Page 51 of Mister St. James

She doesn’t flinch. “You’re a liar.”

“So are you.”

She grins, all teeth. “That’s why we work.”

The last guests leave. The lights dim, and the city’s shimmer floods in through the windows, painting her skin in silver and red.

I want her, and I plan to have her, but I also want to be seen with her. Maybe that’s new. Maybe it’s been there all along.

We leave together. The power couple. The rumor mill’s next obsession. She holds her head high, daring anyone to question her place at my side. I let her lead the way, content to follow.

Her heels click on the marble, marking time, and I realize I am already imagining the sound of them scraping against the floor of my apartment, right before I make her come.

Later, she will call me an asshole for defending her honor, and I will take the accusation gladly.

But for now, I let her own the room.

I just enjoy the view.

We don’t say a word in the elevator up to my place, but the air between us is loaded, thrumming, crackling with every breath. She’s fidgeting, pretending not to, the pad of her thumb tracing the clutch she refuses to let me carry for her. I’ve seen her naked. I’ve made her come so hard she actually cried and made her scream my name loud enough to set off the privacy alarms in the Velvet Stag, but this, the two of us in an ordinary elevator, dressed up and doing our best to play human, is somehow more vulnerable than all of that.

The doors open. I key us in. The penthouse swallows us whole.

Cat steps out onto the marble, toeing off her heels, leaving them perfectly askew. Her height drops five inches, her posture another inch when she relaxes.

She doesn’t ask for a drink, but I pour her one anyway. She takes it from my hand, knocking it back fast, then sets the glass down so deliberately that I have to wonder what she’s about to say.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, voice tight.

I stare at her, trying my best to look confused when I know full well exactly what she is referring to.

“With Holt and some of the others.” She’s standing by the window now, hands folded behind her, like she’s about to take a confession. “You didn’t need to.”

I watch her silhouette, backlit by the city. The color of her gown is almost black in the dark, the slit exposing an indecent expanse of thigh. She’s the most beautiful thing in the apartment and she knows it.

“I wanted to,” I answer.

She turns then, slowly, as if giving me time to change my mind. “You’re an asshole, Aiden.”

I cross the floor to her, no hesitation. “You love that I am.”

She looks up at me. There’s nothing soft in her gaze, but it’s not hard, either. It’s just…hers.

“You’re not going to fuck me against the glass,” she says. “Not tonight.”

I smile. “You want to bet?”

“Not tonight,” she repeats. She steps past me, shrugging off the dress as she goes, letting it fall in a swish of silk onto the white linen sofa. She’s wearing nothing underneath, not a single stitch, and I cannot stop the blood from rushing from my head.

I follow her down the hall. She pauses at the doorway to the bedroom, one hand on the frame. Then she glances back, over her shoulder, and I realize she expects me to undress before I come to her. Fair is fair.

I strip off the jacket, the shirt, the tie. Cat’s eyes fixed on me the whole time. She grins when I stop at the pants. “You can leave those.”

She crawls into the middle of my bed, curls up on her side, and watches me cross the floor. She’s almost shy. That’s new.

I slip in behind her, curling my body around hers, my hand on her hip, my mouth at the nape of her neck. She’s warm, impossibly so, the muscle under her skin taut and trembling. I want to devour her but I hold back. Tonight is different.

“Are you going to say something clever?” she whispers, echoing the ballroom.