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“You are the most unique woman I’ve ever encountered.” I want to own this woman. Make her mine. Give her all the things she deserves. Control her… No! That’s not what she needs from me.

“Is that a good thing?”

“A very good thing.” I bent down and scooped her dress off the floor, choosing my next words with an emotion I wasn’t familiar with. Regret. “But I’m probably not the man you want to break this celibacy streak with.”

I needed to end this before my obsession with her destroyed us both.

FOUR

Ivy

I’m standing here with my boobs out, holding a conversation with Silver, the hottest man I’ve ever met. I licked my own fluids from his hand because he wanted me to. And now he tells me he’s not the right guy to fuck me?

“Why are you changing your mind?” I asked. “Is it because I talk too much?”

“Not at all.” He ran his hand along his taut jawline. “I’m forty-seven.”

“So?”

“I thought you were older.”

“How much older?” I asked.

“Like twenty-seven or twenty-eight.”

“That’s where you draw the line?”

“Maybe you should put this back on.” He held out my dress. “I can’t concentrate when you’re naked.”

“You took the dress off.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not putting it back on.” Why am I fighting to have a conversation while I’m wearing nothing but my panties?

“Why not?”

“Because I want the night you promised me.” I removed my arms and hooked my fingers in either side of my panties. I guess I’m doing this. My heart pounded hard against my chest, rattling my insides, but I came to his suite because I needed this night. “I want this.” I shimmied my panties down my legs. “I want you.”

I wasn’t sure what unnerved me more. His intense gaze, studying every inch of my naked body, or the cool air that ghosted my flesh, making my skin prickle and my nipples even harder.

“Fuck,” he whispered as he came toward me.

His gaze. Definitely his gaze.

“Are you sure?” He swiped my hair over my shoulder. “I need you to be certain.”

“I took my panties off, didn’t I?”

“I’d like to say where have you been hiding all my life but…”

“For more than half your life I wasn’t alive, but why does that matter? We’re talking about one night.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” he said.

When he lifted me up, a spark of excitement rolled through me. As he carried me into the bedroom, our lips collided. He dropped me onto the bed, removed his pants, and then crawled in between my legs.

“You had a chance to escape me,” he said as he draped my legs around his hips. “You didn’t take it.”

“Just be a little patient with me, okay?”

“I can be a little patient.” He rocked into my bare sex. “But as you can see, other parts of me aren’t going to be very patient.”