"Tonight I'm going to lie in my bed," he murmurs against my mouth, "and it will be your name on my lips when I come again. The door between us will be unlocked."
If there was ever a dare issued, that is it.
The words send flames licking through my body, igniting every nerve ending with renewed desire.
"Drake..." His name escapes me like a plea, and I drag him in for another kiss.
This one isn't gentle. It's desperate and hungry and everything I've been trying to deny. He groans into my mouth and lifts me effortlessly, my legs wrapping around his waist as my back hits the wall beside my door.
His cock presses against the thin fabric covering my pussy, hard and thick even through his trousers. The barrier between us makes me furious with want. I can't sleep with my boss. Not yet. Not like this.
But God, I want to. I want to so badly I burn to the very core of my being.
I'm panting hard, grinding against him shamelessly, and then he reaches between us and strokes the pad of his thumb over my throbbing clit through my soaked panties.
I explode.
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave, pulling a cry from my throat that echoes through the empty hallway. I shatter in his arms, trembling and gasping and completely undone.
He lowers me to the floor before I've even stopped shaking, and then he kneels before me like a supplicant at an altar. His fingers hook into the waistband of my panties and pull them to the side, exposing my swollen flesh to the cool air.
"Drake, what are you?—"
His tongue drags along the seam of my pussy, gathering my release on his tongue, and the question dies in my throat. He groans at the taste of me, the sound vibrating against my sensitive flesh, and I have to grip his shoulders to keep from collapsing.
One long, slow lick. That's all he takes. A taste. A promise. A preview of what waits for me when I'm ready to claim it.
Then he rises, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and fixes me with those hungry eyes.
"You know where to find me, little rose."
He leaves me in the hallway outside my door, legs trembling, panties ruined, body still humming with the aftershocks of pleasure.
I stumble into my room and close the door behind me, leaning against the wood while I try to remember how to breathe.
He stopped when I asked. Immediately. Without question. Without pressure. Without making me feel guilty for saying no.
Jonah pushed and pouted and made me feel like the villain for having boundaries. Jonah took what he wanted and called me frigid when I didn't give him more.
Drake stopped. And then he knelt before me and tasted my pleasure like it was a gift he didn't deserve.
Maybe this man is different after all.
I press my hand to my chest and feel my heart racing beneath my palm. Want and terror war inside me, each one fighting for dominance.
I want him. I want him so much it scares me.
And for the first time since Victor Kedrov showed up at my door five years ago, I'm starting to believe desire might kill me before any evil in this world has a chance to end me.
Fourteen
Katriana
Afew days have passed since Drake left me trembling in the hallway outside my bedroom door, and the tension between us has become a living thing that breathes and pulses in every space we share.
Every morning he finds excuses to touch me. His hand on my lower back as we walk through the building, the warmth of his palm searing through the thin fabric of my blouse until I can feel the imprint of each finger against my spine. The brush of his knuckles when he passes me files, a contact so brief it could be accidental if not for the heat that sparks through my veins every single time. A kiss stolen in the elevator between floors, quick and hungry, his mouth claiming mine for three heartbeats before the doors slide open and we have to pretend we're nothing more than employer and assistant.
I’ve learned not to wear lipstick.
