“Olivia, listen to me.” He took an audible breath. “I am afraid. I’ve never touched a married woman. You might not believe what I said before, but pursuing you goes against the man I try to be. But my fear is nothing compared to the agony of keeping this inside. I can’t hide it like you. And if I honestly thought your husband was the right person for you, I’d have walked away long ago.”
My heartbeat pounded in my stomach, reverberating throughout my body. He paused, waiting until I dropped my hands, raised my head, and consented for him to continue.
“Come inside and spend the night with me,” he said. “And when the sun rises, stay.” His angular jaw sharpened with resolve. “I want what he has. All of you. All to myself.”
The confession hit me like a blow, echoing through the stairwell. “How can you say that?” I asked, incredulous but no longer yelling. “You barely know me. You’re with Maria, yet you see other women. You’re Chicago’s bachelor of the goddamn year. Nothing you say means anything. Give up already,” I said, desperation threading my words. “You only want what you can’t have.”
He took a step forward, our bodies nearly flush. “You think I can’t have you?”
“Wait,” I said, panicked as his nearness threatened my control.
“Is that what you think?” He flexed a hand. “Idon’t. I want you. And I think you want me, too.”
He didn’t wait, but neither did I. Our mouths collided for a hard kiss, thick whiskey on his tongue. He took my shoulders, and the warmth of his hands on my skin spread through me. Without removing his lips from mine, he whipped off his jacket and wrapped me in it, pulling me closer, drowning me in a mossy blend of pine and aged leather. Inhim.
“Show me you care, Olivia,” he breathed. “I need it. I need you.” He pressed his lips to the spot beneath my ear that made my knees buckle. Feather-light kisses along my jawbone lit chills over my body, and he stopped at my lips. He stilled there as I became painstakingly aware of the empty feeling between my legs I wanted him to fill.
I looked into his eyes, and for a moment, everything else fell away. He took away the pain, all the things that hurt, that I could never say out loud. Brown eyes pleaded with me to let him take over, to let him ease the hurt.
He squeezed my arms, reminding me with a flex of strength that if he wanted, he could take me whether I agreed or not. “Show me, Olivia. I need you.Only you.”
“I . . .”
Davena had told me to seize the moment in her own way. Desperation for him filled me to the brim. She’d warned me if I tried to stop it, it would leak out, flood me, pull me under. She’d tell me to swim, to submerge myself in the tide of David’s want.
With my slight nod, David engulfed me in a primal kiss—all mouth, saliva, lips, teeth.
Our hands, for the first time, explored each other furiously. His traveled behind my neck, over my shoulders, and along my arms. They grazed the crease of my ass as he bunched my leather dress. He pulled me against his erection, but I was already there, tugging his shirt from his pants, reaching underneath, touching his firm stomach—oh, how I’d longed to know what his skin would feel like beneath my fingertips.
He withdrew suddenly, ripping me from my adulation. “This isn’t right.”
“What?” I asked with breathless shock. After everything he’d just fought for—
“Come inside.” He tugged my blazer closed, hiding me in it, and put his lips against the curve of my neck. My face burned from his delicious stubble and only more would soothe the sting. “I want you in my bed the first time.”
The first time. That implied he’d have me more than once. My eyes nearly crossed with lust, rolling up to the ceiling as if the answer might be written there.
“Choose me,” he said. “Walk through that door, and I promise I’ll spend every minute, every hour, every day proving you made the right choice.”
Before I could respond, he picked me up, and my legs locked around him. His hungry kiss stole my senses, my hands taking greedy handfuls of his soft hair. After abeepand abuzz, we moved out of the harsh, fluorescent light into a warm, inviting glow. The stairwell vanished. David carried me away as we consumed each other until I was pressed against a wall. Voracious lips locked on mine as his hand found the hem of my dress. Stiff leather crackled, interrupted only by the treasonous moan that escaped my lips when his rough hand moved against the soft skin of my inner thigh.
He was going to take me here, whereverherewas.
And I wouldn’t stop him.
25
One moment, I was sure David couldn’t wait another moment to have me, and the next, we stood five feet apart in the complete darkness of his penthouse.
David shut the door behind us and leaned his forehead against it for a weighty moment. He didn’t bother with the lights, just turned to me in the dark as moonlight shone through the living room windows. With his sobering stare, the gravity of the situation set in. After this, there would be no turning back.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, as if to remind me of it.
Hewas a wall of exquisite beauty, rubbing his brow and then pushing a hand through his obsidian hair. He frowned and exhaled. I could just barely make out his expression, full of more than lust and wanting. It held pain, along with adoration, as though I were finally his, something he’d longed for and was now on the cusp of having. Those were the things I thought I saw when I should’ve been talking myself out of this—but with him, it was easy to get lost, it was right, it was as it should be.
“I . . .” I started, but my voice wavered. “I don’t know how to do this.” I could barely form the sentence, due to an all-consuming desire. “David.” In that one word, I pleaded with him to have the strength I couldn’t and put a stop to this.
He wet his lips and paced forward until my back hit a wall. He stripped his jacket from me, letting it fall in a heap on the ground, then placed his palms on each side of me, trapping my body with his.
