The problem with letting Preston hold her close was that all of her self-preservation instincts seemed to fall by the wayside. She should’ve been doing what she went up there to do—check out details, look for clues, maintain awareness of her surroundings because, oh yeah, there was a goddamn killer in this building.

And yet one touch from him, one flash of the sultry desire in his eyes, and she turned to liquid in his arms. She’d felt, for one heart-stopping moment, that he might’ve kissed her. And she would’ve let him.

Now, heading back to the room, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. About him. How they were going to spend a night alone in what was essentially a hotel room, surrounded by luxury and the storm; how she’d seen him near enough naked not thirty minutes ago and almost lost her mask of indifference.

How he’d made her feel like the most desirable woman in the world with little more than a sweep of his appreciative eyes and a murmured sentence.

She wasn’t indifferent to him. In fact, she was so far from indifferent that it was a wonder she didn’t walk around with her lust for him flashing neon above her head. He needed to only look at her, and she wanted to melt at his feet. His touch, no matter how casual, set her skin alight like a searing flame.

She wanted him so much it terrified her, because she knew, underneath it all, that she couldn’t risk giving him her heart. Not after everything; not when she had no idea if this—whatever it was—would extend beyond this trip.

He was Preston Alcott, billionaire playboy, and one day he would wake up and realize he could have his pick of the most beautiful women in the world. He didn’t have to settle for Ashley the nurse, uncomfortable in her skin.

She followed him into the room, mind spiraling out of control with thoughts that clashed and splintered, fragments coming together and tearing apart—Larry’s body, the blood, the frosted glass and that frayed rope. And Preston, breathtakingly perfect, looking at her as if he was enamored with her.

He touched her arm once they were inside the room—she didn’t know why. To get her attention maybe, or simply just to touch her. But she jolted away, and he frowned.

“You don’t have to be nervous with me,” he said.

She swallowed thickly. “I’m not.”

He waited, saying nothing. Stared at her until she wanted to run into the bathroom—until she wanted to fall into the heat of his eyes. “Do you know how beautiful I think you are?” he asked her eventually, like he’d had a long discussion with himself in his head, considered all possible responses to this moment and in the end decided on raw honesty. She couldn’t think of a single word to say back to him.

Then he stepped closer and dropped his voice low. “You’re the sexiest dream I’ve ever had,” he said, knocking a shaky laugh out of her.

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m really not,” he said, and then, “Come here,” and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t resist, couldn’t even remember why she would want to resist. He took hold of her and brought her close, kissing her with a groan of relief like a starving man having the meal he’d craved for a lifetime. She went with it, her whole body lighting up, her heart leaping up into her throat as he licked into her mouth and tugged her tight to his body, and his hands were wandering, down her back and a swipe across her ass, around to her hip and back up. Like he couldn’t stop himself; like he wanted to touch everything he could before she ended this.

Except she didn’t want to end it, not in that moment—not when he was making her head spin and her blood sear through her veins, and then, with a gasp, opening her eyes to see him pulled back and looking at her.

“Let me do something for you,” he said, words like a dart of electricity to her groin—because she knew what he meant, could see the filth of it glinting in his eyes. He dipped his head in again and went for her throat. His hand, burning hot, dragged around to her front, to the clasp of her pants. “Show you how much I want to make you feel good.”

“Preston…” she said on a long breath, unsure of how she even wanted to finish that sentence. If she wanted to spread her legs and let him play her like an instrument, or push him away and fling herself back into reality.

She was saved from making the decision when a hard, urgent knock sounded on the door.

Preston groaned against her throat. “Let’s ignore it,” he said, but her head was already clearing, the heat in her groin fading to a pleasant simmer. Her body still craved him, making it difficult to peel herself away, and she had to say sternly, “We can’t ignore it,” as much for her own benefit as his. “What if something happened to someone?”

She avoided looking at him as she straightened her clothes and wiped her swollen mouth, but she heard the heaviness in his breath, felt the magnetism of his presence.

She opened the door before she could do something stupid like throw all caution to the wind and fall back into his arms.

Frank stood on the other side of the door, something sharp in his expression. “It seems Preston was right,” he said, and then, catching on to the scene before him, he looked at Ashley and then over her shoulder at Preston, raising an eyebrow. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“You did,” Preston said shortly, making Ashley’s chest clench.

