I follow Neeta to the door and close it behind her. At once, I lock it.

Caging myself in with a killer bunny?

Holy fuck, I hope so. Especially after the goddamned night I’ve just had. Dinner with a friend. Technically, I wasn’t lying—if “friend” can be stretched to include the definition “bitch who betrayed me to a gang of scientific madmen and their electronic torture chamber.”

I’m ready to forget that now. To put Angelique—and even all those dark months—far behind me. To forget even my super hero style fuck you to The Consortium. As lousy as that’ll be for business, it might even do the city some good. Maybe the criminals around here will slither back into their holes instead of attempting fuckery in the name of superstardom.

Fate has offered me something so much better to focus on. Beauty. This beauty. The woman willing to hand me her truth straight, even if that story includes her backed-in-a-corner glare as she secures herself behind the desk.

She points at her monitor, now swiveled sideways atop the desk, and then at the chair Neeta just occupied. “You’ll be able to see all the reports from there. I’ll stay back here.”

“If that’s the way you want it.” I say it with confidence because I mean it—and because she doesn’t. She just doesn’t know it yet. She still wants to deal with me from her corner. Still insists on putting me in a corner. The idea of me, at least. I’m still her safe little box of an explanation—the billionaire bad boy and his little temporary toy—and maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe, ironically, my notoriety is going to serve its greatest purpose of all. Keeping her emotions at a safe distance.

Because I sure as hell don’t know where my boundaries about this shit went.

Or if they ever existed to begin with.

Just like they’re nonexistent now.

I soak up the beauty of her every move, even as she composes herself in her chair again. I watch a long swallow make its way down the side of her neck not covered by her cute side ponytail. Observe, with wicked pride, how a flush makes its way the opposite direction. Her face is so damn gorgeous when it turns that shade of pink…reminding me of how other parts of her body blush so beautifully too…

“How far back would you like to see the reports?” Her voice is crisp and corporate, making my smile inch up again. Does she think the façade will snap me back to some hidden straight-and-narrow? If so, why deflate her? The executive efficiency is ten kinds of turn-on, even causing me to reach and adjust the angle of my cock while she looks to her screen, whisking the little pointer around. “I’ve managed to get the guest-feedback sheets catalogued going back six months. My goal is to input everything for a year so we can detect trends and throw training toward areas in which we need the most improvement. That being said, I’ve already noticed a few interesting trends. What?”

She issues the question when finally looking for my feedback and sees I’m actively listening. My elbows are on the chair’s armrests, and my hands are steepled in front of my chest.

That being said, I’m not going to dick around with pretty words. She deserves better. My truth. At least as much of it as I can give.

“You know I do care about those reports, right?”

Her smile blasts through me like an angel visiting hell. “Now I do. Thank you.”

And I’m the demon lurking in the caves of that Hades—wondering how long I’ll have to wait before she’s naked in the flames with me. “But you also know I didn’t come down here to go over them right now.”

She stops the cursor on the screen before slipping her hand away. She notices that I notice, and she clamps her opposite hand over it. “Haven’t you had a long night already, Mr. Richards?” Her composure approaches electric aura status on its own as she zips a gaze over me. I can’t quite read the source of the energy, either. Nervousness? Fury? Arousal? All three? I’m not sure I even want to know for sure. The mystery is one hell of a hot turn-on. “I mean, seeing how you’re all decked out,” she babbles, now twisting her hands together.

“Decked out?”

“Yes.” She drops her hands while giving me another fast but lusty onceover. Dear fuck, what her attention does to every inch of me… “It’s all…more than your usual, I mean,” she goes on. “Your tie is so symmetrical, I bet you redid it a few times. That’s different product in your hair. It’s sleek but stiff, like you didn’t want to have to worry about it. You’re wearing stiffer shoes. My guess is, they hurt.”

Blink. Again. “Yeah. They do.”

She blinks as well, though her look is a knowing preen. “Like I said…long night.”

For a moment, I don’t say anything. It’s not necessary when I can boomerang her attitude back, hitching my smirk along for the ride. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of how long I want to go tonight, Miss Crist?”

Her breath snags. Her cheeks flush, hot and red, as she recognizes how my entendre has just turned the air between us into sensual smoke. I feel my forked tail flicking, my sharp horns growing.

