Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
theo
She tasted like champagne and bad intentions.
Her lips found mine the second I closed the space between us, soft at first, testing, teasing, then hungry.
Desperate, even. Like we’d both been holding our breath all night, and this kiss was oxygen.
Her hands found the sides of my jacket, tugging me closer until I could feel every curve of her pressed against me, silk on silk, heat under skin.
“God, you’re bad for me,” I muttered, mouth brushing her jaw as my fingers slipped the pin from her hair. Dark brown waves tumbled down, wild and soft, and I fisted a handful as she gasped.
“And you’re terrible at pretending you don’t want this,” she whispered, tugging my tie loose with a practiced flick of her wrist. She pushed the jacket from my shoulders.
I let it fall. The tie followed. She unbuttoned my shirt like she had a plane to catch, fast, focused, not even pretending to be delicate.
I loved that about her. I hated how much I loved that about her.
“You wore this dress on purpose,” I growled, lips skimming her collarbone, hands sliding down the open back, fingers brushing bare skin. “Knew exactly what it would do to me.” She laughed, breathless and cocky. “I wore it because it makes my ass look great.”
“Accurate,” I said, gripping said ass and lifting her onto the edge of the table beside the champagne. Her legs wrapped around me instantly, instinctively, like we’d done this a hundred times. My hand slid up her thigh, pushing the silk higher, until I found exactly where she should have panties.
“You weren’t joking about not wearing panties?” I asked, my voice hoarse. She tilted her head, smug. “Would’ve ruined the line of the dress.”
“Jesus Christ, Samantha.” I kissed her again, rougher now, teeth grazing her bottom lip as she tugged my shirt open. Her hands were everywhere, chest, shoulders, neck, like she couldn’t get enough. Neither could I.
She pulled back just enough to breathe. “Take off your pants.” I stepped back and did as I was told, dropping them to the floor.
She watched, chest rising, lips parted, looking at me like she was hungry for me.
She got down from the table, took her dress off, as I served the champagne without looking away from her. She wasn’t wearing anything.
Her breasts bounced slowly as she sat at the edge of the bed. She opened her legs, “Come here, Mr. Jones.” Her voice was low, teasing, almost dangerous. “Show me how you take control.”
“Bossy,” I murmured, stepping between her knees, giving her the glass.
She took a sip of the Dom, eyes focused on mine, and set the glass on the floor next to her.
I step between her legs and push her back onto the bed, slow but firm, watching the way her eyes flicker with heat.
She let me. Her legs stayed open, inviting, daring me to do something about it.
So, I did. I dropped just a little bit of champagne on her body.
It splashed onto her breasts, her stomach, and just a bit under her belly button.
She gasped at the cold. I set my glass on the table and went to kiss her.
Her mouth opened beneath mine, soft and sweet, until I deepened my tongue, teasing her lower lip with my teeth. She moaned into my mouth.
I moved lower, my lips trailing down the elegant line of her throat, licking the drops of champagne there, stopping to feel the flutter of her pulse under my tongue.
Then further, down the curve of her collarbone, and lower. She gasped when I sucked lightly on the soft swell of her breast, her back arching, her fingers tightening in the sheets now. I took my time licking the rest of the Dom off her.
My tongue flicked over her nipple, drawing another breathless sound from her lips.
I circled it, teased it, feeling it harden under the attention.
Her body shifted beneath me, hips pressing up as if every nerve ending in her body was bound to my mouth.
Then I bit, just enough to make her cry out.
Her hand fisted the sheets, head thrown back, lips parted in something between a moan and a curse.
“Fuck, Theo…” That sound, my name, raw in her throat, sent heat straight through my spine.
I moved to her other breast, kissing a trail across her chest before repeating the same slow torture.
My tongue teased, my teeth grazed, and her hands never stopped moving—my hair, my shoulders, the space between us, she couldn't get enough.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she breathed, voice wrecked.
I looked up at her, lips wet, jaw tight with restraint.
“Not yet.” I dragged my mouth lower, across her stomach, pausing just above where she was already pulsing with heat.
