“Tell me,” she whispers.
Since that was the deal, I move my lips to her ear and rub my hand up and down her back. “You took out the wrong guy, baby. I’m not giving you names here. I promise I’ll fix it. I’ll keep you safe, but I can’t loosen the reins on you.”
“So, someone knows that I … what about my—”
“No.” I pull my chin back so she can see my face. “No one will ever know what really happened. I’m handling it. I need you to trust me.”
“That’s hard for me.” Something about the way she rasps that feels like she’s unveiling one of her deepest secrets.
“I know.” Hoisting her off the knife, I pluck it out of the booth before lowering her back to my lap and sucking the coated handle clean with a groan, never taking my eyes off her. “You came. I confessed. So, what now?”
I return the Karambit to its sheath, tucked inside my waistband, and await her response.
She straightens, but makes no move to get off my lap. Still, her reservations are evident in her rigid posture. “This was … amazing. I don’t know the last time I came like that.” She peers around at the customers and staff, oblivious to us because they’re observing the show. “Certainly not like … this or with … but we can’t be …”
Ahh. She’s determined to keep me at arm’s length. And if I’ve learned anything about Tessa, it’s that when someone pushes her, she pushes back. So, I don’t tell her that I have a gut feeling we’re inevitable whether she gives me tonight or not. Or that once I’m inside her, my dick will be the last one she ever comes on. All that will do is send her running.
Instead, I become the single-focused man she craves right now.
“I don’t need your promises or thoughts on the future. I don’t even need your forgiveness. I want you in my bed, falling apart, like you just did. All. Night. Long. I want your sweet Pixy-Stix-flavored cum coating my tongue and your sopping pussy stretched around my cock. We can worry about everything else tomorrow, when the aching reminder of where I belong is haunting you.”
She stares at me as the jazz music picks up around us and the dancers assemble themselves into a jubilant kickline. The hint of a crooked smile coasts up one of her cheeks. “I can’t resist a good haunting, Drac.”
TESSA
In a flash that only consists of a feather boa and the mirrored exit, Maddox rushes me to the tunnel, drops me to my feet, laces his fingers with mine, and guides me in the direction of the penthouse while he calls Jax and tells him to clear the laundry-room entrance.
I’m immediately in my head, wondering if this will morph the predicament of my lifetime employment into an awkward power dynamic I can’t escape. But it feels like someone ripped my heart out, and all I want is to annihilate the ache with another orgasm bestowed by the six-five Noire, with his cock instead of his Karambit knife. Although that was phenomenal.
He makes me feel alive like no one has in … maybe ever.
He ends his call and decides to lug me around like a rag doll. In a suave swing-dancing move, one arm grips my shoulders while the other glides down behind my knees, scooping me into a bridal carry.
His teeth graze my lower lip before nipping hard enough to sting, his tongue peeking out to soothe it. I really love that hebites. He’s not taken aback by a little aggression. He leans into it. With me.
Dammit. My head—or my heart—is getting entangled here. If I’m not careful, this day will go from disastrous to cataclysmic.
Our mouths collide in another torturous tethering, and he cradles my head as his commanding tongue dominates stroke after stroke. It’s a dance that ripples through me, sparking an inferno in my veins and bones, nipples and core. Curling my toes and beckoning me to match his every move.
So, I do. Threading my fingers into his hair, I wrench his neck to the angle that suits me, and he growls his approval into my mouth. Giving me more. Of him. Of things I shouldn’t want, but can’t get enough of.
Every step of the forbidden path to his residence fades intous.
He tastes like the Twelve Mile Limit—grenadine and top-shelf whiskey. Cherry and cognac and a tart lemon twist. A line that should never be crossed and a wall I yearn to catapult over.
How does he kiss like this, like he’s branding my soul with music? The burn and the balm of a victory ballad.
It’s exhilarating, but it hurts because …
He breaks our fusion to scan his iris before what I’m assuming is a door hidden within the wall. “Where’d you go?”
That’s so unsettling—the way he already knows me so well, accurately reading the smallest signals from me.
“I was thinking about things that make me angry,” I lie, though it is what I should focus on if I have any chance at staying grounded.
He chuckles and pecks my nose. “Hold that thought for me then.”
Once he pushes open a false front to a stacked washer and dryer, his strides are so brisk that I can barely absorb the penthouse. I’ve been here before though. High ceilings. Art Decocharm. Grandeur and sentimentality. Snapshots of a family that shouldn’t work, but clearly does.
