She wanted all of that. She wanted more. And so far they’d shared no more than a kiss. She wondered how she would ever survive the bump and grind of sex. He took a step into her body, pushing her into the waist-high sorting table that ran the length of the mailroom wall. The sharp edge cut into the center of her back. Cut harder when he pressed harder, pushing his full length against her, grinding a most impressive erection into the soft give of her belly.
Tongues tangled, warm breath mingled. Noses bumped, teeth clashed. Erin slipped her arms beneath his and moved her hands to his back then down to his backside, squeezing and urging him forward, closer. She wanted him closer. But clothing and location stood in her way.
And frustration mounted because there was nothing she could do but stand still beneath his touch and…oh, oh, yes, right there, she silently begged, easing her thighs apart when he wedged his knee between. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. His mouth was stealing too much of her air. The world tumbled away from beneath her, but his thigh between hers kept her from falling.
How could she have known he would taste like this? Like forbidden fruit, sweet and smooth, addictive. Warm sugar melting like heaven on her tongue. The taste of heat and velvet honey.
Yet this kiss, this press of lips, this open-mouthed exploration of tongues and teeth, nibbling and nipping, was an appetizer leaving her hunger to be sated. Leaving desire to be satisfied. Leaving the ache between her legs to be soothed.
He pulled away, panting, struggling. Choppy breaths, both ragged and raw, blew over the skin of her neck. She shuddered, pulled her arms back between their two bodies and curled her fingers into the material of his shirt. She buried her face against the backs of her hands. She didn’t know whether to hold on to him forever or to let him go.
The one thing she did know, the one thing that was not in question, was that she wanted more. And so she lifted her head and she looked into his eyes and she smiled, encouraging him to respond similarly.
But his face remained solemn, even when he lifted a hand and brushed wild strands of hair away from her face. Then he leaned forward slowly, brushed his lips tenderly to the corner of one eye and rested his forehead on hers. “Nice to meet you, Erin Thatcher.”
Oh, the sound of her name in his mouth. “The pleasure is all mine,” she managed to get out before her voice or her legs collapsed completely.
And then he chuckled, lifting Erin’s spirits and saying, “That’s good to hear. I was hoping I wasn’t the only one getting off on this.”
“No, this is definitely a mutual mailroom mauling,” she said and pulled in a deep shuddering breath.
And then he hooked an arm around her neck and made sure he had her attention before he asked, “So what do you say we take this party upstairs?”
4
ERIN BRACED HERSELF against one wall of the main hotel elevator she used to access her loft. Sebastian leaned against the opposite, legs crossed at the ankle, hands braced behind him, head angled back and chin lifted. His gaze never wavered or left her face.
And that caused her to smile. A nervous smile, she admitted, yes. But the upward pull of her lips was still a smile—one of pure excitement.
She tried not to shuffle her weight from one foot to the other, to switch her backpack from left shoulder to right, to hold in her stomach, hold up her head, straighten her shoulders and her flyaway hair. It was so damn hard to stand still beneath a scrutiny that intense.
How could eyes colored so soft a green, burn with that crystal-sharp edge?
The building elevator’s ambience added to the atmosphere of rich expectation. The dark paneled walls, the thick red and gold carpeting, the reflective ceiling of light. Each seemed yet another lush assault on her senses. There was barely enough air for the two of them to breathe.
When they’d stepped inside, not having said a word on the way to the elevators from the mailroom, Erin had let Sebastian take the initiative. Let him take, what a laugh. He’d done exactly as he’d damn well pleased, stepping into the small space behind her and automatically pressing the button to his floor.
She would’ve loved to sink beneath his weight into her own plush bed, to pull her quilt over their bodies and learn his touch in the private sanctuary of her bedroom. She could imagine the scent of candles burning, the smell of his exotically spiced skin, of his musky warm arousal, the low burning light reflected in his eyes.
Yet, even more than any of those dark desires, she was dying to see his loft, to learn what she could about him from his possessions, his surroundings, the way he lived. She’d wondered for months now about the way he lived. But not half as much as she’d wondered about the way he made love.