She waved Frank in. “You didn’t,” she said awkwardly, like her tongue was suddenly too thick for her mouth. “You didn’t. There was nothing to interrupt.”

“Uh-huh.” Frank didn’t look entirely unconvinced, so Ashley tried on a confident look of assurance and hoped she was at least partway successful with it. Behind her, Preston still hadn’t moved. Like he was frozen to the spot, to where they’d come together in a frenzy of passion and almost kissed goodbye to their sensibilities.

Let me do something for you…

Her pussy gave a sudden, hard throb, and she had to grab the back of a chair.

Frank blinked at her, his face suggesting he wasn’t really sure he’d made the best decision coming here. “I just—I think you should see this.”

He held up a slip of paper, and instantly all wickedly sensual thoughts fled Ashley’s mind.

“What is it?”

“Larry’s suicide note, apparently,” Frank said.

Preston took a step forward, finally finding a reason to join in the conversation. “Can’t be,” he said, while Ashley grabbed the note and held it beneath the light, staring at it a good three seconds before she said anything. “Where did you find it?”

“His room. His door was open… I got curious.”

No. She could already see it—the error in the logic. Spelled out clearly in the ink. The note didn’t say much, just an unhelpful cliché line: It had to be done. Larry. But the wheels in her brain were already going a mile a minute.

“Thanks for this,” she said to Frank, smiling tightly. “I’ll keep it safe for the police.”

He nodded, backing away towards the door and looking for all the world like a man who would like to be anywhere except in this room. She wondered if he could smell it in the air, sense it—the lust between Ashley and Preston, heady and thick. “Sorry again,” he said, then disappeared out the door.

Preston held out his hand for the note. “Can I see that?”

She paid him no mind and headed across the room, into the bathroom, grabbing the small piece of paper she’d tucked inside her stained ball gown. When she exited the bathroom with both notes, Preston looked at her with complete confusion. “What is it?”

She waved the second note at him. “This is the note Larry passed to me during the poker game.”

“What?” He took it from her and read it, his face twisting with thunder, his voice razor-sharp as he said, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

But she didn’t have time or patience for any macho, possessive bullshit. “Why? He was just some sleaze.”

“I could’ve—”

“Saved the damsel in distress?” she drawled, smirking at him. “I had it covered.”

She thought, then, that she’d struck him silent, his eyes flashing, mouth moving as if he was chewing on the inside of his lip. But then he suddenly stalked towards her, got in her face, made her suck in a breath as her whole body pulsed with the echo of her earlier lust.

“Look,” he growled, “I get that you’ve got your own back and you don’t need a man to take care of things for you, but that doesn’t mean a man isn’t going to care if he so wishes. I don’t want some random pervert putting his hands on you,” he said, hitching a breath. He paused, hesitated, then added, “I don’t want any man putting his hands on you.”

She stared at him, watching the emotion pass through his eyes like the storm whipping the walls of this resort right now. “Just your hands,” she clarified, heart thudding against her ribs at the stark desperation flitting over his face.

“A whole lot more than that, if you only lower your wall of resistance,” he bit out. He came closer still, dipped his face to nose at her temple, the ghost of his fingers tracing the lines of her hips as she stuttered a sigh and gulped down the sudden dryness in her throat. “You’ve got no idea how good I can make you feel. You’ve just got to give in to what you want.”

It took her a moment to find her voice. “You think I want you?”

“I know you do.”

Yes, she thought wildly. God, yes.

Then she looked at the two notes in her hand, remembering there was a killer on the loose, and still, beneath the simmering of desire in her blood, she felt the overwhelming fear that this was all a game to Preston. That his pretty words and lust-filled eyes were little more than props for an interest that wouldn’t hold his attention beyond morning.

She composed herself and pulled out of his orbit, took a few breaths, and turned her back while giving herself a moment to get her shit together. She didn’t know how Preston was handling the latest rejection, and neither did she want to find out. Her eyes focused on the two notes, and although the apparent suicide note looked similar in handwriting to the note Larry had given her during the poker night, there was something distinctly different about it. As if someone tried to make it look like Larry’s scribble, but some lines just looked too forced, where they seemed freely drawn on the note she’d saved from before.

“The writing’s different,” she said to the landscape painting on the wall in front of her.

