I open my mouth to tell her I will do my best to get him to remove it, but Leigh adds, “And only if I can astral project. I have too much going on in Borealis to leave.”
I shake my head. “Stellan won’t go for that. He’ll see it as an insult.” He fancies himself a leader, and his pride would take a hit. If he and Leigh are going to work together, they need to speak face-to-face. Shake on it.
“There’s no way I can leave.” Leigh sighs. She sits on the bed. It doesn’t dip beneath her.
“What’s twenty-four hours in the grand scheme of things?” I sit beside her.
“I’m needed in Borealis.”
“Why? Hot date?” I tease, but Leigh flinches. My jaw clenches as she hides her face behind her hair. “Leigh?”
“I am fixing things, Wilder, I swear.”
Despite the warmth in the room, goose bumps prickle my skin. What isn’t she telling me?
I open my mouth to ask, but Leigh sighs, and the excessive amount of pain I see reflected in her gaze keeps me silent. “I wish you could hold me.”
If I could hold her, I’d never let her go.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” I offer.
“Hmm,” Leigh deflects. Her tone is mischievous. “Just because you can’t touch me doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of our time together.”
“I thought you had too much going on in Borealis to be here?”
Leigh leans closer to me. Her bare shoulder should be touching mine if she wasn’t thousands of miles away. I take inthe sight of her dress. Her breasts spill from the heart-shaped neckline, enticing me to take a bite. I want to. Fuck, I want to domorethan that.
Leigh is everything I want wrapped in a tight, blonde package.
“What are you thinking?” Leigh asks, her voice a throaty whisper.
“How that dress would look a thousand times better torn to ribbons,” I sigh.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“I like this dress, so I won’t tear it apart, but . . .” She bites her lip. “Close your eyes.” I frown, and she laughs. “That’s an order, commander.”
I do as she says, but nothing happens. The longer nothing happens, the more I fidget. “Leigh? I feel stupid. What?—”
“Open them,” she says after a long silence. I obey, and my heart falters. The dress is gone, and she’s lying back on the bed, clad only in her underwear. Her hands move rhythmically over the comforter. “What do you want to do to me?”
“What are you doing?” I ask, but she shushes me to play along.
“Everyone is downstairs,” she continues. “If we are quiet, we can have some fun.”
I sigh as she sits up and crawls toward me with a taunting smile. “Come on, Wilder. Don’t you want to play with me?”
My laughter is a throaty grumble in my chest. “Yes.”
Her smile blinds me. “Good.”
“How do you want to do this?” I ask. I am completely at her mercy.
“Well, for starters, you are wearing entirely too many clothes.”
Eyes locked on hers, I pull my shirt over my head. Her gaze is ravenous, like a caress across my chest and abs. My dick hardens, straining against my zipper. This is happening.