The elevator began its slow upward climb and Sebastian took a step forward, and then another. One more brought him within inches of where she stood and she curled her fingers into her fists. Both of his hands moved to the wall above her shoulders, a trap from which she had no desire to escape.
What she had, instead, was a longing for his kiss.
She lifted her chin, parted her lips and his head came down—but only to rub his cheek to hers, bristly skin chafing soft, even as he moved one hand from the wall to her shoulder and squeezed.
The elevator rose higher. Sebastian’s hand drifted down, lower, lower still, pressing the flesh above her collarbone before moving to cup her breast. She pulled in a sharp hitch of a breath.
He measured the weight and the fullness, skated the flat of his palm over her pebbled nipple, teasing her with a touch that held incredible promise. She shuddered where she stood, wanting to return the favor, to learn the feel of his body beneath his clothes.
But she stood unmoving. Waiting. Her heart beating. Waiting. His warm breath against her neck sent a sweep of sensation to play over her skin. Shivers raised gooseflesh along her arms, prickling at her nape and her nipples tightened further.
He grinned. She felt the movement of his lips even as he moved forefinger and thumb to lightly pinch and tug. She couldn’t help it. Desire rolled up from her belly and she groaned, the sound a murmured hum against his jawline where her mouth rested.
He nuzzled his cheek to her lips as his hand slid lower, measuring her waist. Lower still, to the flat of her belly. And even lower, where his finger found the seam of her pants that ran between her legs and pressed upward, directly against her clit.
She panted and whimpered and barely stopped herself from begging him to get down on his knees. What he did instead caused a missed beat to the rhythm of her heart, even while her blood ran hot and heavy in her veins. He released the button at her waistline, pulled her zipper down, all the while holding her upper body against the wall with the weight of his.
His hand moved into her pants, his skin smooth, his aim sure, as his fingers breached the elastic band of her bikini panties, slipped down to find the plump lips of her sex and her clitoris tight and hard and aching. She nipped at his neck and her fingers gouged into the muscles of his shoulders. She shuffled her feet, opened her legs, allowed him access, lifting upward and…
Oh, yes. Right there. He’d found the one spot, ooh, yes, there. She hitched her hip to the side. Sebastian’s finger, one at first, then two, slipped deep, deeper, filling her, withdrawing almost on her next breath, entering again to tease the soft pillow where sensation centered.
He repeated each motion, fingering her like the pleasure was his more than it had ever been hers to enjoy. That thought, that realization that he loved what he was doing hit her hard, a strike on her too-vulnerable female emotions when she’d sworn to keep this encounter emotion free.
Too late,
her mind screamed even as her body went over the edge. She shuddered, shook, trembled, shivered, clutching whatever part of him she could find to hold on to. Unbelievable. Oh, oh, she couldn’t…oh, his hand, his fingers, big and thick, and she never wanted him to stop.
Don’t stop, don’t ever stop.
And the spasms continued, rocking her through an orgasm that threatened to buckle her knees and take her to the floor.
Oh…my,
she thought, slowly coming back down from a high chemicals could never produce, regaining her physical balance but certain the rest of her equilibrium would never again be so steady. He’d just fingered her to orgasm and they were standing in a bloody elevator, the doors wide open—though when that had happened she hadn’t a clue.
Slowly, Sebastian withdrew his hand, his touch still intimately insistent as he pulled away from her sex, lingering along her plump lips, spreading juices to her clitoris as he circled the tiny pearl, wanting her to know what she’d done, what he’d done, that they were nowhere close to being finished.
If anything about him truly scared her—Erin mused, as she adjusted clothing and brushed hair back from her face—it was the way he’d so thoroughly breached any defenses she’d had that she couldn’t remember if they’d been there to begin with.
When had another man, any of the men she’d thought herself in love with, ever drawn this physical reaction from her?
She’d certainly had her fair share of sex and probably more than her fair share of orgasms, she thought, accepting Sebastian’s hand at the small of her back as he stepped from the elevator and guided her down the hallway.