“What?” His voice was strained.

“The handwriting,” she said. Then, digging up some courage, she turned back to look at him, pretending she didn’t see the pained look on his face, the distinct swelling in his pants… “Look at the slant,” she muttered hurriedly, holding the notes up to him. “Larry didn’t write this suicide note.”

That captured his interest at least, even if only a little. He drew his brows together and took the notes from her, spending a moment examining them. “You think Frank did?”

“Or someone planted it there.”

He looked up at her. Blinked. “You’re a fascinating woman,” he said simply, as if that was any kind of appropriate response, and she didn’t know whether to smile or frown.

“What do you mean?”

“I can see it—your brain ticking over, slotting things together,” he said, “considering and discarding leads. I could watch you do this for hours.”

She snorted, the compliment embarrassing her into shyness. “Well you’re in luck,” she said, because she had a real lead now, something to go on. This had become a genuine investigation, and her stomach fluttered with excitement.

Which, apparently, Preston didn’t like the sound of. “No. Come on,” he said, dropping the notes onto the table. “You have to leave this to the police.”

“The police aren’t here.”

“No, but they will be in the morning.” He gave her a hard, pointed look. “And they won’t thank you for contaminating evidence.”

The look and the words made her feel like a scolded schoolgirl, and it was all she could do not to pout. But damn him, he was right. Of course he was. This wasn’t her job, and this wasn’t a game. A very real man had been very much murdered and she couldn’t go tripping around the crime scene, messing up everything, no matter her good intentions.

But that didn’t mean she had to be thrilled about it.

She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest in a sulky fashion that would make her wince with embarrassment if she stopped to think about how ridiculous she was acting. “It’s not like I’m gonna be able to sleep,” she grumped. “What else can I do?”

Preston’s smirk took her entirely by surprise—it was like he currently found her the most adorable thing in the world, but with a wicked gleam in his eye that flung her right back to their moment of intimacy earlier.

“I’ve got some ideas,” he said, and it was a cheesy line, one that should’ve made her roll her eyes, except she was too distracted by the way he was refusing to waste any time. He grabbed her and pulled her close, his mouth coming down on hers as if he had no notion of rejection.

“Preston…” she said against his lips, although the protest was weak. She was already melting in the middle, wrapping her arms around him.

Her mind might’ve known of a million reasons why she shouldn’t keep giving into him, but her body was on a whole different track. And right now, arousal was the stronger force.

“Just stop me,” he said to her, voice dark and dangerous, fingers going right back to the clasp of her pants. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”

“That’s not fair,” she huffed on a bitten-off laugh, groaning when he mouthed at the pulse point on her throat, his fingers deftly popping open her pants. She was half inclined to pull away, a low burst of fear simmering just beneath the surface of her lust, and she whispered, “Wait…” in the instant before he pulled her in for a kiss.

“Don’t undress,” he said when he let her take another breath. “Don’t show me anything if you don’t want to.” He slipped his fingers into the opening of her pants and found the edge of her underwear… “Just let me touch.”

She swallowed thickly, dropping her forehead onto his shoulder. “Just touch,” she said shakily, her entire body trembling as her heart raced, as she clutched desperately at his back, as he slid his fingers into her underwear and over the sensitive skin covered by a fine brush of hair.

“You set the pace,” he murmured to her, and then he was touching her, two fingers pushing through the slickness of her folds and making her release a pent-up moan from deep in her chest, the tingles from his touch shooting through her pussy, up her spine, firing synapses in her brain, and she was going to collapse, pretty sure—her knees going weak as he pressed a finger inside her and rubbed the heel of his hand against her clit.

“Oh god.”

“That’s it,” he whispered, his other arm tightening around her. “Relax for me.”

She closed her eyes, face still pressed into his shoulder, unable to focus on anything except the rhythmic, tight, pinpointed rub of her clit, the finger thrusting into her, into the wetness she knew was coating his skin and slicking his way.

“Preston—” Her voice broke; her legs widened. He sped up his thrusts and pushed into her deeper, and the pressure on her clit made her cry out, stars bursting in her vision.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered.

