Chapter 5
OLIVER
“You’re quite proud of yourself, aren’t you?”
She smells like gardenia and secrets, yet she looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. I know she’ll melt under mine.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I need a drink,” I mutter. Lie. What I need but shouldn’t is my mouth on her pussy.
“So you’ll be in the bar too?” She turns to me, her face a beautiful, blank mask. A ruse.
“A drink might help me appreciate your brand of humor.”
“Who’s joking?” she says, twisting away from my hand.
“I don’t do funny.” I find myself straightening my cuffs to stop myself from reaching for her. This infuriating woman needs some sense fucked into her. My mind bends to that image, my heart thumping loudly once in my chest, my throat growing dry as I see myself kissing her, holding her down, fucking her until her cries rock the room. “And I don’t do women in wedding dresses.”
“I thought it was just this bride you objected to.”
“That’s not it,” I snap. My temper isn’t the only thing frayed.
“That’s right. You objected to the groom. Like I said, Mitchell has tainted the day. My day. This is my way of fixing it.”
“Whatever can you mean?” I find myself drawling.
“Rebound sex.” She shoots me a look I can only describe as hostile.
“Of all the asinine . . .”
“Haven’t you heard? The best way to get over someone is to get under a new someone else.”
“And that’s your plan?” My gaze drops over her curves, desire buzzing through me now like electricity without an outlet. “You’re going to hang around the bar in your wedding dress?”
“Don’t tell me. There’s another dress code.”
“I’m not sure whether it reeks of desperation or fancy dress.” I saunter closer as though I haven’t a care in the world, let alone a care for anyone else having her. “Poor Gavin will be surprised when you turn up still wearing this.”
“And that’s your concern how?”
A good question, because despite my cool tone, the thought makes me feel murderous. Eve is not my responsibility—the fact that she was about to marry my nemesis six hours ago should’ve been reason enough to leave her at the curb. Instead, I canceled my meetings and set aside my whole day, telling myself I might learn something useful about Atherton. That I might discover a way to ignite the pyre I’m building for him. Instead, the day was an exercise in self-restraint as an invisible force built and twisted between us. A force I acknowledged but intended to ignore. Even as I kissed her.
The lift chimes its arrival, and the minx has the temerity to offer me her hand.
“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
I should pity her attempt at manipulation. Somehow, it just makes me want her more.
“Yes.” My jaw tightens, my balls along with it, as my palm meets her much daintier one. Would she still look at me this way if she knew the depths to which I’d sink to in order to ruin her ex? You’re dancing on a cliff’s edge, and I am no savior.
“Oh!” She makes the tiny exclamation as I tug her into my chest.
“It looks like you’ll be seeing quite a bit of me.” Crooking a finger beneath her chin, I lift her gaze. “You win, darling.” You also lose, you beautiful, blind fool.
“Do I?” Her lashes lower, veiling her triumph.
“Unless you’d prefer to spend the night drinking J?gerbombs with Gav ?”
“You know what I want.”
“Whom. Whom you want.”
“It’s not like I’m taking advantage of your virtue.”
“Admit it. To yourself. To me.” Tell me this isn’t all my fault.
“Sheesh, all right.” Her gaze lifts, her eyes golden in the light. “I want you. Though God knows why.”
“Eve.” Ignoring her disclaimer, I make a sigh of her name. “You are a shameless floozy.” And I am sorry you’ll come to regret taking this step.
“I prefer go-getter .” Her lips twitch, then give in to a grin. “Which would make you ...”
“Hard to get?” Taking her hand, we make the lift before the doors begin to close again. “I’m certainly part of that sentence, in any event.”
I don’t reach for her as the doors slide closed. Instead, I watch her trembling hand as she hits the button, then enjoy a ride upward that’s silent and anticipation filled. As we step out into the hallway, I push my hands into my pockets and slow my pace, encouraging her to walk ahead.
“I thought you had a regular suite.” She delivers her taunting words over her shoulder.
“Which suggests what?”
“Well, you’re following me like you don’t know the way.”
“Perhaps I’m just enjoying the view,” I purr meaningfully.
Her laughter is girlish and unrestrained, her gait altering, her hips swaying hypnotically. As she reaches the door, she lifts her hand to the neckline of her dress. A whisper of air separates our bodies as I slip my hand over her shoulder and two fingers into the top of her dress.
“Do you have anything else hidden down there?”
“That all depends.”
I press a kiss beneath her ear, relishing her tiny gasp. The resulting shiver as I slide the key card out. “On?”
“How nice you are to me.”
