Chapter 7
RANSOM
I like bets.
I enjoy wagers.
And I cherish a helluva challenge.
But when I see Teagan walk backstage, I don’t care that much about Martinez’s smackdown.
Sure, an extra grand is nice. I won’t thumb my nose at that. But the money isn’t what motivates me.
It’s the look in Teagan’s blue eyes.
It’s the confidence, mixed with her warmth. It’s the determination, paired with her cleverness. It’s the way she found the loophole during the auction, how she made sure we’d win the top prize.
And most of all, it’s her.
All my reasons not to kiss her slip away from me tonight, and I’m buzzed on this evening.
On the fun we have.
I clasp her face, ask to kiss her, then I move in close.
And I forget.
I forget my lines.
I forget all the people milling around us, filling out forms, writing down details. All the noise and the talking. The clicking of shoes, the sound of voices, the music from the sound system.
All of that falls softly to the ground, then disappears like melting snow.
I dip my mouth to hers, almost touching.
There’s that moment.
The movie moment.
The one right before the kiss. Where the world slows, the camera zooms in, and the audience waits.
Will he?
Won’t he?
And I never thought much about those moments in flicks before. Never bought into them.
Now I get it.
Because I want to memorize every second of Teagan.
I want to remember how this first is going to feel.
To recall the anticipation I feel right now.
The desire coursing through my body.
The sheer intensity of my want for this woman. Right or wrong, lines or no lines, I want to kiss her so damn badly.
I savor this moment, but not as much as I savor the next, when I brush my lips over hers.
My world narrows to their softness, the taste of her gloss, and the feel of her mouth, warm and pliant.
She opens to me immediately, parts her lips. Invites me to kiss her more deeply. Asks with her body for more than a gentle, tender kiss.
Makes it clear she wants the now too.
As I kiss her, my head turns hazy with longing, and my body tries to insist on getting closer to her.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, I don’t entirely forget we’re in public.
I remember.
So I kiss her as chastely as I can, all while wanting to devour her lips. All while wishing I could consume her mouth.
Because she tastes so fucking good.
She tastes like months of pent-up desire, all sexy and snug in a violet dress with a fiery mouth and a helluva mind.
She kisses just like she talks. With spice and wit. With confidence and playfulness. She nips on my lower lip, then dusts her lips over mine before we separate.
I blink. Swallow hard.
She smiles, breathes hard, runs her tongue along her teeth.
And then the moment tips over.
She lifts her hand, runs a finger across my bow tie, and locks her eyes with mine again.
She doesn’t say anything.
But her hand on my tie speaks volumes.
It says, Let’s take this off.
In a low voice only for her, I whisper, “Do you want to get out of here?”
Her answer is immediate. “I do.”
There’s no choice between her place or mine—mine is closer.
Travel time is a potential buzzkill, but there’s no avoiding the lull in the action. Like the seventeen-minute intermission between periods in a hockey game, the break can sometimes be good, and sometimes be bad.
By the time Teagan and I weave through the crowd and make our way out of the Luxe, we’re five minutes post-kiss.
The problem with downtime and sex is that the more seconds that pass between contact, the more chance of someone backing out.
I don’t want to back out, and I hope to hell Teagan doesn’t.
But I know how intermissions work.
During the break from the ice, momentum can change.
It can slip and slide.
I don’t want to lose the momentum.
I want to speed up.
I want to drown myself in Teagan.
As soon as we leave the hotel, I hail a cab, and once we’re inside and I give the cabbie my address, I lean across Teagan, brush away a strand of red hair that fell from her twist, and dust my lips across her cheek.
She shivers, and I confess. There’s no point in pretending.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long,” I tell her as I sweep my lips along her jawline, up her neck to her ear.
She’s silent for a beat, then her soft words come. “You have?”
I breathe out hard, slide a hand across her face, and pull back to meet her gaze.
“Yeah. Sometimes when we’re out, I have to fight not to stare at your lips. I have to try to erase all these wild thoughts of kissing you senseless,” I say as the cab whips through a yellow light at rocket speed, jerking me away from her for a second.
I tip my forehead in the direction of the driver. “I think Captain Speedy is my new best friend.”
She smiles conspiratorially. “Me too. Maybe he can press turbo boost next.”
I dip my head, inching closer, my lips on her cheek again. “Now, where was I?”
“Kissing me senseless?”
I hum against her soft skin, drawing a deep inhale of her strawberry shampoo. “Yes. Fuck yes. I want to get my lips on you, my hands on you.”
“I’m good with both of those,” she says as the driver slams the brakes at the next light, jolting us.
