In that moment, all Skye wanted was to croon something sexy back at him in an equally seductive tone. Hell, she was dressed for this production—she looked the part, and now she just had to say the lines.

A horrific sort of barking laugh crawled up her throat and exploded in his face instead. Mortified, Skye pulled away and pressed her hands to her steadily reddening cheeks.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Finn said, clearing his throat. He might have seemed put-together, but there was a flicker of faltering confidence—shown in the slight twitch of his cheek—that told Skye her rejection had stung. “Clearly I read the room wrong.”

“No, no, it’s not that,” she insisted, surprised at herself. “It’s just… Men don’t ever really talk to me like that. I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t… Yeah.”

She braced for a snide comment and a storm out, but instead found Finn studying her with a renewed interest, and while he didn’t inch toward her, something in his eyes had gone back to drawing her in.

“Well, men should say things like that to you.” He grinned. “Because you’re stunning…” Dark lashes fluttered as he blinked rapidly, as if thrown off by something. “And I now realize I don’t even know your name.”

“Would it matter if you did?”

“Not ordinarily,” he replied smoothly, “but in this particular instance, I think yes. In this instance, I very much want to know your name.”

“Well, how fucking blessed am I?” Clearly a playboy. Clearly used to getting his way. She couldn’t fathom why he wasn’t downstairs being King of the Orgy.

“Look, no, I’m sorry,” Finn scrambled when she stood up. Although Skye had no intention of storming out, she liked seeing him squirm a little. He waited until she sat back down, her arms crossed, then sighed. “Let’s start over.” He held out his hand. “Hi, my name’s Finn and I’d like to lick wine off your body.”

She snorted, and, after a brief hesitation, grasped his hand. “Skye.”

“Beautiful.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Now, let’s talk facts,” Finn said, crossing one leg over the other and resting his elbow on his knee, chin on his fist. “First, you are at a sex party. Second, you are dressed like a Christmas present I want to unwrap. Third, I’m charming as the day is long—”

“Not as charming as you think.” She raised an eyebrow at him, enjoying the challenge. “Just because I’m dressed a certain way doesn’t mean you can make assumptions about me.”

“No, I suppose not. I’d still like to ravish you, if I could.”

“And if I say no? Will I never see my dress again?”

“Of course you’ll see it again. I don’t take hostages.”

“Will I get kicked out of this den of sin?”

“Not by me.”

“Will you stomp out of here and call me a bitch?”

“Never.” He paired his response with an appropriately disgusted look, one that Skye read as genuine. “Tell me your reservations. Is it me? Do I not stoke the embers of your burning loins?”

“Gross,” she said, laughing.

“Are you here with someone?” She faltered, and Finn leaned back with a knowing nod. “I should have guessed someone so striking would already be taken.”

“We’re not…” She licked her lips. How could she categorize her relationship with Cole? She and her sugar daddy had never been romantic, even if the feelings, for her, were there. They were friends with mutual, nonsexual benefits. Skye swallowed hard. “It’s complicated.”

“Ah.” Finn’s eyes narrowed slightly, like a psychologist assessing her from the other side of the couch. “And would you rather he and I switch places, with he the one wanting to taste you all over?” Her cheeks warmed again, almost to the point of pain, and Finn chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Even if that was true, Skye didn’t hate the fact that Finn was here either. “How does that make you feel?”

“A bit wounded.” He placed a hand to his heart. “But I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

“Then maybe that’s my advice to you. Take care of yourself.”

He inhaled sharply, lips twisting into a wicked smile. “Oh, I like you, Miss Skye. Very much.”

There it was again—that fire. It crackled across her skin, leaving her hot and flushed and desperate to fan herself down. Instead, she folded her hands together and tried to maintain this unexpected air of cocky nonchalance.

“You know, even if I were interested in your offer,” she started, adding a one-shouldered shrug for effect, “and I’m not one hundred percent saying I’m not—but if I were, I’d need a little more from you.”

“Saving your dress wasn’t enough?”

“I need a backstory,” she told him. “I need to feel invested in you as a character. I need a bit of oomph to get going.”