She surges to her feet, bashing me with a tidal wave of the same energy, though one look in her eyes shows me there’s an opposite motion in her mind and heart. I should be feeling a thousand kinds of shitty for knocking her on her figurative ass, but right now I’ve become too obsessed with her real-life backside.

And how sexy-as-fuck she looks, bending over to let me see it better.

And how adorable she is, a bold challenge stamped on her face, as she kicks off one shoe and then the other.

And how astounding she is, with the bottom half of her pinstriped pantsuit already unbuttoned, unzipped, and peeled off.

She glowers at me while draping the garment across her chair and propping one hand on her waist. “Is this what you mean by specifics?”

She marches around the desk, sending a vibe of determined sensuality that damn near turns my dick into an artisan pretzel. I grunt, the arousal growing from mild distraction to full-on attention, as she strides closer.

“Wasn’t my original intent, but…”

“No?” She parks both hands on her hips.

“No.” I gulp, fighting to string two logical thoughts together. “I missed you, Velvet. That was seriously it—until the last ninety seconds.”

I force-feed the calm into it. Not an easy task. She’s making this an impossible discussion to win, though I can understand the intent beneath her accusation. There’s been no opportunity to clarify things between us in the last couple of days, especially since I’ve made it a point to stay out of the fray and let the team do their jobs handling the huge tour group. So now, our interpretation of “teamwork” up in suite 6969—that irony isn’t lost on me—has likely been hitting her with what-the-fuck-did-I-just-do-with-my-boss intensity.

In more ways than one.

Shit.

She shifts closer, making it possible for me to see the trimmed strip of hair beneath the panel at her crotch. She’s not naked, but I crave her like she is. I’m more turned-on than I’ve ever been with any woman before. Every seasoned seductress I’ve ever been with…was like eating water crackers compared to the hunger I feel for Emma Crist’s rich nectar.

“So, what do you want now, then?”

I plant my feet more squarely and drape both arms along the chair’s armrests. Six months of being locked down on a lab table doesn’t make it easy for me to relax beneath anyone’s control, but I sense she needs the surrender from me now. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I can even enjoy the fruits of my generosity.

“Hmmm. Why don’t you supply the answer to that, Velvet?”

Her head tilts. The long gold braid dips into her cleavage. “In what way?”

I breathe in again, letting her gaze linger over the rising tent in my pants. “In any way you like.”

She steps closer. I gorge my stare on her curvy, creamy glory and groan deeply as my cock revels in the sight too. My erection is now as painful as it looks, but no way do I want to be anywhere else but right here, right now. My outburst coaxes Emma’s stare down. A savoring smile kicks up one side of her lips. Goddamn. A little power looks a whole lot of good on this woman.

“Mr. Richards,” she finally murmurs.

“Miss Crist.”

She tosses her head, flipping the ponytail—and twenty more switches of my lust. It’s a playful move, signaling she enjoys the reins I’ve handed over. The heat in her eyes is the color of burning glass.

I twist my fingers tight around the chair’s arms. I slide my hips forward. I clench my teeth. My psyche still isn’t comfortable with the change in guard, but my cock and balls don’t seem to notice one damn bit.

“All right, then.” She comes in a little closer. “Perhaps we can just skip the bullshit.”

I feel my stare constrict. “Skip…the…”

“Bullshit.” Her echo, and its nod of punctuation, is succinct and sexy. “You know what I’m talking about. The mush. The pretties. The orchids on the appetizer plate. Or, why don’t we just ditch the appetizer altogether?”

“Uhhhh…” I grunt as she parts her legs, straddling me. The sound becomes a new groan as she leans in, thoroughly kissing me, sliding her tongue along mine in savoring, lingering possession.

When we break apart, both breathing heavier than before, she delves a hand into my hair and twists hard. “I want to be mad at you.”

“Why?”

“Because I shouldn’t want this so badly.” She pushes in, eyes closing as she drops her forehead to mine. “I…shouldn’t want you so much.”

“You mean the way I need you?” I press meaning into the verb despite my guttural grate. The sound becomes a growl when I slide both hands beneath her blouse, savoring the contact with her warm, soft, pliant skin.

“I have to feel wrong about this.”

“I know.”

“But I can’t feel anything but right.”

“I know.” I drag her tighter against me. “Goddamn. Emmalina…”

Her damp, warm triangle fits like a custom key against my crotch, unlocking rooms of arousal in my psyche. No. More than that. If I really am this city’s super hero, she’s my secret weakness. The crack in my shield. The stone to topple my tower. The enchantress driving me to my knees.