Her breath hitched, hands fisting the sheets again as I looked up at her, watching her squirm beneath me, completely undone.
I kissed the inside of her thigh, slow and open-mouthed, letting my tongue graze her skin. She shivered, legs falling open further like a silent invitation. I did the same to the other thigh, nipping gently this time, just enough to make her whimper and try to shift her hips closer.
“Patience, sweetheart,” I murmured, even though I had none myself. She moaned my name, a plea and a curse in one, and when I finally dipped my head between her thighs, I didn’t hesitate.
One long stroke of my tongue, finding her clit on the first try, and she gasped like the air had been punched out of her lungs.
“Oh, fuck—” Her hips lifted off the bed.
I wrapped an arm under her thigh, locking her in place, and did it again, slower, firmer.
Her fingers tangled in my hair, tugging hard as I devoured her, tracing her rhythm, matching her breath.
She was sweet, warm, soaked, already on the edge, and I wasn’t going to stop until she fell apart completely.
Her thighs trembled. Her voice was wrecked.
And when I sucked her clit into my mouth just once, she shattered, hips jerking, mouth open in a silent cry, eyes squeezed shut as the waves took her.
I didn’t stop. Not until she begged. Not until her hands tugged me up, pulling me to her mouth like she couldn’t stand one more second without kissing me.
She tasted herself on my mouth, and I felt her unravel, right there in my arms. Her fingers wrapped around me with a grip that made my jaw clench.
My breath hitched, every muscle going taut as she stroked me slowly.
I tried to say something, maybe her name, maybe a warning, but then she sank down, lips parting around the tip, and my thoughts scattered. “Fuck, Samantha,” I groaned, one hand gripping the edge of the bed, the other buried in her hair, not guiding, just there.
Her mouth was warm, soft, and so goddamn confident.
She moved like she knew exactly what I liked, exactly how far to push.
Her tongue slid along my length in slow strokes, her fingers curled around what she couldn’t take.
Every sound she made, every glance up through those lashes, was wrecking me.
I looked down at her, flushed and focused, and I swear I’d never seen anything more dangerous. Or more beautiful.
“You’re going to ruin me,” I said, breathless.
She smirked around me, wicked and knowing, and that was it.
She already had. I pulled her up, her breath still shaky from the way she’d just unraveled for me.
Her lips were swollen, pupils wide, skin flushed.
Beautiful didn’t cover it; she looked wrecked and radiant all at once.
“On your knees,” I murmured, voice low.
She didn’t hesitate. She slid off the bed and onto the plush rug, kneeling for me, eyes burning into mine. My hand slid through her hair as I guided her mouth back to my cock, watching her take me with praise and hunger all at once.
I groaned. God, she was perfect like this.
I pulled her up roughly, my mouth claiming hers again as I walked her backward until the back of her knees hit the mattress.
She turned around and climbed on, crawling across the bed like a goddamn vision, and I followed.
The only sound was our breathing, too loud, too desperate.
“Face down,” I growled. “Now.” She did without question, arching her back just enough to tempt me further. Her ass was perfect, begging for my hands. I slid my palm down her spine before gripping her hip in one hand and guiding myself with the other.
“Do you want this?” I rasped, because even now, even with her bare and open and shaking for me, I needed to hear her say it. “I want this, and I want you,” she whispered.
I didn’t wait another second. I thrust into her with one hard, deep stroke, and she gasped, high and sharp. I did it again, rougher this time, until her hands fisted in the sheets and her moans filled the room. My fingers dug into her hips as I set the rhythm, unforgiving, hungry.
“You feel so fucking good,” I groaned. “So tight around me. Like you were made for me.” She moaned in response, incoherent, pushing back to meet me each time.
Her body shook beneath my hands, and the sounds she made, desperate, unfiltered, only made me harder.
I leaned forward, my chest against her back, my mouth by her ear.
“Say it again,” I whispered. “Say you want me.”
“I want you,” she breathed, trembling. “Don’t stop, Theo.” And I didn’t.
