"You're worth staring at." The words come out soft, almost surprised, like she didn't give herself permission to say them. Color blooms across her cheeks and she takes another sip to hide behind the glass.
I reach over and tilt the glass down with one finger. Her blue eyes meet mine, wide and unguarded, and the look on her face hits me somewhere deep and permanent.
The penthouse hasn't felt like this in years. Warm. Full. Alive with the presence of a beautiful woman.
I take the glass from her hands. Set it on the granite beside mine. Her lips part, a question forming that dies the second I cup her face in both hands and bring my mouth down on hers. The rough grain of my beard drags across her chin and she gasps into my mouth, her fingers curling tighter into my shirt. I file that sound away. Every nerve I own wants to hear it again.
She tastes like whiskey and warmth and the soft, startled sound she makes against my lips unravels every thread of control I've been gripping all night. I kiss her slow at first. Learning the shape of her mouth, the fullness of her bottom lip, the way she opens for me on a trembling breath and lets me in. My tongue finds hers and she melts. Her hands fly to my chest, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away.
I tilt her head back and deepen the kiss. She moans into my mouth, low and raw, and the sound vibrates through my jaw andstraight down my spine. Her body arches into mine and I feel her nipples harden through the thin fabric of her dress, pressing into my chest. My hand slides from her jaw down the column of her throat, over the wild hammering of her pulse, and she shivers under my touch.
I grip her waist and lift her off the floor. She weighs nothing in my arms. Her legs wrap around me on instinct, thighs squeezing against my hips, and the heat of her pressed against my stomach burns through every layer between us. Her arms circle my neck and her fingers push into my hair and she kisses me back with a hunger that makes my knees threaten to buckle.
I carry her down the hallway. Her mouth never leaves mine. Her breath comes in short, desperate pulls between kisses and her fingers tighten in my hair every time I press her closer. The bedroom door is open. I walk through it, her body wrapped around mine, her heartbeat hammering against my chest hard enough that I can feel it through my own ribs.
I have held contracts worth millions and never trembled, but right this second my hands are shaking.
And fuck it. I'm already counting down the hours until morning when I ask her to tell me her name and stay.
Three
Sloane
His mouth tastes like whiskey and bad decisions and I am drowning in both.
My legs are locked around his waist, my arms wound tight around his neck, and Massimo Santoro is carrying me down a dark hallway while kissing me like I'm oxygen and he's been holding his breath for years. His hands grip the backs of my thighs, broad palms and rough fingers pressing into bare skin where the hem of my dress has ridden up past the point of decency. Every step he takes rocks his body between my legs and the friction sends sparks tearing through my core with a fiery need to feel this man inside me.
I know who he is. I have known since the elevator doors opened and I found him standing in the hallway with his sleeves rolled up and his whiskey eyes burning into mine. My father's best friend. The man I have been stupidly, recklessly, painfully in love with since I was sixteen years old and watched him argue a case at my father's dinner table and thoughtoh no, this is going to be a problem.
And I can't say his name. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
No names.His rule. My lifeline. Because the second his name leaves my lips, this fairytale burns to the ground and I go back to being Harrison Whitmore's invisible daughter.
So I swallow his name and kiss him harder.
The irony isn't lost on me. I'm kissing a man who thinks he's holding a bold, anonymous stranger, and the bold anonymous stranger is quietly losing her mind because she's been rehearsing this moment in the shower for the better part of a decade. If he knew, he'd probably set me down very gently, call my father, and pour himself a much larger whiskey.
He carries me through a doorway and the room opens up around us. Moonlight pours through uncovered windows, painting everything in pale blue and silver. A king-sized bed dominates the space, dark sheets, clean, and the whole room smells like his cologne. Woodsy and sharp with warmth underneath. The scent sinks into me and every muscle in my body loosens because I have been breathing this man in from across rooms for a decade and now my senses are soaked with his essence.
This is where he sleeps. Where he wakes up alone every morning and puts on his armor before facing the world. I know something about that routine.
He sets me down at the edge of the mattress. My heels click against the hardwood. For a second we just stand there. His hands rest on my waist. My fingers grip the front of his shirt. Our breathing fills the quiet, ragged and uneven, and his forehead drops to rest against mine.
"Tell me what you want." His voice is low, rough. The vibration of it rolls through my body and pools between my thighs. His thumb traces slow circles against my hip through the fabric ofmy dress. "Tell me and I'll give it to you. I had this whole idea of devouring you like a beast if you showed up and now that I've held you, kissed you and breathed in your essence, I need you to tell me to take it easy." His fingertips trace my cheek like I'll shatter if he presses too hard.
"I never want to hurt you."
Not a chance. He could never hurt me. I know this deep in my soul.
"I want all that and more." I want his hands on every inch of me and his mouth on every inch after that. I want to know what his weight feels like pressing me into the mattress and what his face looks like when he loses control.
I also want to throw up because I'm terrified. Because I am about to be naked in front of a man for the first time in my life and this man has no idea he's about to unwrap something no one else has ever touched. Get a grip, Whitmore. You walked thirty-three floors up to this moment. You don't get to chicken out now.
"I want you to keep kissing me." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I want you to stop asking questions and just..." I exhale against his lips, shaky, honest. "Show me."
His mouth finds mine again. Slower this time. Deeper. His tongue slides against mine and I moan into him, pulling him closer because if there is any space between his body and mine I will fill it with doubt and I cannot afford doubt right now.
His fingers find the belt at my waist. He works the buckle loose with one hand, patient, unhurried, and the leather slides free. The dress loosens around me. His palms smooth up my sides, over my ribs, and the heat of his hands soaks through thin cotton with nothing between his palms and my bare breasts except asingle layer of fabric. His thumbs graze the outer curves and my breath catches hard enough to stutter.