My skin isn’t on fire. It’s hotter than that. My insides are molten.

I was so close to having an orgasm. So close to the first orgasm I’ve had with a man.

He barely touched me. He hardly did anything. He didn’t have to. His touch was so perfect, so wanting and...like it was made for me.

“We’re home,” he says. I look up, out the window. We’re uptown, I think, from how tall the buildings are and how they disappear into the sky.

“This is where you live?” I ask. I peer out the window past him and past the empty sidewalk, into the luxurious, modern vestibule in white and grey, golden tones licking every corner of it, a fire blazing in one corner and deep, plush couches set up around it.

“Live and work,” he says with a smile. “Now come on. It’s warm inside, and we have to get ready for the party.”

He exits the car when someone outside opens the door, and then he leans in to give me his hand to help me out. The snow is still falling, but it’s warmer. It’s still cold, but it’s no longer brutal.

“Careful,” he says, guiding me along the sidewalk to the building.

Up close, it’s even more beautiful, and when we pass through the glass revolving doors, it’s even more breathtaking once we’re inside.

We make our way to the elevators and he hits the call button. I turn around; this is not a typical elevator bank. Behind me, a plush sitting area boasts clusters of feather-soft looking, low slung cream colored couches. The ceiling is two stories high, and past the sitting area the far wall opposite the elevators is made of glass. Above it, the slanted ceiling is made of pure, crystal clear glass, with just the sky and the hint of the tops of tall buildings above it. The snow falls softly, and I feel as though I’m in a snow globe.

“It’s...a nice building,” I say. I swallow thickly as we get on the elevator.

“About the party,” he says. “I don’t know if I gave you enough details. I’m a partial owner of the club where it is being held.”

Club Skin.

I saw those words on the invitation.

I could deduce what kind of party is it.

Girls at work - my former work, I should say - talked about them from time to time.

You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, they’d say.

But it helps if you’re willing to do a lot, they’d say.

I don’t even know what kind of things may be asked of me.

“Does being the owner give you any special privileges?” I ask, my eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” he says simply. “It does. It gives me access.”

“To girls?” I swallow thickly.

“To whatever I want.”

Heat flutters between my legs as we get off the elevator. The view from his floor is incredible. I glance left quickly, at the large window composing the entire hallway. The snow up here is colder, icy almost, and whips through the air, so close to us. But we’re protected in this tower in the sky.

“Hey,” I say, looking up at him as we continue down the hallway. “I just realized I don’t even know your name.”

“So that’s another first for you, isn’t it?”

He unlocks his door and we pass into his apartment.

“It’s Gabe,” he says, pulling me inside.

Wrapping me up in his arms, he crushes his lips to mine with a newly ignited intensity, a new hunger, and I kiss him back, finding his tempo. It’s intoxicating, and it’s a rush.

He paid to get me out of that shithole. And he doesn’t want anything in return. He just wants me to be his date to this fabulous party tonight.

He just wants me.

“Is that your first name or your last name?” I ask, smiling at him.

“Am I not allowed to retain some mystery?” he asks darkly.

“You are plenty mysterious,” I reply.

He flashes me a sexy grin and scoops me up by the ass and I wrap my legs up around him, the dampness of my pussy grinding against him. I close my eyes and my world spins as he darts his tongue deep into my mouth, and I open my lips for him, feeling a trickle of new moisture between my legs as he puts me down on his plush, feathery soft couch.

What the hell am I doing?

“They aren’t going to do anything to you,” Gabe says, pushing my dress up around my hips slowly. The fabric is excruciating on my skin, teasing me. The way he acts is infuriatingly sexy. The way he goes slow. The way he teases. “You are safe now.”

The pressure between my legs builds as he smiles up at me and kisses me between my legs. My clit presses up against my panties, hard and desperate for his touch.

Slowly he slides my panties to the side. The soaked, delicate fabric nearly tears apart in his hand.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” I confess.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he growls. “You only do what you want. You tell me what you want. And if you don’t know what you want, I’ll show you what you want.”

“How do you know what I want?” I breathe.

My chest warms with heat as he kneels down on the floor in front of me.

I know nothing about him.

He was alone the day before Christmas Eve. He was in that place he rescued me from. He was there, and he must have been looking for something…

But he didn’t leave with what he came looking for.

His fingers roll against the edge of my panties, the flesh digging into my belly.

My head spins with desire. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

All I know is that I want to be his.

I want him to make me his.