Her hands are just as wild, tugging at my shirt, dragging me closer, her fingers tracing the scars on my shoulders like she wants to know the stories behind each one.
When her palms slide over my chest, I stop breathing. There’s nothing casual about her touch—it’s curious, reverent, almost searching.
“Cece,” I murmur against her skin, my voice breaking somewhere between warning and prayer.
She looks up at me, eyes dark and defiant.
“You always talk this much when you kiss someone?”
I laugh, low and raw, pressing my forehead to hers.
“Only when I’m trying not to fuck it up.”
“Then don’t try so hard,” she whispers back.
The storm that’s been brewing between us finally breaks.
I swallow the last of my restraint and press forward, because there is no ceremony more honest than surrender.
Her body melts against mine, all warmth and contradiction, her breath hitching as my hands find her waist.
There’s no strategy left.
No old grudges. Not tonight.
Just her—this woman who sees too much and hides it behind sharp words and that fearless gaze.
When I finally pull back, both of us are breathing hard. Her lips are swollen, her pulse racing beneath my fingertips.
“This isn’t business tonight,” I say, voice rough.
“Good,” she answers, straightening her shoulders though her smile trembles. “Because I’m tired of pretending it was.”
And just like that, I know I’ve crossed a line I’ll never step back from.
I taste wine, salt, and the faint heat of cinnamon.
“Atlas,” she whispers.
And my willpower shreds.
I grab her roughly, spinning us once more so now it’s her back against the door.
Then I pounce, crashing my mouth to hers as my fingers work the fastenings of her clothes.
Every moan and whimper is mine. I lick into her, drunk on her taste as I reveal more of her flesh to my hungry eyes.
She’s working too. Pushing my shirt off my shoulders and unzipping my pants before she reaches inside and takes hold of my aching cock.
“Fuck, Cece,” I murmur, dropping my head to her chest so I’m up close and personal with her gorgeous, pierced nipples.
Christ. Fuck.
But I can’t think because her hand is wrapping tightly around my cock, and she’s squeezing and stroking me so damn good.
“You’re so big.”
I kiss her again, and it’s, well it’s everything I thought it would be, and nothing I imagined, all at the same time.