“Oh, Eve.” Wrapping my arms around her waist, I pull her back against me. “I’m not going to be nice to you.”
“Oh!” Her answer is little more than a flutter of air as I press my lips to the curve where her neck and shoulder meet.
“Not even a little bit. What’s more, you’ll thank me for it.”
I swipe the key against the reader and turn the handle as Eve gathers her dress and practically shoots inside.
The suite is reasonably sized. Stylish rather than outlandish, a tasteful nod to the 1920s in a palette of cream, gold, and black. A fireplace, a velvet sofa setting, a cherry dining table, and in the next room, if I’m not mistaken, a four-poster bed large enough to hold an orgy in.
As the door clicks closed behind me, I slip off my jacket and drop it onto the sofa.
“How about that drink?” Eve couldn’t get much farther away if she tried. She stands by an old-fashioned drinks trolley, her eyes widening as I reach for the buttons on my waistcoat.
“What are you having?” Heart palpitations by the looks of things, but not second thoughts as she watches me slip it off.
“Whisky.” Her attention swings away. “I’m having whisky.” I bite back a chuckle as her fingers fumble with the heavy decanter stopper and it thuds to the carpeted floor. “Dammit.” Pivoting, she drops to scoop it up. If she finds me a little too close as she stands, she doesn’t say so.
“Allow me.” My forearm glances her waist as I reach for the decanter, tendrils of her perfume a temptation twining its way around me. “Will two fingers satisfy?” I ask silkily, splashing a little into the glasses.
“After the trouble I’ve taken to get you here?” Her answer is soft and amused, though she can’t quite look at me as I press the tumbler into her hand.
“Trouble?”
“I’ve never worked so h-hard”—she stutters as I arch a brow but valiantly carries on—“to get what I want.”
“Let’s toast to that.” I touch the rim of my glass to hers.
“To working hard?”
Oh, you’ll work, darling.
“To getting what you want, and not what you deserve.”
We both bring our glasses to our lips, then Eve laughs. “Wait, you think I don’t deserve—”
“Sometimes, the key is not to think.” Lifting her glass from her hand, I set them both down. She sucks in a sharp breath as I slide my knuckle across the smooth wing of her collarbone. “There’s no need to be nervous.”
“I’m not.”
“It’s in the way you tremble.” My touch skates across her bare shoulder and down her arm. “And the way you look at me.” She’s not the only one affected. Desire tightens my belly, muscle sinew taut and aching with the need to seize, to touch, to speed this up. It’s been a long time since I’ve reacted to anyone like this.
“Look at you how?” Her voice is soft as I loop my fingers around her wrist, lifting her hand to the back of my neck. The other follows naturally.
“Like I’m a wolf in the chicken coop.”
Her laughter is soft, then stuttering as I span my hands around her ribs. Touch. Hold. Feel. I slide them slowly upward.
“And yes, that does mean I am going to eat you.” As my thumbs glide over her nipples, her breath hits my lips in a tiny, jagged exhale. “I’m going to put my head between your legs and eat your pussy until the entire floor knows my name.”
“Only the floor?” Her voice quivers in a tiny tell I’m sure she’d hate.
“Give me your mouth, lovely Eve.”
Soft eyed and expectant, she is slices of sunshine, champagne froth, and creamy lace, but as I press my mouth to hers, I’m reminded of how looks can be deceptive as I experience the darker depths of her. She tastes of whisky, of woman, and of a base desire that meets my own in a sweet yet bitter ache.
“I have a question.” My tone husky, I press her body between my hands and my cock, and she arches against me.
“Consent is sexy.” Her lips fighting the shape of a smile.
“Presumptuous,” I playfully admonish with a squeeze of her arse. “After your diligence in getting me here?”
She gives a tiny smirk.
“I was thinking about this underwear of yours.”
“What about it?” she purrs, and my cock aches as she stretches against me like a cat. Her breasts, pressed lushly against my chest, almost spill from the top of her dress. My mouth waters. I want to use my tongue to trace the rise and fall of her flesh. Press my teeth into the unblemished flesh. But this isn’t going where she thinks it is.
“I wondered if you’d dressed before or after.”
“I found out? What does it matter?”
“It matters if you dressed for him. Or not.”
“And if I was already dressed when I read those texts?”
I tighten my fingers on her arse, and her exhale feels like liquid fire through my veins. “It would mean you dressed for him, and I’d have to insist you take it off. All of it.”
Her smile is infectious, her words laughingly expelled. “That is where this is going.”
“Eventually. You’re far too lovely to rush.”