Chapter 21
Aidan
If I was being painfully honest—and at this point, I had no choice—I went into the bathroom mostly to collect myself. To gather my wits and get myself together. To take a breath and be Aidan again.
Except I wasn’t Aidan. Or was I? We hadn’t planned this far—I hadn’t planned this far. I’d planned the seduction, but like an idiot I hadn’t thought about what would come afterward.
The seduction itself had nearly pulled me to pieces.
I’d never had an experience like that with any woman. Samantha, playing Sarah, was fucking amazing. She was confident and sexy, raw and vulnerable. She played a game of deception, while underneath I could sense all of her exposed nerves. The combination was brilliant, erotic, and so explosive I’d nearly broken character a dozen times. It had taken every ounce of self-control I had not to throw the whole game away.
But I hadn’t. Because she liked the game, and so did I. The question was, now that we had both come and she was naked on my bed, were we still playing it?
Part of me wanted to go out there as Aidan and take her in my arms. Ask how she was feeling, if she was still okay. Talk to her about what we’d just done and how we’d done it.
But even as I cleaned up, then ran a hand through my hair as I looked in the mirror, I knew that would be the wrong move. There was a reason for this game—a reason beyond our own pleasure, that was. It was the only way to keep our other relationship, our work relationship, alive.
In short, if I ended the game now, on Monday Samantha would quit. And that was unthinkable.
So, John the art dealer it was.
I walked back out of the bathroom to see Sarah—I had to think of her as Sarah—sitting on the edge of the bed, naked except for her bra and her shoes. Her hair was only slightly mussed, her makeup—that black eye makeup, so bold and so unlike her—still in place. Her knees were pressed together, a decorous pose for a woman so naked, and she was holding her black panties in her hand.
As if she was leaving.
That was when I realized—Sarah leaving my room after a quick fuck was definitely not part of the game.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
She looked up at me. In that look, I knew that she was as lost as I was, that she didn’t know how the game went now either. For some reason that gave me confidence. She was looking for me to take the lead, so I would.
“I’m putting these on,” she said, her voice neutral. Waiting for me to give her a signal.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sarah,” I said. “We aren’t even close to finished.”
There it was: my signal. If she wanted to end the game, all she had to do was put her clothes on and walk out. I wouldn’t stop her.
There was the briefest flicker in her eyes, which gave me satisfaction. Then she blinked. “You’re awfully confident that I’ll want another round,” she said.
I smiled at her. I raised my hands and began unbuttoning my shirt. “You loved it.”
“You were adequate.” But her expression gave her away, her hungry eyes, as they followed every move of my fingers, taking in my skin as I unbuttoned the shirt.
“I don’t see you leaving.” I pulled the shirt off and dropped it, started on my belt. “In fact, I don’t even see you putting those panties on. So drop them.”
Her eyes moved down me. “I’ll do it if you drop your pants first, John.”
Did she put the slightest emphasis on that last word? Maybe. I didn’t care. I was John now, the art dealer who had started his evening having a lonely drink at a bar and ended it unexpectedly lucky. John was impulsive, a man who didn’t make many plans but always followed a streak of luck if he found one.
In short, he was the opposite of me. He wasn’t the icy cold Man in Black, who never made a move without thinking it through. No, John improvised. He took chances on pieces of art that spoke to him. He took chances on beautiful women in bars who were far, far out of his league. As a result, what had started out as yet another lonely night was turning into one of the best nights of his life.
This woman, Sarah the CEO, was a challenge. John knew he had to up his game to please her, even for just one night. She was used to being disappointed, and he wasn’t planning on disappointing her.
Besides, he really, really wanted to fuck her again.
I kicked off my shoes and socks, then dropped my pants. Pushed off my boxer briefs and kicked them away, too.
Her eyes were wide and dark as she took me in, head to toe. For once she didn’t have anything smart to say.
I took a step toward her. “Your turn,” I said. I was already half hard again, which wasn’t a surprise, because the hottest woman I’d ever seen was sitting on this bed, her round, pert breasts tucked behind a scrap of lace bra and no other clothes on. Just the thought of that perfect, bare ass against the bedsheets made heat travel down my spine. Her gaze fixed on my cock and stayed there.
It was flattering, but I was impatient. I stepped close and took the panties from her hand. “First, these,” I said, dropping them. “Then these.” I lifted one of her ankles and pulled off one high heel, then the other.
I put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up so she was looking me in the eyes again. “Adequate?” I asked her.
“Um,” she said, a soft, utterly turned-on sound, and I pressed my advantage. I kissed her, taking her mouth, letting my tongue slide in. She groaned softly and sucked on me, as if she’d been waiting for this and nothing else. My cock got harder. Still kissing her, I reached behind her and unclasped her bra.
Her hands dragged down my chest, my stomach. I cupped her breasts gently, running my thumbs over her nipples. “I’ve been waiting to see these,” I said. In truth, I’d been waiting to see them for three months, not just tonight. But I hoped she didn’t see through me.
She stopped touching me—it was almost painful—and lifted her hands behind her head. She pulled the pins from her hair, letting it fall past her shoulders. Then she moved back on the bed and lay down, her hair falling against the bedspread, her gaze still on me, serious and intent.
We’d moved past a quick fuck in a hotel room, but I didn’t care. This was what I wanted—what I had wanted for a long time. This woman, naked on a bed, relaxed and ready for me. Trusting me. I kissed my way up her ribcage, her breasts. Her shoulder and the dip of her clavicle. I nibbled her neck, feeling her go warm and soft beneath me, listening to her breath come faster.
Her hands ran through my hair. “I’m never going to see you again, am I?” she asked.
“Never,” I said, which was easy because it was a fucking lie.
“This is just tonight.”
I sucked her earlobe. “Yes.” Another fucking lie, if I had any say in it.
Her voice was hoarse with desire as she said, “Good, because that’s what I want.”
I settled my hips between her legs, pressing my now-hard cock against her. “I think I’ve made it clear that I know exactly what you want.”
“Oh,” she said, and by instinct I knew that wasn’t a Sarah sound. That was a Samantha sound. It made my cock throb harder against her skin. I kissed her again.
Eventually we parted long enough for me to find a condom in the stash I’d put here earlier. I put it on and rolled back over her. I braced myself with one hand, and with the other I grasped both of her wrists, squeezing them together as I pushed her hands above her head. There was no harshness to it, and she could easily escape, but it was a signal that I was taking control.
“Oh, that’s nice,” she said as I put her in position. “I mean, I think—oh, God.”
I slid into her in one smooth thrust, angled just right, as far as I could go. The first round had taken the edge off, and now we could take our time. I tried to hold off my own orgasm and do it right.
She was so perfect beneath me, naked, her hair spread, her arms pinned above her head. “Relax,” I told her as I moved. “I’m going to make you come.”
She bit her lip. “I think you are,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I think you are.”
In that moment, she was mine. Completely. Later, we’d dress and I’d go home alone. Later, I’d sit alone in my penthouse, unable to sleep. But right now, I was the man who completely possessed this woman. The man who got to see her like this, feel her. The man who got to listen to the perfect sounds she made when she came.
I didn’t care that our time would be up.
Right now, this was the only man I wanted to be.