Brando doesn’t speak very often, but when he does, it’s generally to the point.
I stroke my chin, late night stubble scratching my palm. “Excellent.”
Conversation turns to the Angels—specifically the guests who’ve handed over large piles of money in return for a sordid night or two—and my mind drifts.
We made more tonight than any other night since we opened. Some very expensive sex is about to take place in and out of these premises as a result of my orchestration.
But that’s not the only reason I’ll remember this night long after the linens have been laundered—it’sthat kiss.
And the fact that several hours after it happened, I can still fucking taste her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Pfeiffer
Twenty-nine nights to go.
I’m wokenup by the sound of cups clattering and the coffee machine bubbling in the kitchen. The clock on my bed stand says eleven fifteen.
Groaning, I rub my eyes. I’ve never been the sort of person to sleep in. My hours at the hospital often meant I had to get up with the bird song, but I’m so exhausted from the late nights that late mornings have embedded themselves in my daily schedule.
As my vision clears, my stomach rolls with nervous energy. Slowly, my recollection of the night comes back to me piece by piece. Fallen Angels. Il Diavolo.
That kiss.
Then I remember the sensation of his mouth on my breasts and even though I’m tucked under blankets in the privacy of my old bedroom, I blush furiously.
As the memory settles along with the nervous tremor in mybelly, I revisit it tentatively. His tongue was warm, wet and deliciously sensual. It left trails of saliva across my chest which caught the conditioned air, pebbling my nipples and adding to the electricity that lit me up.
I was beyond mortified when he told me to touch myself. I rarely do so when I’m alone at night—I’ve always been too busy, and despite being twenty-eight years old, I’m not very experienced. But he coaxed me through it, telling me what to do with my fingers, all the while heating my lips with his whisky-sweet breath until my head went all fuzzy.
Instead of feeling like I was being forced and pressured, I felt… worshipped.
His hands flat against the wall either side of me, and his thick, braced arms bracketing me in, made me feel safe to be myself. Safe in the knowledge onlyhecould see what I was doing.
Without thinking, I sneak my hand under the covers and into my pajama shorts, gasping when my fingers touch the spot that detonated like a nuclear bomb last night. The desire, the relief, is still humming between my legs as if he’s unlocked something in me. He’s unscrewed the lid and discarded it, so I have nothing to contain the lust swelling in my lower belly.
Recalling his instructions, I move my fingers exactly as he’d said. Thinking about last night has already gotten me halfway there and I pin my lips together to conceal my moan.
I remember the darkness of his eyes. They were so close I could almost see them beneath his mask. Incredibly thick black lashes surrounding impossibly dark brown eyes.
Not hazel, not chestnut. Dark, dark brown. Mahogany. They reminded me of someone I once knew. But the second I tried to recall more, my brain shut down.
Then, before I could feel saddened, he rested his forehead on mine and the heat sent me spinning. Just that one simple touch of his forehead against mine did inexplicable things to me.
It was as though a circle had been completed. Thesensations between my thighs were suddenly connected to the hot, firm contact between us. I came so hard I blacked out, coming round seconds later to the sound of him breathing me in.
We remained there, his forehead still on mine as my breaths returned to normal. His own seemed to have sped up, the intensity expanding and contracting his chest.
Then he kissed me, and?—
I jerk up into my own hand, coming again, almost as intensely as I did last night. I remember his words.
Slower. Firmer. Don’t stop.
Keeping my mouth shut tight, I do as he’d whispered.
Can you feel your come? You’re so slippery, I can hear it. Keep coming for me.