She’d never been reticent to demand she get hers. And, yes. The drought had been ongoing for quite a long time, but that didn’t exactly explain what had just happened, the way she’d let go.
Or why this man—this man with whom she wanted nothing but a physical relationship—had been the one to so boldly blow away any inhibitions she might’ve had and sweep her up into a wild affair.
She was still working to collect her thoughts and her composure when they reached his front door. He pulled a remote entry key from his pocket, pressed the electronic combination and the lock clicked in response.
Before he pushed the door open, however, he moved his hand from the small of her back, lifted his arm and hooked his elbow around her neck.
He forced her head up, and the first shot of alarm skittered along her hairline, tiny pringles of uncertainty warning her to be on her guard. It wasn’t too late to back out. She’d run if she had to. She’d scream. She’d—
“Erin.” He caught hold of her gaze, made certain he had her full attention before he said, “We can stop this. It’s not too late to stop this.”
Wow.
That certainly wasn’t what she’d expected. She almost didn’t know what to say in response, though she did feel an easing of her nerves. “I’m not too sure about that, Sebastian. Neither the mailroom nor the elevator will ever be the same.”
He shook his head, his eyes sparkling beneath those dark-as-night lashes. “I’m not talking about the building. I’m talking about you. I don’t want you to regret…”
“What we’ve done?” She wasn’t sure why he’d let the thought trail, but she needed him to know she was fine. And that she was fine with what they were doing. “I don’t regret a thing we’ve done.”
He shook his head again and this time his hand moved to caress her neck, his finger traveling down her jugular to her neck and into the hollow of her throat. “I’m not talking about what we’ve done, but what we’re going to do.”
The way he said it… The way he touched her… Erin couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t swallow. The look in his eyes wasn’t gentle. Neither was it kind, but demanding and predatory, fantastically hungry, wildly hot.
What would happen, she wondered, if he were to lose control? If she told him she’d been waiting for weeks for what they were going to do? If she admitted she’d wondered what had taken him so long?
But since she couldn’t find but the barest hint of a voice, she only managed to say,
“Let’s go inside.”
SEX OR NO SEX, bringing Erin Thatcher into his home was not the way to work the woman out of his system. He should’ve known that. After their kiss in the mailroom—the kiss a mistake he wouldn’t make again—he should’ve had the common sense to see her to her own front door and say good-night.
But he hadn’t.
Instead, after her explosive reaction to his touch in the elevator, he’d brought her straight to his front door. A door no one ever entered. And now he stood back and watched as she stepped over his well-guarded threshold and into Ryder Falco’s private domain.
Sebastian wondered how long he would manage to keep his identity a secret. Or how long it would take him to lose the rest of his mind. Insanity was his only defense for allowing her to walk through his door and into his life.
Insanity, and his dick that felt as if it would snap in half if he took another step. Then there were his balls that, by now, had to be an unholy shade of blue.
He leaned back against the closed front door and watched as she studied his living space. He didn’t have a lot for her to see. A long, black leather sofa. A sound-systemintensive entertainment center. That was about it.
The rest of the main room’s walls were lined with shelves that held hundreds, maybe thousands, of hardback volumes. He’d never been a paperback kind of guy. Especially not when he could afford to buy what he wanted whether he needed it or not. Bestsellers,
classics,
research books, his entire Ryder Falco backlist. The rolling library ladder currently sat parked beneath a section devoted to paranormal occurrences. Now he wondered if he might’ve done better studying up on how, when so many before her had tried and failed, one woman had managed to work her way into the core of his psyche. He really was a sick bastard, letting it happen.
She moved into the room slowly, hesitantly, obviously unsure what she’d encounter. After all, she didn’t know a thing about him, other than the fact that he knew his way around the female body. He assumed that was the reason she was here. For the sex. He wasn’t going to fool himself into thinking she was here for him.
No one had ever been here for him.
“You don’t have a television.”
Strange that that would be her first observation. “Nope. Not a set in the place.”