Up close, he was devastating. Not classically handsome like the boys from my father’s country club, the ones with perfectteeth and trust funds. This man was something else entirely. Dangerous.
His jaw was tight, like he was fighting some internal battle. His hands, I noticed his hands, lean and strong with long fingers that looked like they could break someone or build something beautiful with equal skill, clenched and unclenched at his sides.
Then he leaned in, and I felt his breath against my ear, warm and intimate. My eyes fluttered closed without permission.
“Dance with me.”
It wasn’t a question. Not really. But the way he said it, low and rough, with just enough edge to make my pulse spike, gave me the illusion of choice. As if I could say no. As if I wanted to.
I nodded, not trusting my voice, not even knowing his name. Didn’t care. Names were for people who planned on talking, and talking was the last thing on my mind.
Before I could second-guess myself, his hand found mine, warm, strong, callused in a way that spoke of work and violence and things I’d never understood. He pulled me up from the booth with gentle insistence, and I went willingly, completely forgetting Cassandra sitting beside me.
His other hand found the small of my back as he guided me toward the dance floor, cutting through the crowd like he owned the space. People moved out of his way without being asked, some primal instinct warning them not to get between this man and what he wanted.
And right now, what he wanted was me.
The realization sent heat flooding through my veins.
Bodies pressed around us, moving to the heavy beat, but I barely noticed. His other hand slid to my hip, anchoring me, and we started to move. Not the polite swaying I’d learned at debutante balls. This was instinctive, our bodies finding arhythm that had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the electricity crackling between us.
Then the song changed.
The DJ switched tracks, and a slow, sensual melody poured through the speakers, the bass dropping to something deeper, more intimate.
He spun me suddenly, my back pressing against his chest, his arm wrapping around my waist to keep me there. His breath was hot against my neck, and I felt his heart pounding, or maybe that was mine. Maybe both. Maybe we’d somehow synced up, two separate rhythms becoming one.
“You feel that?” he murmured against my ear, his voice doing things to me that should’ve been illegal.
I couldn’t speak. Could only nod, tilting my head back against his shoulder, giving him access to my throat. His lips ghosted across my skin, not quite a kiss, just a whisper of contact that made me shiver despite the heat.
He turned me again, pulling me in too close, breaking every rule of propriety and distance. Our faces were inches apart, his hands on my hips now, fingers digging in just enough to make me gasp. I was lost, in the music, in the moment, in the way his eyes held mine like he could see straight through every defense I’d ever built.
The lyrics continued their sinful promise, and I swayed against him, letting the song guide me, letting myself forget everything except this. His thumb brushed the edge of my jaw, slow and deliberate, then moved higher, tracing the curve of my lower lip. Lingering there like a question.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
His eyes, those impossibly blue eyes that saw too much. His smell, cedar and something wild and smoky, masculine in a way that made my mouth water. The atmosphere pressing down on us, thick with heat and promise and danger.
I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down, crushing my lips against his.
For one moment, everything stopped. The music, the crowd, my racing thoughts, all of it just…ceased.
Then he kissed me back.
Hard. Like he’d been waiting for this, for me, for longer than the ten minutes we’d known each other. His hands slid up my back, one tangling in my hair, the other pressing me so close I could feel every hard line of his body. I opened my mouth, and he took the invitation, his tongue sliding against mine in a way that made my knees buckle.
He caught me, held me up, deepened the kiss until I was drowning in it. Drowning in him. My fingers dug into his shoulders, nails probably leaving marks through his jacket, and I didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything except more. More of this, more of him, more of whatever this insane connection was.
“Come with me,” he said against my lips, and it wasn’t a request.
I should’ve said no. Should’ve remembered that good girls from good families don’t leave clubs with dangerous strangers.
But I’d been good my whole life, and where had it gotten me? Blackmailed by my half-brother, trapped in a mansion that felt more like a prison, living a lie so perfect it was suffocating.
“Okay,” I breathed, and his eyes flared with something dark and hungry.
After a car dropped us off in front of his building, the elevator ride to his penthouse was a blur of hands and mouths and desperate touches—of him pressing me against the mirrored wall while I wrapped my leg around his hip, both of us gasping for air we didn’t care about. His keys fumbled at the lock, his hands shaking, actually shaking, and that small show of his own loss of control made me bolder.
