“Pardon?” Her voice lands smoothly, but her hand hooks in my shirt and stays there.
“Shut it all out,” I murmur. “Just be…”
“With you?” A quick, disbelieving huff escapes her as the words slip past her defenses.
“…free.”
The corners of her mouth twitch, the tight line easing. Her lashes lower; the room, the hall, the whole damn Olympic village disappears from her face. She closes her eyes before our lips touch, before I can taste her, like she has to shut the world off to step into this. Her palm finds the back of my head, fingersthreading into my hair and hauling me closer, and something in her grip changes—from clenched to claiming.
She’s not calm. She’s vibrating. Her nails bite my scalp, her mouth already parting for a kiss that hasn’t quite landed yet, her body wound high and hot against mine. And still, she drags me in, choosing this over whatever’s waiting outside that door.
She’s going to be as free as can be. Tonight, I’m just the idiot she’s using to tear the leash.
The champagne I ordered from the bar didn’t impress her, but it was the best I’ve ever tasted. Not because my brain will forever link those bubbles to the taste of her pussy, but because it was just that expensive.
Yet she only smirked when the golden liquid touched her lips, like this was kids’ stuff compared to whatever she’s used to. Still, it did its job. With the beer and two glasses of sweet bubbles in her blood, the fine tremor in her fingers finally eased as her hands traced the lines of my muscles.
I lie on the bed, propped on one elbow, watching, fucking mesmerized, as she strokes my chest and abs like she’s trying to carve every line into her memory. There’s nothing lazy or practiced about it; she’s too intent, too focused, like she’s studying something she’s not sure she’s allowed to keep.
My sweatpants are still on, my hard-on already doing its best to get me naked, when she starts kissing and licking my skin, greedy and almost frantic.
She’s down to her underwear. She peeled all her clothes off the second we stepped inside, muttering that her skin burns, like the fabric itself was suffocating her. For a heartbeat, she was all jagged movement, fingers fumbling at buttons, breath too fast, eyes a little wild, as if she’d either get naked or explode.
She was shaking all over, every touch a mix of hunger and barely contained panic, so I suggested a drink first to calm her down and give her hands time to stop buzzing like live wires.
She knocked it back like medicine, the worst of the tremor easing, that wild energy in her sharpening instead of fading. Now we’re on the bed, her mouth hot on my chest, her fingers finally steady on my body, and I’m seriously starting to regret being the gentleman who prolonged the torture. I’ve seen women strip for me before. I’ve never seen someone escape their clothes.
“Will you tease me forever?” I manage.
The smile she gives me is wicked, playful, so fucking sexy it hurts.
“As long as you can bear,” she says, and tugs both my pants and boxers down.
Tonight she’s the one tearing the leash. I’m just too drunk and too gone on her to see she’s fastening one around my throat.
Chapter 1
Fuck It’s You
Playlist:
Vowless: Rules Don’t Fit Me
Billy Joel: Uptown Girl
Sölden, Austria, October 5
NICO
“Who are you?” I ask, stroking wayward streams of molten gold away from her face. “Someone famous? Someone important? Some super-rich duchess?”
