floor. The doors slid open. I took her hand, and my body was assaulted with the shiver of anticipation that rolled through her.
Luckily, her door was a straight shot off the elevator, and I waited behind her as she fumbled into her pocket and retrieved the key. She slipped it into the slot and clicked open the door, not looking back at me as she pushed it open.
But with the way she was trembling, I knew she was expecting me to follow.
Anxious and nervous and needy.
I pressed my hand up high on the door to hold it open for her so she could go all the way in, and when she didn’t feel me enter, she turned around. Confusion filled her expression.
“Good night, Emily.”
She looked like I kicked her, but this girl didn’t have the first clue that I was doing her a favor.
“What?” It quivered from her mouth, a plea that hit me like a bullet to the chest.
“I think it’d be best if we call it a night.”
Her head started to shake, as much as her hands, and fuck me, a tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
Didn’t know how it was possible that a girl who was so voraciously sought after, wanted, could feel the amount of rejection that had visibly struck through her spirit.
The palpable pain that filled the air and clenched my chest in regret.
I wanted to ruin every fucker who’d ever damaged her. Vindicate every scar.
“Please . . . don’t leave me here like this.”
“Emily.” It was a groan. A petition for her not to do this.
Her eyes dropped closed, and her little hands clenched at her side.
“Please. Don’t do this to me. I can’t handle it tonight. I need . . . I need . . .” she trailed off as more moisture went gliding down her face, glinting in the bare light of her room, while the girl stood there pressing her thighs together, desperate for relief.
For something to fill up the void.
For an escape.
Motherfucker.
There was nothing I could do.
I broke.
Restraints coming apart.
I pushed through the door, and it slammed shut behind me.
I swept her off her feet, and surprise was rocking from her mouth just as I was diving in to swallow it. Her hurt and insecurities and fears.
I kissed her mad. As mad as she was driving me, my hand in her hair and the other at her back as I lifted her to prop her on the high foyer table of her suite.