I froze, glancing down the hall and then looking back towards the half-plated dinners. If I hurried, I would still have time to get them all into the warming tray before they got too cold. But I had intended to have all of this ready already, and now here we were.

“Go ahead and light those tapers; I don’t have time to dig out the other candlesticks.” I said urgently.

Oliver caught me as I headed toward the door, pulling me close and kissing me lightly. “Everything looks great,” he said.

I blinked up at him for a moment, surprised, but I didn’t have time to process the kiss, his kind words, or anything else—I had to answer the door.

God, how could I have let myself get so distracted? Was I really that susceptible to an attractive body?

Okay, so he was more than just attractive. Oliver was an absolute Adonis, with that dark hair, those piercing eyes, those muscles. I could still only imagine what he’d look like without his clothes on, but from what I’d felt of him . . .

But I couldn’t think about that, not right now. My panties were damp enough as it was, and the last thing I needed was to start blushing in front of my guests. I took a deep breath and headed toward the door.

As the evening progressed, despite the other guests in the room, I couldn’t seem to quit thinking about Oliver. I noticed the way he watched my lips as I sipped at my wine. I noticed the way he just happened to reach for certain things at the same time as me, so that our hands brushed against one another’s. And, more than once, I caught myself staring at him as well, when he wasn’t even the one speaking.

Oh, the dinner party was fine, and I didn’t think that anyone else noticed enough that they would comment on it, but I felt ashamed that things were mostly going on without my orchestrating them. I had invited all these wonderful people into my apartment—the least I could do was pay attention to them for a little while.

Eventually the room just started to feel too hot and too small. I could feel Oliver’s gaze on me. Every time he spoke it was like he was whispering in my ear. Every time he rubbed his thumb along his bottom lip I could only imagine his mouth on my hot skin. The way he looked at me made it perfectly clear—he wasn’t done with me yet.

The tight coiling between my legs had gotten so intense that I couldn’t stand it for another second. I suddenly realized that the bottle of wine was getting low, and I stood abruptly—enough so that I startled a couple people, if their looks were any indication. I blushed a little and held up the empty bottle. “I’ll be right back. I just want to grab another bottle,” I told them.

There were nods and smiles and, finally, I escaped. The apartment was split-level with a storeroom downstairs. The previous owner had turned it into a cellar, with wine racks running along two walls.

Right now, it seemed like a refuge, a place where I could collect my scattered thoughts and take a deep breath. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, and to my embarrassment, I could feel my pussy fairly quivering with need.

I needed to get it together.

I grabbed a bottle of wine from the rack at random and started towards the doorway, only to find Oliver waiting there for me, blocking my exit. “Are you sure about that choice?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the bottle in my hands.

I realized that no, this wasn’t at all the bottle that I had intended to grab. I felt a flush go over me. Imagine, if I had walked out there with this . . .

Oliver plucked the bottle from my trembling hands and went over to the rack to select an appropriate bottle. “Are you all right?” he asked as he came back across the room.

I nodded, even though I felt anything other than all right. My heart was beating out of control, and if he didn’t stop walking toward me . . . I froze as my back pressed up against the rack behind me. Oliver was close—too close, close enough that he could hear the frenetic beat of blood in my body, the way that I couldn’t seem to catch a full breath.

He brushed my hair back from my face, something unreadable in his gaze. “The things that you do to me . . . you can’t even imagine,” he said in a low, husky voice.

“The things I do to you?” I asked breathlessly.

His hand came down to rest at my waist, and suddenly my plain professional high-waisted skirt felt suffocating. I leaned into him. Oliver hummed, like he was pleased by my reaction—maybe he’d expected me to pull away. “I like watching you with everyone. It’s obvious that you’re very passionate about your work.”

“I am,” I said faintly.

“Is that the only thing that you’re passionate about?” Oliver whispered, running his thumb along my lip.

But he didn’t wait for me to answer. He suddenly pushed me harder into the racks behind me. Before I could react, he took my lips, kissing me heatedly. When my lips parted in a gasp, he used that entrance, pushing his tongue into my mouth and pillaging its depths. He bit my bottom lip gently and I moaned into him.

His lips slowly slid away from mine, trailing exquisite kisses along my jawline and down my neck. He bit at the tender skin just below my ear, and I whimpered softly, pushing my body against his as I fizzled with desire. Even though I knew I should be pushing him away, I couldn’t deny how badly I wanted this.

I didn’t stop him as he started undoing the buttons of my blouse.

He cupped my breast, rubbing at the nipple through my soft, lacy bra. I shivered, my whole body flashing hot. Now was the time to say something, to remind him that I had guests over—other guests. But when I opened my mouth to stop him, the only sound that came out was a breathy moan.

Oliver smiled at me, his fingers still gliding across my skin. He used one hand to push my skirt up, and the next thing I knew, his fingers were pushing past my panties and pressing into my folds, drawing another of those quiet, needy moans from me.

“I want to fuck you, right here, right now,” Oliver whispered, his voice deep with his own desire. He caught my hip with his other hand, grinding against me, and I could feel his hard cock pressing against the front of his pants.

I nodded and moaned positively in response.

“That’s not going to cut it, Sophia. Remember our conversation at the beach? I’m not going to give you anything until you tell me that you want it, sweetheart—especially not an orgasm.” His voice was breathy and I could sense that he was struggling to restrain himself. His whole upper body was flushed red and his muscles tensed.

