“I’m also broke.And kind of a mess.”She blinks.Angled toward me now, knees nearly touching mine, her green eyes search my face like she’s trying to find the trap door.“I come with emotional baggage, Luke.”Her gaze lowers to our hands laying between us.“You don’t have to pretend that I don’t.”
“There’s a lot of things I’ve had to pretend tonight, Sage, but that sure as shit ain’t one of ‘em.”My teeth grind in my mouth.“Jesus, do you have any idea what you do to me?Do you have any earthly clue what it tooknotto drag you into a supply closet tonight?”I murmur.“Watching you walk into that ballroom, in that dress, in those heels—looking like every fantasy I’ve ever talked myself out of?I was one more insult from Derek away from saying screw the IPO and fucking you against a bathroom counter.”
She swallows.
“You’re not a mess,” I go on.“You’re forty-one.And I’m forty-fucking-six.We’ve both lived lives.We’ve both fucked up, lost people, been betrayed.That doesn’t make you a mess.That makes you?—”
“What?”
“Dangerously irresistible.”
She lets out a breathy, nervous laugh.“Luke?—”
“I’m not your boss, Sage.Or your business partner.Not tonight.”My voice roughens as I cup her jaw, thumb brushing the soft skin beneath her lip.“Tonight… I’m just a man who can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to have your thighs around my head.”
Her eyes darken, breath catching.
“And the way you kissed me in that kitchen?”I lean closer, my lips barely grazing hers.“That didn’t feel like a mess.Or like baggage.It felt like perfection.”
She shivers.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I murmur, lips ghosting along the shell of her ear.“Tell me I didn’t feel you press closer in that kitchen.That you didn’t want more.”
“I want more,” she whispers.
That’s all I need.
I claim her mouth in a kiss that’s nothing like earlier.
This isn’t careful.It’s not composed.
It’s all tongue and teeth and years of my own loneliness combusting into raw hunger.
Her fingers clutch my lapels, dragging me closer as I shift, angling my body over hers.
The limo windows fog as I slide one hand up her thigh, finding the slit in her dress, groaning when I meet bare skin.“Jesus, Sage.No stockings?”
“They itched,” she pants.
“You’re going to kill me.”
I push the dress higher, my fingers dragging along the soft skin above her knee.“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to touch you like this.How many nights I’ve spent imagining what you’d sound like when you fall apart, getting a chance to actually see you in that underwear with the little tacos all over it…”
She gasps as my teeth find that tender spot below her jaw.“Luke?—”
“Say my name again.”
“Luke.”
I reach her hip, palm skimming over the curve with greedy reverence.“You feel that?”I press my hand lower, over the lace barrier between us, over the heat between her thighs.“That’s mine tonight.”
Her head tips back against the seat, lips parted in silent surrender.
She’s gorgeous like this—wild and disheveled, hair falling from her updo, autumn-green eyes stormy with lust.
“You don’t need to be perfect for anyone,” I tell her, my fingers stroking the slowly dampening material.“Not him.Not me.But if you’re going to fall apart tonight, sweetheart, it’s going to be with me.”
She pulls me back in for another kiss, this one dirtier—deeper—and I’m gone.
