Chapter Fourteen

Beau

“This is too much,” Annabel says, but she can’t stop smiling.

“I haven’t even opened the door yet, so how do you know if it’s too much?”

“You said suite. I share what’s essentially a closet with my roommate. There’s no need for—”

I raise a finger and press it across the softness of her smile. “We’re past that now, don’t you think?” Annabel is radiating nervous energy, and I’d bet a thousand dollars it has to do with that kiss. Curse West. Truly, curse him for his terrible timing and the fact that he found it necessary to hug me when I was clearly otherwise engaged. “First hand me your phone.”

“For what?” Annabel asks the question but she’s already reaching into her pocket. She pulls it out and sets it in my hand, trusting me in one motion with all of her most intimate information. “Oh—here.” She turns the screen back toward her and types in her passcode.

I navigate to the app store and download the app for all the hotels that fit under the Bennett Inc. umbrella. It takes seconds to sign in, and I already had the front desk connect it to her account. “Your room key.” I hand the phone back to her. “Hold it in front of the sensor.”

Annabel opens her eyes wide. “Very fancy.” She waves the phone in front of the silver pad below the doorknob. Green lights around the edge of it circle once, and the lock clicks open. God, I’ve never wanted to be inside a room with a door closed behind me so much in all the years I’ve been alive.

“After you.”

Annabel steps inside, head turning one way, then the other. “This is too much,” she says again under her breath.

I’ll admit: aside from the penthouse and one other floor beneath it—West, conveniently, seems to have rented that out—this is the best room in the house. Room? Actually, it’s several rooms.

I follow her down the entry hall past a coat closet and kitchenette into the main living area. Low-seated furniture faces a picture window with a view of Manhattan. Annabel is drawn to it like a moth to a flame. With the afternoon sunlight spilling over the city, it is a sight to behold.

“Wow,” she breathes, looking out over it all.

I hardly see the city. She’s silhouetted against the window. Her black T-shirt hugs the sloping line of her waist, and her jeans move over her curves where I want my hands to be. My palms ache with the need to touch her. After what happened on the sidewalk, I’m not in any mood to hold back. From the way Annabel is standing, one hip cocked to the side, rising up ever so slightly on tiptoe, she’s not, either.

I cross the room toward her. I’m a step away when she turns, her cheeks pink, and bites her lip.

“Annabel,” I say.

“I want to make out with you.” The words make contact, and a beat later they register in my mind.

I don’t know which of us moves first, but she’s in my arms in a flash, arms wrapped around my neck. Her lips are on mine, and it’s nothing like that timid, interrupted travesty of a kiss on the sidewalk. The word scorching rings through my mind, but I love the burn.

Annabel presses against me, her hips making tiny movements side to side, and I’m practically bursting from the kiss. Don’t ravish her. Don’t tear her clothes off and throw her onto the bed. Don’t. Don’t. Annabel’s tongue battles with mine. She’s coming at me, putting on the pressure, and she might not even realize it. On instinct I raise my hand to her face and take her jaw in my hands, squeezing so she knows that when it comes down to it, I’ll be the one in control.

Her eyes flutter, and she moans into my mouth, moving one hand to wrap around my wrist like she needs to feel it to believe it.

I pull back, breaking the kiss. My cock throbs with every thundering heartbeat, but there’s something holding me back, holding me still. Annabel searches my eyes, her breath fast and hard. “What—what is it?” Her words are soft and sweet, and bloody hell, I want her even more.

“Do you want this?” I tilt her face up another fraction of an inch. “If you don’t, I’ll leave right now. There’s time to—” My mind is melting at the sensation of her skin under my palm. “There’s time to slow down.”

A slow smile spreads over Annabel’s face. She looks almost surprised, and then her eyes darken. “I want this,” she says, her grip going tight on my wrist. I reach up behind her with my other hand and curl my fingers through the low bun of her hair, her ridiculous pink-tipped hair, and give the slightest tug. Her eyelids flutter as she gets lost in this. It’s a simple thing, the tug of her hair, and she’s responding like I’m rolling one of her taut nipples between my fingers. “There are no guarantees,” she says, her voice so low I can hardly hear it, “but I want this.”

I bend and kiss the exposed skin of her neck above where my fingers cover her jawline. “I don’t do this,” I tell her, struggling to keep my voice even. “I don’t fuck women I meet on the street, even if they’ve driven me wild . . .”

“You haven’t fucked me yet,” she whispers. “But I wish you would.”

Her words crack open the last of my propriety, and when she jumps into my arms and wraps her legs around my waist, I’m done for.

Until Annabel pulls back, her forehead wrinkled. “What’s that?’

“What?”

She’s still. “The buzzing.”

Then I feel it, insistent in my front pocket. My phone.

It’s my personal line, and I never miss taking a call on my personal line. Not when I work with people like Edgar Sykes.

Annabel seems to sense it, letting her feet drop to the floor while I dig my phone out of my pocket and look at the screen.

Speak of the devil. If it isn’t Edgar, ruining the best moment of my life.