Laughing, I reach for her hand and link my fingers through hers. “But maybe I should behave until we get to my place.”
She squeezes back, and I count off the seconds till the yellow car pulls up to my building on Park Avenue and Thirty-Sixth Street. I hand a twenty to the driver and get the hell out of the vehicle.
Inside, Oscar flashes me a grin. “How was your evening, Mr. North?”
“Fantastic, and I believe it’s about to be even more fantastic,” I say, racewalking past him.
Teagan waves to the guy. “Hope yours is too.”
We practically fly across the lobby, and I stab the elevator button.
“C’mon, c’mon,” I say.
She laughs. “Eager much?”
“Eager a lot,” I answer as the doors open. Then I step inside, crowd her in a corner, and take her lips for Oscar and all of Park Avenue to see as the silver doors slide shut.
“And now I will kiss you senseless.” I do, hard and desperate, and it’s as if the kiss unlocks something inside me.
Yes, I’ve been attracted to Teagan King.
Yes, I’ve fantasized about her.
And yes, I’ve craved her intensely.
But I had no idea that my desire ran this deep, this far. As I kiss her, I swear it’s as if I’m pouring years of longing into this kiss.
Maybe I’ve been waiting for this for some time now.
Perhaps it was inevitable, but I’m finally getting everything I’ve wanted with her.
Wanted but denied myself.
Seems she feels the same way.
She responds as if she does. Her hands slink up my chest, slide around my neck, and then she grabs me. Hard.
And holy fuck.
This is awesome.
My God, I love nothing better than a partner who wants it.
A woman who’s into it.
I want the give and the take, the back and the forth.
And I’m getting that with Teagan.
I am getting it good as she takes over, kissing me fiercely, sucking on my tongue and driving me out of my mind with pleasure.
I growl as the elevator slows. “I want you so much.”
Her eyes are wild. “Want you too.”
In seconds, we’re at my door. I unlock it, toss the keys on the entryway table, shed my jacket, and wrap my arms around her, jerking her against me.
I’m hungry for her, ravenous and needy.
But I also have so many things I want to say—things that are rising up inside me. “I kissed you tonight for you. Not for the money. You need to know that. It wasn’t for a grand. It was for me. I fucking want you.”
Her eyes sparkle with desire. “Good. Because I don’t want fake kisses.”
I push against her, letting her feel the full length of my arousal. “This feel fake?” I ask with a crooked grin.
She moans, then her lips curve into a coy smile. “No, but maybe do that again so I can be sure.”
I do as she asks, grinding against her.
She sighs—a sexy, needy sound that floats across the charged air. “I want you too. But what are we doing, Ransom?”
Those words.
Those hard, heavy words.
Heavy enough to bring this night to a screeching halt.
What are we doing?
I’m doing everything I vowed I wouldn’t do.
And yet . . .
“What do you want to do?” I ask, my breath coming fast as I still my hands. “Because I don’t want to keep my hands off of you. But if you want me to stop, say the word and I will.”
“I want all this,” she says, toying with the knot on my tie. “Badly.”
I lean in and steal a kiss. I savor it—the taste of her, the feel of her.
“But?” I ask as I pull back. “Because I hear a ‘but’ in there.”
“But I don’t want this to change anything,” she says, then shrugs. “Which sounds stupid. Or crazy.”
I smile like she’s just handed me the world. “It sounds perfect.” I thread my hands through her hair, letting the soft strands spill over my fingers as I meet her gaze. “Let’s make a deal. Let’s do this, and let’s do it the right way. So it ruins nothing.”
“We can do that,” she says, unknotting my tie, freeing it from the collar. “We can stay friends. We can have one night.”
“We absolutely can,” I groan as she works open the top shirt button, and I slide my hands to the back of her dress. “We can so do this.” I find the zipper and glide it down, tooth by metal tooth.
Each click of the zipper unlocking turns me on.
Each shudder from her arouses me more.
The prospect of having her the way I’ve wanted is driving me wild with lust. “T,” I begin as she undoes another button.
“Yeah?” Her voice is dreamy, feathery.
“If I’d met you at a bar all those months ago, I’d have taken you home that night. I’d have had you naked and under me, naked and over me, naked and any way you want.”
The long, sexy sigh that falls from her lips is so damn enticing.
She glances down at her clothes. “Keep going, Ransom. Because I’d have wanted that too.”
Kicking the moment up ten notches, I move quickly, like this is a play on the ice and I need to get down to the net.
There’s an opening, and I seize it.
I yank the zipper, driven by need, by this intense desire thrumming in my veins.