It was such a precise, concentrated attack on her most sensitive spots that she was helpless, lost to overwhelming sensation from the first touch, the inevitability of orgasm. Somehow, he knew how to pluck her like a musician with a beloved guitar, and she was going to play any tune he wanted, her whole body coming apart at the seams as he thrust and thrust, rubbing her clit over and over and over, and she was done, absolute pleasure flooding her groin and tightening her muscles, her toes curling.

“I’m gonna—” she said in the instant before orgasm hit, her whole body shuddering, his assault on her pussy not relenting, keeping her strung out on the edge and mindless with it, until he eased back, and she sobbed, and wave after wave of bliss rolled through her.

“God, you’re killing me,” he ground out as he continued to stroke the swollen folds of her wet pussy, let her claw her way back to consciousness, clinging to his body in a halfhearted attempt to stay on her feet. His spare hand came up and cupped her cheek and tilted her head up so he could sip on her lips, swallow down the stuttered moans still spilling from her as he stroked her, felt the mess he’d made of her.

She reached for his belt. “Let me…” she whispered, hands trembling, but he shook his head and stilled her hands.

“This wasn’t about me,” he said, dipping a finger back inside her, slowly and without purpose, making her eyes roll back as an orgasmic aftershock punched the breath out of her. “You don’t have to do anything.”

When she could breathe again, she shook his hold off her hands and went for his belt. “I want to,” she said, ignoring his protest. “Preston, I want to.”

He groaned, his resolve snapping as he finally let her do it, watching her feed his belt out through the buckle and pinching her clit at the same time, the ghost of a smirk lighting up his features as she whimpered, her hips jolting.

And then a piercing scream split the night in two, rattling the walls, setting the hairs on the back of Ashley’s neck on end. They froze in the aftermath of it, blinking at each other, before instantly springing apart and scurrying out of the room.

They found Karen outside in the hall, over near the stairs, her face white and her eyes wide.

“Karen?” Ashley asked her, hurriedly doing up her pants while trying not to die of embarrassment.

“I just wanted a bottle of wine,” Karen was saying. She’d drawn the attention of everyone else—footsteps sounded, several of them, their entire party coming to investigate the scream. “I just—I was going to the kitchen.”

Maude rushed to her sister’s side, clutching her shoulder. “What’s happened?”

Drawing in a shuddery breath, Karen looked at them all with wild terror and said, “I saw someone.”

“Who?” Bao said, who’d arrived with her husband in tow, both of them looking stricken. “Frank?”

Frank startled like someone had shocked him with a cattle prod. “Me?”

“No,” Karen said. “It wasn’t any of us.”

Stunned silence followed her words, until Preston stepped forward and asked the question currently racing through Ashley’s panicked mind: “Are you saying there’s someone else here with us?”

Karen seemed incapable of hearing him, let alone answering him. She was looking at a point past them all, seeing something no one else could see. “His eyes…”

“What did he look like?” Preston pushed.

“I don’t—just his eyes.” Karen brought a trembling hand to her chest, pressing it to the space above her heart. “They were so cold.”

They weren’t going to get any sense out of Karen while she was like this, seized by shock and stuck in that moment of terrifying discovery. But Ashley was desperate to ask her a thousand questions—where was he going, how tall was he, did you see his clothes—though it was useless right now. She had to guide Karen back to a mindset that would help them, not stir up even more panic. “Let’s go and get that wine, hmm?” she said, smiling a smile she hoped came across warm and not impatient. “Calm your nerves a bit.”

Preston nodded, declared it a good idea, and led the way.

But he didn’t get any farther than the top of the stairs. “Stay back,” he said. There was something in his voice she hadn’t yet heard from him, even with all the madness. It sounded like fear.

“What?”

After a beat, he turned to face them all, eyes burning with something that made Ashley’s stomach sink right down to her toes. “I think there is someone else here with us.”

She couldn’t help herself, curiosity and the onset of panic guiding her brain—barged past him, finding him disconcertingly easy to overpower. Like all the strength had been sapped out of him. “What are you talking ab—”

It became horrifyingly obvious the instant her vision cleared over the banister.

Within the pool of blood lay an empty space where Larry had rested, where he should’ve been, dead and unmoving. A thick streak of blood sketched a macabre path from the empty space to a door at the back of the foyer.

Someone had dragged his body away.

Behind her, filtering through the numbness of her senses, she heard the furious mutter of Mandarin carving through the silence like a warning siren.