“Emotional oomph?”

“Emotional oomph.” She gestured between them. “I need to feel like I kind of know you, at least. Just a little bit of connection.”

“Mental oomph too, then.”

“I guess you could call it that.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Skye.”

She tried to come up with a quip on the fly using the word hard, but couldn’t. Instead, she just shrugged again and offered a demure fluttering of her lashes. “I guess so. Those are my terms.”

“I can’t just be a man in a good suit who wants to fuck you?”

While longing throbbed through her entire body, Skye managed to shake her head. “What happened to just wanting a taste? You’ve really upped the ante here.”

“What can I say? Witty banter does it for me.”

She looked away, lips pressed together, not wanting him to see just how much of an effect he had on her. Witty banter apparently did it for her too.

All these years with a sugar daddy, she had been too busy getting on with her life finally, too busy taking care of herself at last, to consider dating or sleeping with anyone. For the most part, Cole kept her busy enough that her emotional needs were met—even if they didn’t see each other in person as often as Skye would have liked, they spoke on the phone or through video chat at minimum once a week—but she had suppressed her physical needs for a long time now. There was nothing in their contract that said she couldn’t be intimate with another man; she just couldn’t parade him around in front of the press afterward. Nor should she choose someone who might sell their dirty secret to the highest bidder the next morning. Skye did a quick scan of the man in front of her. For some reason, she felt like she could trust him.

Maybe Finn was just the man to quench her thirst, to break the dry spell—to make her scream.

A chill sprinted down her body, reverberating across her sex and settling on her sensitive bud, eager for the caress of those strong hands.

Why not?

It was just sex.

“Okay, backstory,” she said a little breathlessly. “Name. Age. Height. Some fun facts. Go.”

Any other guy would have hightailed it out of there by now. Actually, any other guy would have offered a vaguely sympathetic “that sucks” at the sight of her covered in wine, then darted after the two drunk, scantily clad women who had almost ruined her night.

Finn, meanwhile, inhaled deeply, his broad chest expanding and deflating—tantalizing, hypnotic. She wondered just how hard it would be if she poked at it. The tailoring certainly highlighted a toned figure underneath.

“Right. Here we go then.” Finn clapped his hands together, snapping her back to the conversation. “My name is Finn Rai. Thirty-five. Six-three. Oldest of five. My parents own a chocolate company—”

“Rai’s Sweets?” Her eyebrows shot up. “As in… You’re…”

He nodded, seeming almost embarrassed she had figured it out so fast. “That’s me.”

“You’re a Rai. From Rai’s Sweets.” The revelation knocked the wind right out of her sails. She’d been playfully tormenting a billionaire. Rai’s Sweets competed with the best of them—and they made her favourite milk-chocolate salted caramel bites. “I…I always buy your salted caramels at the gym.”

Finn snorted. “Probably the worst place for us to sell them.”

“Or the best. We’re all hungry at the gym.” Okay. The fact that he was heir to a billion-dollar candy empire shouldn’t throw her off. Cole was a billionaire. She met men and women who basically hemorrhaged cash at every event he took her to. Finn Rai was just another man—a man who wanted to fuck her.

Skye rolled her shoulders back to bolster her courage, noting the way Finn’s eyes dipped down her chest briefly before jumping back to her face. She had played with rich men and their ilk for four years now, with and without Cole there to back her up. This was manageable.

Still, though. It was almost like she had just met a celebrity she’d never known she idolized until that second. Those salted-caramel-chocolate pieces of paradise rocked her world at least twice a week.

“Let’s see, what else…” While his brow furrowed, as though deep in thought, the too-obvious smirk suggested he thought he was in the clear. He wasn’t wrong. “I play squash every Saturday with my niece and nephew in Santa Barbara. If I could, I’d run a wildcat sanctuary, but apparently that doesn’t look great on a portfolio. I hate mustard. Relish is also questionable. My father was born in Mumbai but emigrated to London in—”

He stopped abruptly when she placed a hand on his knee. Warmth radiated up her arm.

