3. Sick of Being Good
SICK OF BEING GOOD
CHELSEA
Erect nipples? Check.
Shaking thighs? Check.
And yet somehow, I’ve managed to follow the sexiest man I’ve ever seen in real life across the soaring marble lobby and into the posh elevator. We’re currently standing two feet from one another, both facing forward, as the doors slide shut.
I do my best not to fidget. I text Shanna and make sure location tracking is on. Tucking my phone back into my tiny purse, I send a covert glance at the man beside me. He hits the button for the top floor.
The big, bad wolf.
It was supposed to be a joke, but then he leaned in close, looking really big and promising to be really bad, and I combusted. He’s a wolf, all right. A wolf slumming it in a bar full of sheep in ties and loafers.
Black leather, white T-shirt, worn jeans. His hair a brown so deep it had passed for black in the dim lounge lighting, short on the sides, a tendency to curl on top. Eyes a stormy gray-blue and dark stubble that makes his angular jaw look even more wolfish.
I went shopping for a tricycle and ended up with a Harley.
And I don’t have a clue what to do with him.
My skin prickles when he turns his head, like he knows I’m thinking about him. Unlike me, though, there’s nothing covert about the way he stands there, openly assessing me. I’m both turned on by his singular focus and worried he’s about to find me wanting.
This is why I came here tonight, I lecture myself, an attempt to slow my racing heart.
Not to mourn a relationship I should’ve ended sooner. Not to pine over a man who wore politeness like armor and never once made me feel like this—reckless, wanted, alive.
Just run through the list.
It’s a trick I use before all my big fundraising events to calm my nerves and get in the zone.
Locate a sexy, interesting man. Check.
Engage in an intense flirting session. Well, he did more of the heavy lifting on that bullet point than me, but yes. Check.
Acquire a hotel room. He seems to have that under control, too. So, check.
Which brings me to number four on my list: Commence sexy times.
“Are you sure about this, Red?”
Panic flares hot and bright. Crap. I was right. I’ve been found wanting. Is he bailing on me already? He can’t bail on me. I’m not done with my checklist.
“I mean, you seem like a nice girl.”
Nice. The kiss of death. I can be bad. Probably. At least give me a chance.
“And I’m flattered as hell you want to have your way with me.”
I do. I really do.
“But usually in a situation like ours, there would be some foreplay by this point—your basic making out, maybe some torn clothing if things were going well. Instead, you’re looking at me like maybe you’ve changed your mind, and I’m…”
He sighs, running a hand back and forth over his hair, mussing it up in a preview of what it’ll look like once I get my hands in it. My palms prickle in anticipation.
“Don’t take this wrong, because there is nothing I want more than to push you up against the wall and feel your curves all over me, but I’m in kind of a bad place right now.
Cursed, some people might say. So I gotta wonder if maybe this is one of those situations we should just chalk up to shitty timing. ”
He chuckles, a deep, rumbly sound that’s more vulnerable than amused. Shaking his head, he glances up at the ceiling. “And what the hell kind of thing is that to be thinking when a beautiful, sexy woman wants to take you upstairs?”
Oh, wow. Even him trying to brush me off has me closer to orgasm than Dustin ever managed.
Dangerous men with big shoulders don’t say sweet things like that. Don't put a girl at ease by confessing he’s got some doubts, too. Don’t turn said girl on even more by not trying to play it cool.
I’ve somehow stumbled onto the ultimate prospect for my foray over to the dark side, and I’m about to lose everything because I’m a coward.
So I do the only thing I can: I commence sexy times.
Grabbing two fistfuls of leather, I pull him close and seize his lips in a kiss that spirals out of control so quickly that his earlier talk of torn clothing is this close to becoming prophecy.
And... check.
God, his mouth is perfect. I’m obviously acquiring a taste for whiskey, because the hint of it on his tongue is almost as delicious as the hard strength of his body.
His hand braces the back of my head and he licks into my mouth, claiming me. I’ve never been kissed like this, with so much raw passion I forget to breathe.
It’s everything I want tonight to be.
He drags his hand from my hair to my cheek, and then his touch is gone and the pressure of his lips decreases. I try to follow his lead, to pull back, but despite my best intentions, I don’t get more than an inch from that mouth of his. That beautiful, sexy mouth.
My chest heaves as I stand there, clinging to his jacket, wondering how the night can possibly get any better.
He licks his lips and my body clenches in response. “So, I guess we’re doing this?”
“I guess we are.”
He growls low in his throat, his big hands cupping my ass, hoisting me up his body like I weigh nothing, and it’s sexy as hell.
He spins and shoves me against the elevator wall with enough force to wring a groan from me at the contact.
I wrap my legs around his waist as he opens his mouth over mine and his tongue plunges inside.
The mix of dominance and desperation turns me on so damn much.
Everything about him is so much better than I planned.
He pins me to the wall with his hips, and the press of his erection has me writhing in an attempt to get closer.
This. This is how he one-ups the kissing.
His big hands cradle my face as he claims my mouth over and over, his chest crushing my breasts, and I moan as I hold onto his shoulders for dear life, the only solid thing in a world spinning deliciously out of control.
His hips buck against me at the sound.
Well, not the only solid thing.
The thought makes me giggle against his lips, and he pulls back, searching my face even as his fingers flex deeper into my hair. “Are you sure you’re real?”
I get what he’s asking. This giddy, lusty euphoria that’s making my head spin and my heart rev feels like a dream. A dirty, sexy dream.
I nod, loving the way his eyes darken in response, and I wrap my arms around his neck, claiming his lips with my own.
I groan my disappointment when he wrests his mouth from mine, only surfacing enough from my hormonal haze to realize the elevator doors have slid open.
“Jesus, Red. You’re killing me,” he mutters, pulling me away from the wall.