“I . . . I want it,” I managed to strangle out between moans. He was still working me with his hand between my legs and . . . my God, he knew exactly what he was doing.

“You want what, Sophia? I need to hear you say it,” he breathed, barely hanging on. “Fucking say it.”

“I . . . I want you . . . now . . . I want you to fuck me, Oli.”

Oliver smirked brilliantly at me, showcasing those gorgeous dimples of his. He turned me around, lifting my skirt and pushed my panties down, so that they dropped to the floor around my feet. This whole thing should had have felt degrading; this wasn’t what I imagined for a first time with anyone. Not that I had ever imagined that Oliver and I would have a “first time.” I had been so carefully denying my interest in him ever since I’d met him, and now . . .

When his fingers slid inside of me, I could feel how wet I already was. His fingers moved easily, effortlessly plying my walls and making me whimper with need. I pressed back against him, though doing so made me feel wanton and slightly ashamed.

I hated to admit it, but there was something extraordinarily sexy about doing it here, in my cellar, knowing full well that the rest of the dinner guests were upstairs eating their meals. Something about the fact that Oliver clearly couldn’t wait any longer for this either . . . That, in itself, could have pushed me over the edge.

“I have to warn you, Sophia. This isn’t going to be the warm and tender first time you might be used to. I need to fuck you hard. I don’t know any other way to get you out of my system,” he breathed.

He used his feet to push my legs apart, opening me up for him. Oliver pushed down on the small of my back and brought my behind up to meet his hips. I heard him unbuckle his belt hastily. I heard a wrapper being torn open and tossed to the floor. Finally, I felt him press his cock up against my entrance, only the very tip slipping inside. I gasped. “Please,” I begged, needing to feel him fully seated inside of me, a throbbing heat in my core.

Oliver leaned forward and kissed my shoulder blade, slowly sliding into me.

“Fuck. You’re so tight,” he groaned out.

I braced myself against the wine rack with both hands as he began to thrust into me. The movement of his hips wasn’t the fast, bruising, demanding pace that I had expected. Instead, he was unhurried, giving me time to fully appreciate how well he fit inside me before he dragged himself all the way out, until just the head remained, and pushed back in again.

Eventually, he began to move at a faster tempo, his hips slamming into mine, sharp and forceful—but there was something intimate about it still, in the way that he held me back towards him, in the way that his lips pressed against my neck.

I cried out and shifted my legs further apart as his fingers found their way to my clit, fluttering strokes playing across that sensitive bundle of nerves.

“Mmm. . . that’s it sweetheart, just let go for me,” he panted.

Just as he had commanded, my whole body drew tight, my toes curling inside my shoes until—

Release. It happened suddenly, swiftly, all at once—as though all the heat in my body coalesced, a million fires turning into one, long burst of heat. I shivered at the force of it, my knuckles gone white where I was still gripping the edge of the wine rack. I sobbed out Oliver’s name. My knees gave out—but he was there to catch me, holding my hips, keeping me upright even as he spilled inside of me. He let out a quiet groan into my neck, his breath warm and heavy when he finally exhaled.

After a moment, I took a deep breath, prying my eyes open and staring blankly at the wine rack in front of me, wondering how we had gotten to this point.

Oliver turned me around so that I was facing him and gave me one last, sweet kiss on the lips, holding me close against his body. I became aware that I was still shaking slightly in the after-effects, the overstimulation from an incredible orgasm.

“Sophia?” someone—Rachel Harcourt, if I wasn’t mistaken—called down the stairs.

I suddenly became aware of just where we were: in my downstairs cellar, while I had dinner guests just above us. I wondered if they had been able to hear my moaning. They must at least be wondering what was taking me so long, when all I’d gone to do was get a bottle of wine.

“There’s someone on the stairs,” I hissed, glancing at Oliver as he started to buckle up his belt.

I looked down at myself, realizing that I must look an absolute mess. I quickly pulled up my panties and tugged down my skirt. I dragged the hair tie out of my hair, hoping that loose, just-fucked curls suited me well enough.

“Sophia, something has happened on the news,” Rachel continued. “You have to see this!”

“Coming!” I called back, looking uncertainly at Oliver. I didn’t want to just walk out on him after what had just transpired, but I couldn’t risk us being exposed.

Oliver and I stared at each other for a long moment. We both knew that what had just happened had been completely reckless, but absolutely unavoidable. My cheeks grew red as I thought about how undone we had both become in the heat of the moment. How twice in one night, we found ourselves in each other’s arms. That undeniable chemistry I had felt between us had finally culminated in something that had felt so unbelievably good.

“After you,” Oliver nodded towards the door. But there was also promise in his voice —and a dark lust in his eyes—that made me shiver.

I gave him one last look before snatching a bottle of wine and heading up the stairs two at a time, to where Rachel was waiting. I could only hope that Oliver had the sense to wait a few minutes before he reemerged as well, from the bathroom or wherever it was that he was supposed to be.

“I hope you don’t mind that we turned on the TV,” Rachel said fretfully as she led me back into the main room. “Katherine got a message that she needed to watch, and we were all curious . . .”

On the screen, there were a dozen clips of flooded rivers and landslides. “Turn up the volume,” I said to David, who wordlessly complied. I put my hand over my mouth, hardly noticing Oliver’s presence as he rejoined the party.