His pupils dilate until his eyes are almost black. His jaw tightens. The hand holding mine flexes until his grip is just shy of painful.
“Eliana…”
He’s warning me, but somewhere along the line, I decided without realizing it that I no longer care about warnings. Fuck it—let him break my heart.
But let him break my headboard first.
Because I’m realizing something important: I don’t just want the Bastian who brings me sunrises and classic movies. I wantthisone, too. The one who looks at me like he wants to devour me whole. The one who’s barely holding himself back.
I want the sweetandthe sour.
The violentandthe tender.
The gentlemanandthe beast.
I want all of him, even the parts that should terrify me. Maybe evenespeciallythose parts.
Bastian moves before I can blink. His hand clamps around the back of my neck, dragging me across the armrest and into his lap. I land with a gasp, my skirt twisted around my legs.
“Bastian, I?—”
He swallows the rest of my sentence. His tongue invades my mouth, hot and insistent. I make a sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan, and his grip on my neck tightens in response.
“Do you have any idea,” he growls against my lips, “what you’ve been doing to me all night?” His free hand slides down my side and claws against my ribs. “This fucking outfit,” he mutters. “That little bow. Like you’re some kind of present I get to unwrap.”
His fingers find bare skin where my top meets my skirt, and I gasp at the contact.
“And this skirt.” His hand moves lower, bunching the fabric in his fist. “All flowy and innocent. But I’ve been thinking about what’s underneath it since the second you opened your door.”
“Bastian—”
“I’ve been going insane,” he continues, his mouth moving to my neck. He bites just enough to make me stifle a shriek. “Sitting next to you in the dark. Watching you watch the movie. Wanting to touch you so badly I could barely fucking breathe.”
His hand slides high enough to skim the underside of my breast through my top.
“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about this?” He switches to the other side of my neck. Every word is a breathy exhale on my bare skin. “That first night in the office, when you put your hands on my chest—I went home and jerked off thinking about what would’ve happened if I’d just said, ‘Fuck it’ and dragged you to the floor then and there.”
He tweaks my nipple through my top. I chew the inside of my cheek to hold back the moan.
“Bas… Basti…”
“The wine tasting.” His mouth finds the sensitive spot behind my ear. “I wanted to bend you over that table and fuck you in front of every single one of those pompous investors. Show them exactly who you belong to.”
My breath comes in short gasps as his other hand slides down my thigh.
“Mermaid’s Purse. Watching you eat those oysters.” He growls wordlessly. “All I could think about was your mouth. What it would feel like wrapped around my cock. Then the elevator.” He palms my breast and groans. “The fucking elevator. I wanted to push you against that wall and make you scream my name where anyone could hear. And the car…” His fingers find the hem of my skirt and snake beneath it. “That wasn’t enough, though. Not nearly enough.”
I’m stammering stupidly, not making any sense. It’s all I can do to keep from melting into a puddle right in his lap.
Then he goes deathly still.
“But you want to know what I’ve wanted most of all?” His voice drops to a baritone rasp that makes my toes curl. “What I’ve fantasized about every single night this week?”
I can barely form words. “What?”
He pulls back just enough to look me in the eye. “I want to taste you. I want my mouth on you. I want to make you come on my tongue harder than you’ve ever come before.”
The tongue in question darts out to wet his lips.