But instead of setting me down, he strides out of the elevator, shifting me to one side so he can reach into his back pocket.
I kiss his jaw, kissing his neck as he wrestles the key card from his wallet and unlocks his hotel room door.
And finally, finally, we’re inside the room, lit by faint, blue-tinged light. From the moon? Street lights? Who cares? As long as I can see him once I get him naked, I’m not going to complain.
My purse hits the floor before the door swings closed.
I push the jacket off his shoulders, and he indulges me, letting go of me with one arm so I can free him from his right sleeve, before doing the same with his left. The leather makes a muted thwap against the carpet.
I explore the ridges of his shoulders, obsessed with the shifting and bunching of warm muscle beneath my palms. He walks us over to the bed, but instead of dropping me on it, he crawls on with one knee, then the other, before his palms stroke down the backs of my thighs, wordlessly urging me to unlock my ankles from around his waist. And just like that, we’re both kneeling on the bed.
“Arms up.” The order is muffled against my mouth, but I obey without question, waiting until the last possible second before breaking the kiss so he can pull my top off.
He stares down at me, and I follow his hungry gaze to my breasts, watching as he traces one big finger along the lacy edge of my red bra, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. My nipples pucker, straining against the cups.
Not enough contact. Not enough pressure.
“So fucking pretty,” he breathes, and it sounds like the dirtiest of desires and the sweetest of compliments all at the same time.
He lowers his head, kissing the swell of my left breast, sucking my nipple into his mouth, and between the scalding heat of his tongue and the delicious scrape of the lace against my sensitized skin, I’m halfway to wherever he wants to take me.
He groans, and the sound ricochets along my nerve endings, drawing me deeper under his sexual spell.
I bury my fingers in his hair, holding him hostage to my desire.
Nothing has ever felt like this before.
When he finally lifts his head, breathing hard, staring down at me like he has big plans, I’m desperate for whatever he has in mind. But first, I need to see him. All of him.
“I want to take your shirt off, now.”
His smirk is downright filthy. “I think you should definitely follow your instincts and do that.”
Reaching out, I set my palms against his chest, liking the sharp intake of his breath as I make contact.
His heartbeat is strong and fast, and I take a moment to enjoy the intimacy of it before running my hands down his chest. His T-shirt is soft against my fingers.
“You were supposed to be wearing a suit.”
“Suits are overrated,” he counters, his voice gruff.
My fingers trace the ridges of his abs, moving inexorably down until they reach the end of the line, snagging on the waistband of his jeans. “I was supposed to be drunk.”
He stiffens at that. “Are you drunk?”
I shake my head. “I’ve only had the whiskey. Are you drunk?”
“Not even close.”
My fingers curl against his belt, knuckles brushing the soft skin near his hip bones. “You promise you’re not going to change your mind?”
He reaches out, tucks my hair behind my ear. “Not a chance in hell of that happening, Red.”
“You almost did in the elevator.”
The quirk of his mouth holds an edge of self-deprecation. “That wasn’t me changing my mind. That was me listening to my conscience and trying to be a good boy.”
That word again. I’m in bed with a hot, handsome stranger who has honest-to-goodness abs, and still it haunts me. “I’m sick of being good.”
“Well, now.” He’s not smiling anymore. “You just said the magic words.”
And instead of letting me unwrap him, he reaches back over his shoulder and pulls his T-shirt off in one fluid movement, leaving his torso bare.
Oh, wow.
He’s all pecs and abs and low-slung jeans, and his right arm is dark with a full sleeve of tattoos so dangerously perfect it’s hard to breathe. He looks like a model. Hell, maybe he is one. That’s the beauty of anonymous liaisons. They can be whatever turns you on most.
And to think I was worried this night might not live up to my expectations.
Pulling me close, he crushes my breasts against his hard chest.
“Put your arms around my neck.”
I do, and he lifts me up with one arm, leaning forward and bracing his other hand on the mattress. He lowers me until I’m on my back, head on the pillows, with him over top of me. My body is crying out for the heat of him, the weight of him, but he pulls back.
The disappointment is short-lived as he lifts my leg toward the ceiling and slowly drags the zipper of my boot from knee to ankle before tugging it off and resting my calf against his shoulder.
He repeats the same sensual steps, removing my other boot, and then the man kneeling between my legs reaches forward with one hand and pops the button on my jeans with a flick of his thumb and makes short work of the final zipper in his way.
I might actually die of anticipation.
I’m sure of it when he hooks his fingers in the waistband of my jeans and the elastic of my panties and gives them both a tug.
Yep. I’m going to die and miss the most exciting night of my life.
I focus on remembering to breathe as he peels the denim and lace over my hips and down my thighs before dragging them straight up and off, and this time, when my calves come to rest against his shoulders, there’s nothing but the heat of skin against skin as he stares down at my body.
The light from the window casts half his face in shadows, making him look dangerous and predatory. The big, bad wolf is in full effect. I shiver as goosebumps flood my skin.
“Pass me one of those pillows.”
I do what I’m told. I’ll do anything if he’ll ease the ache that’s spiraling inside me. But he doesn’t. He just takes me in, and I start to worry about why he stopped. What he sees. Am I too eager? Too clumsy? Not sexy enough?
I lift myself up on my elbows. “Look, I don’t want to sound ungrateful or like I’m second guessing your methods, but can you just come here and kiss me already?”
The wicked grin that sweeps across his face steals my breath. “That’s the plan.”
Grabbing my thigh, he lifts my hips and wedges the pillow under me. But instead of leaning forward and pressing his mouth to mine, he leans down.
My heels glide along the muscled length of his back as he settles himself between my legs. When the stubble of his cheek scrapes my inner thigh, all the air whooshes from my lungs.
“Better hold on tight, Red. I’m about to blow the house down.”