There’s so much heat sizzling between us that it’s all I can do not to tear my clothes off in the back of Jett’s Mercedes. I’ve almost lost sight of the plot. Where is the line between seducing him to carry out Charlie’s plan and seducing him because my body craves him?

He stops kissing me long enough to bark a single word at his driver—“Penthouse”—and then his strong hands are all over me in the backseat as the driver pulls the car into traffic and steers us across town to his penthouse.

I’m supposed to be focused on the thumb drive, on uploading the program, on following Charlie’s orders, but all I want to do is to strip off Jett’s clothes and finally see what he’s hiding under his custom suit. It’s going to be magnificent.

I push into him when he wraps his hands around the side of my face, locking us together in a kiss so deep and fierce that it’s like we’re drowning and the only thing that can save us is to devour the other one’s mouth. He’s controlling, demanding, and I love it, but I press against those boundaries, take my turn exploring his lips, his tongue dancing with mine, backing him up against the door of the car. He can’t voice his arrogance when my lips are sealed over his.

I’m an instant from hiking up my dress and straddling him when the car glides to a stop beside the curb. Jett doesn’t hesitate. He throws the door open and pulls me out behind him, not speaking a word to the driver, not a word to anyone.

His arm is secured tightly around my waist, rushing us to the elevators, and it’s then, without his lips against mine, that I feel another wave of guilt.

From what I learned over dinner, Jett is richer than sin, which explains why people like Charlie want to steal his information, take his money. A billionaire won’t miss a hundred thousand dollars. Jett is in charge of his family corporation, Brandon, Inc., and the man never wants for anything. I’ve always chosen men who were easygoing, who were humble, but Jett Brandon is neither of those things. He takes what he wants, and the first time we saw each other in that elevator, he decided he wanted me.

He has no idea that I’m a complete fraud. I had no idea that by the end of tonight, I’d want more from him than access to his computer.

That’s a lie. How could anyone look at a man that gorgeous and not want to rip his clothes off?

I want to unbuckle his belt and slide his pants down over his legs, yank his shirt over his head, and I wish I could do it solely out of my own interest. I played the evening to perfection, letting him see me as a small-town girl making her way in the big city. I made absolutely certain that I didn’t get too hung up on his money. I asked him about his life, not his fortune, because I can imagine that a man like Jett has plenty of gold diggers clinging on to him everywhere he goes as it is. And above all, I made it abundantly clear that I wanted to sleep with him.

He rushes us across the lobby toward the bank of elevators and jabs a finger into the call button, my purse dangling from my fingertips. It’s all I can do to calm my racing heart. This is sex. And sex is your ticket to freedom.

That’s it. Somewhere, Charlie is waiting for my report, and if I fail, it’s my brother who suffers.

Not to mention me.

It’s a cold dose of reality, but then the elevator car arrives and we step inside it. It’s empty. The moment the doors close, Jett’s hands are on my waist, on the small of my back, pulling me in, and he kisses me again, a slow build that makes it impossible to think of anything dark, wrong. That kiss lasts until we’re inside his penthouse. I’m lost in my own lustful ache for him, for his body, to feel filled.

It’s been too long.

He’s moving us down a hallway, and at the end of it there is a door that opens into a massive bedroom, big enough for a king-size bed at one end, perfectly made up, and a living room at the other. Jett hesitates, choosing, then turns toward the bed.

On the way across the room, he strips off his jacket and shirt, his pants fall to the floor, and then he’s undoing the clasp of my dress, reaching down, tugging it over my head, revealing the deep purple bra and panty set I bought yesterday for this occasion.

He drinks in my exposed skin, then traces a finger over my collarbone, leaning down to kiss the skin of my neck. He takes my hair in his fist and undoes the clip holding it in place, and when it falls over my shoulders he brushes it back, gripping it lightly, and kisses me so hard that my knees go weak.

But it’s not enough. It’s not enough for me. I pull back and drag my mouth down the front of his muscled chest, and then I go lower, leaving a trail of kisses down, down, down until I’m on my knees in front of him, tugging down his boxers to reveal his thick, steely, pulsing cock.

I forget all about Charlie.

I wrap one of my hands around the base of it and take him into my mouth. If he’s going to protest, it’s going to be now, but his hips come toward me a fraction of an inch and I start to work my tongue around the length of him, licking and swirling and sucking.

Jett wraps his fingers through my hair, a gentle pressure forming on the back of my head, and it can’t be more than twenty seconds before he growls, deep and low, then steps away releasing himself from my mouth. He pulls me up to my feet and then scoops me effortlessly into his arms.

“I want more of you,” he says in a hoarse whisper as he walks me across to the bed. He tears away my bra and panties and spreads me out across the duvet.

“Take it,” I say, tilting my head back, raising my hips a little. “Take it.”