“I think I’m good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Miss Skye,” Finn said, standing and buttoning his jacket—like they’d just concluded a multimillion-dollar deal of some kind. “I think you’ve made a very wise decision. One that I hope will be more than satisfactory for all parties involved…”

Before Skye could get a word in edgewise, Finn grasped her chin firmly and claimed her lips. White-hot excitement twisted through her, and a moan escaped unexpectedly as she let herself be taken. A swift nip at her lower lip encouraged her to open her mouth to him, his tongue sweeping over hers, encouraging it to play—but with grace, with poise. A strange thing to consider, a tongue being graceful, but she’d had too many inexperienced men shoving their tongues to the back of her throat in her day; Finn was a welcome change of pace.

Her hands shot up, clutching at his jacket, eager to feel that body against hers, and an arm around her lower back eased her to her feet. He tasted like mint and smelled like heaven, the faint hint of scruff across his cheeks and chin adding a sharp edge to the kiss. Just as she’d suspected, Finn was a man who took care of himself physically, the grooves of his body firm beneath the hurried exploration of her greedy hands. Unable to help herself, Skye popped his jacket buttons open, then slid up his torso and pushed said jacket off his muscular shoulders. Their lips parted, but only just, still hovering near enough that she felt each hot breath, her nerves on fire.

“Straight to business then?” he asked as his jacket fell to the floor, and she answered with a desperate kiss of her own. He had claimed her—she thought it fair to return the favor. Her fingers wove through his thick head of hair, tongue brushing over his and retracting before he could retaliate. She moaned again when he pulled her to him, hard, dipped her backward, and kissed her like he wanted to devour her.

Skye had never been devoured before.

And it was about damn time, honestly.

What thrilled her the most was that Finn had no qualms in taking what he wanted. The force behind his kiss, the way his hands roamed her body—he made his desires known, then acted on them. After all the years of questions, of analyzing every touch, every look shared between her and Cole, Skye couldn’t have asked for a better, or more needed, one-night stand companion.

An embarrassing squeak slipped out of her mouth when Finn hoisted her up and deposited her on the bathroom counter. The combination of cool marble on the backs of her thighs and Finn’s searing gaze blazing down her front sent a shiver down her spine, her skin erupting with little bumps. A throb of need pounded through her system with each touch, and when he slipped his hands under her knees and dragged her to the edge of the counter, she could feel a slickness between her thighs, her sex wet and wanting, that made her cheeks flame.

“You blush beautifully,” he murmured, tracing the red from her cheek, down her chin, then to the valley between her breasts. “Makes me want to eat you right up.”

“Isn’t that what you promised?”

“I did indeed.”

“I just want to make sure I’m getting what was offered.”

“Oh, you will.” Lust pooled deep within his gaze as it darted up to meet hers. “That and more.”

“Big talk. Let’s see if you can back it up…” Her voice hitched when he ran his tongue along her jawline to her ear, tracing the shell before nibbling at her lobe. She arched beneath him, a hand digging into his shoulder as he quested lower. Each kiss alternated between firm and soft, chaste and filthy, until he paused where her neck and shoulder met to suck—hard. Her eyes widened and her hips bucked like they had a mind of their own. “Oh!”

Rather than sliding over the edge of the counter, she straddled Finn’s waist, his belt buckle biting into the tender skin of her inner thigh. Her soft hiss made him reposition himself, and in place of metal, Skye found a very solid, almost worryingly thick cock pressed against her. She bit her lip, deciding right then and there to just surrender to the ride.

After all, if she really wanted to, she could always get off—in more ways than one, probably.

Finn ended his love bite with a flash of teeth; her toes curled in response, her back arching further and forcing her up against him. Just as he’d promised, he spent enough time on her wine-drenched skin to leave her a tormented mess, a symphony of soft moans tumbling from her lips while she ground her hips against him. This was what happened when you went on a four-year dry spell waiting for a man who clearly had no interest in you—just a little affection, a touch of physical intimacy, and Skye was gone.

While she wanted him to devote the same time and attention to her nipples, which had hardened to stiff peaks beneath her lacey bra, Finn continued his journey downward—though not without kissing each along the way.