Her voice cracked as she said my name again, broken and pleading, and that was all it took for something primal to snap in me.
I grabbed her wrists, pinned them to the small of her back with one hand, and drove into her harder.
She cried out, half-moan, half-sob, and it made me want to own every sound she gave me.
I didn’t just want her body. I wanted her wrecked by my name, ruined by the way I moved inside her.
“Look at you,” I growled into her ear. “Bent over, begging, and falling apart for me.” She arched deeper into the bed, her hair a wild mess over the sheets, her body trembling beneath me. I held her still and kept thrusting, each movement a claim on her body.
She tightened around me, and I felt her body reaching that edge again. I fucking loved it. “You close?” I asked, my voice rough with need.
“Yes,” she gasped. “God, yes…don’t stop…” I didn’t. I shifted, hit her deeper, harder, and she cried out again, louder this time. Her knees slipped slightly on the sheets, but I gripped her tighter, held her in place. She was losing it. So I slowed, just enough to make her whimper.
She writhed beneath me, greedy for friction, desperate for more. I leaned forward, kept her wrists pinned, and licked her shoulder, then bit her, just enough not to leave a mark.
“You want to come?” I asked, voice low and commanding. “Yes. Please.”
“Then you do it when I say,” I growled. “Not before.
She groaned in frustration, and God, I loved the sound of her surrender.
I released her wrists and flipped her over in one quick motion.
Her chest rose and fell in a frantic rhythm, her lips parted, eyes heavy with lust and fire.
I reached down, grabbed her thighs, and pulled her to the edge of the bed, never breaking eye contact.
Then I thrust into her again, deep, rough, raw. “Wrap your legs around me,” I said. She obeyed instantly, and I slammed into her over and over, every thrust matched with her moan, her nails clawing down my back as if she needed something to anchor her. “Come for me, Samantha.”
Her orgasm hit her hard, loud, shattering, and I wasn’t far behind.
I followed her over the edge with a low, guttural growl, my hands tightening on her hips as I spilled inside her, breathing her name against her neck.
For a second, all I could hear was our heartbeats, wild, overlapping, synced.
Then I pressed a kiss to her collarbone. Still inside her. Still wanting more.
Her body was still trembling beneath mine, legs falling open, breath catching as I finally pulled back. I exhaled hard, brushing a kiss against her shoulder before rolling to the side. My chest still heaved, sweat cooling fast on my skin. She lay there for a second, stunned and quiet. Then—
“Holy shit.”
I smirked, dragging a hand through my hair. “That’s the review I was hoping for.”
Her laugh was soft, wrecked around the edges. “No, not that. We’re supposed to be at a gala.” That sobered me. I glanced over at the vintage clock on the fireplace mantel.
“Oh shit.” We’d been gone too long. Too noticeable.
Too obvious. Sam sat up, wrapping the sheet around her.
Her dress was somewhere on the floor like a silk crime scene.
She reached for her glass of Dom, took a sip, then looked at me with that wrecked, post-storm glow that made it impossible to think straight.
“I can’t go back down there looking like I’ve been completely railed,” she said, blinking wide-eyed. “You were,” I muttered, grabbing a towel and handing it to her. “Multiple times in fact.” She laughed again, flushed and exasperated and somehow even more beautiful.
I threw on my shirt, backward the first time, then fixed it with shaking hands while she slipped back into that black silk dress, skin still glowing, hair wild in the best way.
I found her clutch and passed it over. She dug out a lipstick and touched herself up in the mirror while I buttoned my cuffs.
Every movement she made felt like a temptation I didn’t have time to indulge in.
We needed to move.
She pulled her hair back into a clean twist, glanced in the mirror, and exhaled. “How do I look?”
“Ruined. And perfect.”
“Mr. Jones!” I grinned. “You’ll pass. Come on.
” She slipped her heels on and grabbed the keycard from the table.
As we opened the door, the muted sounds of the gala filtered back in, glasses clinking, music swelling, conversations echoing against marble.
Sam looked at me, lips parted. “If Harper says anything…”
“She won’t,” she snorted.