Yeah, this very second.

Yeah, to the point that I want to show her that completely…control be damned.

Yeah, as in I suddenly push the chair backward, making it possible to drop to my haunches before her.

Yeah, backing it up by grabbing her ass cheeks to steady her and force her sex against my nose. Her lower body is now in my power. Her armor cracks before my eyes.

Fuck. Yes.

Maybe this power swap isn’t all one way after all.

“Oh!” She blurts it as I inhale her sexy essence. Such an ambrosia. She’s musky honey and silken sweetness, making my mouth water all over the satin triangle. “Oh. Ahhhhh. Ohhhhh.”

Her sounds are a symphony of desire playing at crescendo level over her limbs and skin, making her muscles bunch beneath my hands. “Yes.” I say it aloud, turning it into a commanding rasp along the seam of her panties. “Yes, little Velvet.”

“Unnnnhh.” She bucks her hips, making it easier to slide my tongue beneath the fabric. “Reece. Reece. Wh-What…are you—”

“Enjoying my meal.” I savor the vibration of each syllable on her flesh as equally as her reactions. Beneath my questing mouth, she trembles and clenches, shivers and shakes, sighs and gasps. “You did tell me to have at it, beauty.”

“This… This wasn’t exactly what I…” She trails off, obviously forgetting her words and intention.

“Wasn’t exactly what you what?” I don’t refrain from the goad, even smirking when she snarls in retort. “What you had in mind when you told me to skip to the good stuff?” I reach in, pulling back the satin triangle, revealing the feast of her secret flesh. “Because Velvet, this is the good stuff.”

“But…I…”

“Ssshhh. I’m going to enjoy this.”

But she only lets me lick a couple of times before protesting, “This isn’t…ahhhh!”

“Isn’t what?” I grin, totally alpha dog about it, before daring to nibble along her labia. Her little yelp makes the gamble worth it.

She jerks, fighting my ironclad grip on her thigh. “This isn’t the damn meal.”

“Then what is it?”

“This is you, making me…” She huffs, becoming even more irresistible. “It’s… It’s—”

“Dessert?” I get in a couple more bites to her pussy. Christ. She’s so succulent. So wet. So pink and lush and enticing. “I’m fine with that. Doesn’t everyone like skipping to dessert?”

“But—”

“Ssshhh.”

“But—”

“Hush.”

Technically, her throaty mewl isn’t complete compliance—but it’s a damn fine substitute. The sound splices the air and my bloodstream as I curl in my tongue, unsheathing her sweetest button from its protective hood. The second I touch down on the stiff bundle at her core, she cries out again. I give her more wicked suckles. Her knees give out. I’m ready with my supporting weight.

“Oh, my God…”

I don’t bother demanding her silence now. I just guide her into place, directing one of her hands to the desktop and her opposite leg over my shoulder. “I’ve got you, bunny,” I say against her pubic bone before plunging my tongue back into her tangy fruit. “Lean in. Let go. I’ve got you.”

For one incredible second, she does. The rush of her weight, her trust, is nearly as good as plunging my dick deep into her channel, and my body tells me so by spurting pre-come into my briefs. I groan from the perfect torment, a sound she takes in all the wrong ways.

“But… But who’s got y-you?”

Her voice quavers along with her clit, aroused but unsure, as if I’ve levitated her clear off the floor. She’s sure as hell already done that to my senses—and the stiffening rod in my pants seems ready to jump on board with a similar plan. Levitation for everyone. Fuck, yes.

“Let me worry about that.” I drive it into her wet folds as a command, giving her no option but obedience. Though a strained sound grits through her teeth, her muscles soften beneath my hold. She twists a hand into the back of my scalp and digs her heel into the center of my spine.

“Ohhhhh. Nooooo.” Her moans are throaty but high as I greedily tongue her succulent slit, bottom to top and back again, dotting the movement with a determined stab into her tight hole. But not all the way in. Not yet. That moment’s coming—and just thinking about it, I’m helpless to hold back my dick from leaking more. It’s torture and rapture in the same erotic moment. Nearly unbelievable. Is this going to happen? Is this woman going to make me explode in my pants just from the honor of devouring her gorgeous cunt? She’s the juiciest fruit I’ve ever opened. The sweetest dessert I’ve ever savored. The most breathtaking woman I’ve ever pleasured.