“It seems a shame to ruin your outfit,” he murmured against her skin, and at that point Skye didn’t care if he just ripped it all off and had his way with her, though she would appreciate his care for expensive lingerie when this was over.

Slowly, Finn eased down her body, pressing kisses and licks here and there, catching the garter belt around her waist with his teeth. He snapped it, the sharp sting against her skin making her squirm. He paused, however, when he reached her panties.

“This… is a complicated contraption,” he mused, hands skimming over the undergarment—pleasure spasmed through her when he grazed her sex—and down to her stockings, then to the ties that connected the stockings to the belt at her waist.

“I can just—”

“Ah, ah,” he chided, batting her hands away with a smirk. “Allow me.”

Skye sat back on her elbows, head resting against the mirror, and watched as he navigated her complex lingerie getup with all the precision and care of an archival technician handling a delicate artifact. Each brush of his fingers over her skin sent a rush of excitement fluttering through her body before eventually settling in her core. Even the slightest of movements now reminded her she was wet, positively dripping with need.

Carefully, as if wanting to preserve Skye exactly as she was, Finn unbuckled each belt, one at a time, and slid her panties down until they reached mid-thigh. Free from the constraints of straps, he was able to pull them off completely, but only after buckling her back in—and snapping each garter, just to watch her writhe. He then folded the damp lacey material in half and set it aside on the counter, though for a moment it looked like he wanted to tuck it away in his pocket.

Skye couldn’t decide if she’d let him get away with it or not, but she wanted to see him try.

“Now, come forward,” he urged softly with a crooked finger. Biting the insides of her cheeks, Skye complied, slowly scooting to the edge of the counter again, though he kept prompting her until she was about to fall off.

“But—”

“And give me those beautiful legs.” Finn sounded comfortable issuing directions, and, besides a quick flick of his gaze to hers, had no problem following through when she hesitated. He lifted each leg over one shoulder, and colour flooded Skye’s cheeks when she realized she was straddling his face—sans panties. His tongue darted quickly across his lower lip as he took in the view, as if admiring a work of art. “Perfect.”

Although she wanted to watch him appreciate her, she just couldn’t. Instead, Skye made herself comfortable on her elbows and let her head fall back, losing herself in the gentle nips he peppered up her thighs. Alternating between each side, the sensations grew sharper, more defined, the closer he got to his destination, and by the time she felt his breath on her wet slit, her body shook, having had enough of the teasing, the torment—desperate for it to end.

Desperate for that moment.

“Oh, fuck!” she cried when his mouth finally closed over her swollen clit, tongue flicking at the sensitive bud. So primed for pleasure that each sweep of his tongue, each suckle of his lips, nearly sent her crashing over the edge. Her ankles locked behind him as his hands kneaded her backside, massaging each cheek as his relentless mouth ravaged her. At one point, when it became too much, too much pleasure, too much everything, Skye tried to wriggle out of his grip, but Finn held tight, renewing his blissful torment with a wild look in his eye, tongue thrusting in and out of her briefly before returning to her clit.

What she would have done for a finger or two…

Only she didn’t need it. Before long, she pitched over the edge between sanity and ecstasy, gasping his name like a proclamation of worship, when a climax hammered her every which way. Finn held her twitching body tight, offering no relief from his talented tongue, not until she tugged at his hair and uttered a pitiful, “Please, god…”

Her orgasm prickled through her, and rather than extinguishing the blaze Finn’s touch set across her skin, it only made it worse—fuel to the fire. As he set her on the counter, her back against the mirror, the tension in her muscles eased away, but not completely as it always had after a stellar climax. Instead, she found herself hungry for more, desperate to douse the flames any way she could.

Finn had already moved away from her, headed for one of the sinks to rinse his mouth. When their gazes met, however, it was clear the fervor burning within him was far from extinguished too.

The thought thrilled her. Excited her. Worried her—but not enough to send her running. So, Skye reached for him, ignoring the slight shake in her fingers, and waited. The blaze snapped and spat and hissed behind his eyes; and within the span of a few tense, controlled breaths, the fire brought him back to her.