Maybe I don’t look like Monroe, but I definitely carry her spirit. I refuse to take up less space just because society wants me to.
And Gray looks at me like he likesexactlyhow much space I occupy.
Quickly, I move on from my conversation, steadily making my way across the room. In my mind’s eye, I hear his deep voice, feel the ghost of his lips over my ear.
What kind of favor?
I wouldn’t be pretending.
Normally, such forward flirting wouldn’t work on me, especially not with a man I just met. A stranger in a mask. But there’s something about the low timber of his voice, the gentle way it rolls over me, that keeps a frisson of energy moving the length of my spine.
There’s something delicious about him, my mouth watering to take a bite, and that’s dangerous. The last thing I need right now is to be distracted by some rich asshole. Even if he is exactly my type—built like a linebacker, tall and muscled, but quick and commanding like a quarterback.
My last internship was with a PR firm that focused on professional athletes, and I still haven’t shaken the sports metaphors. That firm is where I met Dax—which is just a reminder that I shouldnotbe thinking about men. Shouldn’t be focusing on Gray behind me, following me steadily through the room, his eyes seeming never to leave me, even as he talks to other people.
I’m certain I was right in the things I said about him. Figuring people out is what I’m good at—you don’t get into public relations without being able to read someone. Understanding them at a glance. Discovering motive and figuring out how to steer things the way you want. Really, understanding public perception is all about understanding a million tiny perspectives.
Finally, I reach the other side of the ballroom and spot a tall wooden door half-buried behind a black velvet curtain. It strikes me as the kind of door that might not open at all. Or maybe it’s a favorite of the staff, who can slip out to smoke where the guests can’t see them.
Sliding between the curtain and the wall, my ass bumps against the wood around the panes of glass, and I eventually hit the door, turning the handle and grinning to myself when it opens and I can disappear into the night.
It’s cold. Not snowing, but the slight moisture in the air says it could start any second.
When I found the address earlier and rushed through the lobby, I hadn’t taken note of what this place is, but now I realize, looking back, that this is some sort of opera and arts building. One with small balconies jutting out on the side, giving you a gorgeous view of the city sprawling out, stretching into the night, windows glancing with red and white and green Christmas lights. From here, I can just make out the side of the tree in Rockefeller plaza.
“That dress can’t be too warm.”
I gasp—dramatically, I’ll admit—and spin around to find Gray standing there at the edge of the balcony, staring at me. The door is shut behind him, and the black curtain would conceal us from everyone inside even if I wasn’t in the far corner of the balcony, against the freezing stone.
Gray takes a step toward me, and I can sense something in the air between us, hanging there, a question that needs answering.
Was he right? Did I want him to follow me? To pursue me through that crowd like a fox following a rabbit?
My logical self says ofcoursenot. My reckless self, steps in toward him, looking up at him with eyes that might as well saykiss me.
And he does. My brain sputters out to a stop, like the first stick shift I ever tried to drive, just rolling slowly in the middle of the highway. Gray’s mouth is hot and sweet with champagne-soaked strawberries, the antithesis of the frigid, laden air around us.
His left-hand snakes around to the small of my back, his right sliding up over my hip, to the dip of my stomach, over my chest, until it rests, feather-light, against my neck.
I rock forward, smashing my tits against his chest, and he lets out a low noise from the back of his throat, drawing me in even closer. We move together, him pressing me back against the wall and me hitching up my knee, hooking it around him like I’m a tango dancer.
Except I’m not a dancer, and I don’t know this man, and I don’t usually do things like this.
But in in this moment it doesn’tfuckingmatter. I’m in a gorgeous red dress that drapes around me, and his fingertips are pressing into my skin, and he smells like warm, oozing, golden light. Plus, when he nips at my lip, it makes my core turn molten, my hips rolling into his and seeing that he’s just as excited as I am.
When he pulls away, I’m breathing hard, flushed from head to toe, not knowing or caring about the cold out here. Not even caring that anyone in the buildings around us might have seen that kiss just now, might have—even from a distance—seen how I completely and totally melted in his embrace.
I clear my throat, even as my core throbs, demanding more. Demanding I touch him again, ask if he’s staying in a hotel, or if he lives in an apartment near here, prompt him to take me there right away.
“I’ve got my own analysis for you,” he says, breathing hard, his own rasping breath an echo of my own. I look up into those hard, exacting eyes and think of the glinting blade of a scalpel. “You try to act nonchalant, and you hide behind your psychoanalysis of others. Back there,” he jerks his head in the direction of the ballroom, and I feel like his words and his voice are a tractor beam, and I’m stuck in them, unable to do anything but breathe and listen and feel the press of his chest against my own, the gentle feather of his breath over my cheek. “You jumped to try and figure me out, to lead the conversation so youcould be in control. You act like that’s what you want—control. But I’m willing to bet it’s not, is it?”
He delivers this last line while whispering, dragging the tip of his nose up a straight line from my clavicle to the spot just under my ear, and I nearly orgasm from the feel of it alone. Who the hellishe?
Far in the annals of my mind, a voice is echoing in an empty room, the last brain cell of mine that’s hanging onto logic, reminding me that this isnotthe kind of networking we came here for. That I need a job far more than I need this dick.
Wait—I’m not thinking about his dick. Definitely not thinking about the weight and length of it, how stiff it is through his suit and my dress, the gentle pulse between my legs begging to find out just how good it might feel in this precise moment.
“Here’s whatIthink,” he says, and I realize he’s worked his hand up the length of my thigh, pulling my skirt up, his fingers massaging against the line of my panties. Teasing, touching. I move embarrassingly against that touch, mind narrowing to the spot I want it, where I need it most.