It doesn’t even matter that I’m not inside her. In so many terrifying ways, she’s already inside me.

“Try a new one, Velvet,” I growl into her sexy seam. “Try giving me a gorgeous ‘yesssss.’”

She obliges the humor in my tone with a warm tug at my hair but comes nowhere near complying with my suggestion. Which really wasn’t a suggestion. I communicate that with a fast bite to the inside of her leg.

“Oh!”

“Don’t you mean ‘oh, yes’?”

“You have got to be kid—oh!” Another bite, this time to the top edge of her clit, makes her jerk back by a couple of inches. I don’t let her get farther than that. “Oh my hell,” she rasps. “Oh my—oh Reece…”

It’s not the first time in my life a woman has panted those words to me—so why does it feel like the first? Why am I zapped with awe I’ve never felt, surged with more power than I’ve ever celebrated? The logical grab is there in front of me, that my cock has been so direly neglected for a solid year it’s now leading the parade for the rest of me, but that’s the desperate—and inaccurate—way out. This singular desire, for this sole woman… It’s more than drought-recovery dramatics.

But how much more?

I’m not the same man I was a year ago. Angelique’s “friends” altered the color of my eyes. The length of my legs. The resiliency of my muscles. The very chemistry of my blood. How much of me is me anymore—and is that the part falling so completely for this woman? Or are all these sensations courtesy of the new me, the phoenix from the ashes? If that’s the case, what do I even know about him or what he’s able to give a woman like Emmalina?

A woman who wants more. Who deserves more. Who deserves everything.

An everything neither part of me will be able to give her in the long run. Because eventually, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be dead.

But right here, right now? Giving her ultimate pleasure? Working my lips to untwist the most mind-shattering climax she’s ever known?

That I can do.

That, at least, hasn’t been electroshocked out of my consciousness.

I summon it all back to my will. Use every erotic trick in my wheelhouse to bloom her, spread her, arouse her, entice her. I even slick my tongue across her with new flicks and strokes, emboldened by her mewls, moans, pushes, and prompts. The more responses she gives, the more engrossed I become. My world becomes the heady trembles of her thighs, the lush opera of her breaths, and the perfect vibrations of her cunt, enticing me to explore deeper…deeper…

As I do, making my cock harder. Harder.

“Holy. Shit.”

A stream of her honey fills my mouth. Yeah. Fuck. So damn good.

“Reece!”

She blurts the protest after trying to pull away, but I yank her even closer. With my hands cupped to her backside, I’m able to hide my glowing fingertips in the crack of her ass. Double win? The motion spreads her sex from behind, warming her pussy for the new invasion I’m about to launch.

As she keens a little higher, I moan a little deeper. Her thighs bunch and buck. Her ass squeezes and squirms.

“I-I thought you wanted to fuck me.”

“Oh, I did,” I growl. “And I will, Velvet…believe me.”

I feel the conflict take over her—possibly preparing for me to stand up, slam her to the desk, and ram into her. Ramming does happen, courtesy of my tongue speared into her tightness.

She fists my hair. Her grip slips on the desk. Pens, papers, and a tumbler of water crash onto her chair as her gasp shudders the air.

I don’t relent.

She needs this.

I can feel it in every inch of the plush walls clamping over my tongue, urging me farther inside her trembling, tight body.

I need this.

My cock, getting relentless friction from the trap of my pants, broadcasts the update with throbbing clarity. My balls bellow their second on the motion, ignoring my efforts at readjustment. It’s no longer a matter of if for those fuckers; it’s a matter of when—though I’m pretty sure of the answer to that query already.

I’ll blow when she does.

And fuck, how she does.

“Oh…wow.” Her voice is shaky and hoarse. Her body is tense and trembling. Her pussy is hot and soaked. “Oh, Reece. I’m…I’m…”

Her words dissolve as her body takes over, communicating the rest. The second she throbs around me, drenching my tongue with the cream of her climax, my balls blast an inescapable fire up my cock. I explode too, horrified but a little giddy. I’ve come like a wild teenager—from the bliss of bringing her pleasure.

It feels good. So fucking good. And unsettling. And terrifying. So much so, I’m frozen in place for a long moment.

Fuck.

I just got off—literally—by putting someone else’s needs before mine. This isn’t a shred of anything I recognize, not even a drop in the ocean in which Lawson Richards taught me to survive a long damn time ago. On Dad’s ship, only one motto mattered. Every man for himself. The patriarch himself values it so much, it’s why I haven’t been blackballed from the family altogether. Secretly, my douchebag rebellion pleased the bastard. I possessed the spine neither Chase nor Tyce had ever seemed to grow—which, before my spectacular fall, was probably why I took the behavior to such epic heights.

Or was it?

If my life hadn’t wound down this exact path, I never would have arrived here at the most extraordinary epiphany of my existence. At a moment that is making more sense than all twenty-seven years before it. At the feet of the person who’s brought me here.

The woman for whom I’ve fallen. Literally. Wholly.

The creature who crumples gently to the floor with me now, shuddering in the last throes of her climax, sagging into my arms with kitten-like surrender. I swear she starts to purr as I circle soft fingertips along the back of her neck, their soft glow illuminating the stray strands of her ponytail. With a resolved breath, I’m able to dial back the lightsabers of my fingers even more. Only my nailbeds pulse now, pulsing in time to my heartbeat. I work on calming that pace, but it isn’t easy with her face consuming my attention… With the satisfaction, a glow of its own, of knowing I alone brought that sated serenity to her incredible face.

After a few minutes of our peaceful silence, she releases a long, soft breath. “Mr. Richards?”

“Yes, Miss Crist?”

“We have to stop meeting like this.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

Her eyes flash open. Her pupils are huge and aqua—and alarmed. “Really?” A new flush takes over her face. She hastily clears her throat. “I mean, of course you agree.” She sweeps a look over her nude lower half. “This is getting kind of ridiculous.”

“Agreed once more.” I feel a little shitty for leading her thoughts on, but only a little. Sometimes the endgame justifies the play. Only by throwing her off guard can I pry more edges from her armor, exposing her to see—and feel—the importance of what we’ve begun here. “I’d even say it’s gone beyond ridiculous.”

“Well.” She stiffens and attempts to straighten. “That’s good, then—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it good.”

“Pardon me?”

I wrap an arm around her waist, preventing her from completing her frosty escape. I melt the rest of her iceberg with a thorough kiss, not letting go until she opens for the dominion of my tongue. By the time I pull back, she clearly craves more. Good. She doesn’t get any quarter from my gaze, which I keep latched to her while spreading my other hand along the back of her head.

“Yeah,” I utter, my breath ragged. “Beyond ridiculous. Which means you don’t get to bring any reports or furniture dusters next time.”

“Huh?” Her eyes flare. I’m torn between grinning at her and just kissing her again. “Wait. Next ti—”

“Which will not be two nights from now. As a matter of fact, I won’t settle for one night.”

Her brows crunch. “Reece, what are you—”

I kiss her into silence. It’s quick and fast this time, because my point still isn’t complete. “What am I?” I counter. “What I am, Emmalina, is fed up with this. With us, and our treatment of this.”

“This?”

“Yeah. This. Us.”

Her armor breaks away a little more. She quirks her lips upward, and her eyes shimmer like we’re standing in full sun. “There’s…an ‘us’?”

Hearing her repeat the word drops a massive weight on my chest—with only one possible phrase to set myself free. “There is now.”

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s perfect. That’s right.

In my new lightness, I tenderly brush my lips across hers. “But that doesn’t mean we have to define anything other than now.” The honey of her mouth is so damn tempting. “No projections or forecasts. No definitions or boxes. Nobody telling us what we are or aren’t. Just this. Just the magic. Just us, okay?”

She releases a high, soft sigh. “Okay.”

“But that also means one more thing.” I tug her hair harder, enforcing her attention. “I refuse to fuck you on another floor, footstool, or any other furniture not designed for being naked and horizontal.”

She curves her lips again. So goddamned gorgeous. “Okay.”

I tug again. Her amenability makes me want to push my luck. “So when you get off shift tomorrow morning, you’re coming straight up to the penthouse.”

Her grin grows. “Okay.”

“And you’re letting me make you breakfast.”

Here’s where her grin fades—though not enough to make me stressed. Not yet. “Breakfast.” She cocks her head. “So is that before or after the naked and horizontal part?”

I kiss her again. I can’t help it. Resisting her is like denying myself the privilege of breathing. There’s tongue involved too. Lots of it. And hair pulling—hers and mine. And groping, twenty fingers’ worth, as we feel and fondle and grab and possess, sealing the new bond between us in the most primal, perfect way possible.