Hard Rules

I stare at the entryway and I see it as the question mark intended, but more so, I instinctively understand he’s offered me a choice. A moment of fairly profound introspection follows in which I think of all the controlling, powerful men who have come into my life by my choice, or otherwise, all with fairly devastating results, not one of them gave me a choice. But Shane has, and not only that, he speaks of my pleasure, not his, which actually makes me want his pleasure, not mine. He is the contradiction and I like it. Suddenly the nerves I’ve been battling shift and change, still existing, still alive, but not fed by fear or self-doubt. I’m not here because I’m repeating the past. I’m here because Shane might have money, power, and good looks, but he is a rare person who is not defined by those things.

I let the walls fall away between us, letting him see the decision in my eyes, answering his silent question, even before I say, “Yes. The answer to me wanting to be here, is an absolute ‘yes.’” And with that declaration, I know that at least for now, I am choosing to let tonight exist without my secret, without the fears and danger, it creates, and I enter a magnificent apartment with a towering flat-lined ceiling, and striking dark wood floors streaked with a paler bamboo color.

I stop several feet inside, my gaze reaching beyond the open living room with tan leather furnishings to the floor-to-ceiling windows wrapping the entire apartment, a dark city spotted with lights beyond. The door shuts behind me and I feel Shane’s approach, his energy a potent force wafting over me, but I can’t seem to make myself turn and face him. His hands come down on my shoulders.

“I’ll take this,” he says, dragging the jacket from my shoulders, leaving me feeling oddly naked; my hand gripping my purse I’d all but forgotten was trapped beneath. Once again, adrenaline rushes through me, fuel for my nerves that I can’t escape and I whirl around to find Shane hanging the jacket on a coat rack. My gaze falls on his hands, which will soon be touching my naked body, and it hits me that this man makes me feel naked in ways beyond the idea of taking my clothes off.

It’s a disarming thought, and needing to catch my breath, I face forward, and start walking. I pass a kitchen that is stainless steel and more bamboo, continuing on through the living area, and I drop my purse on a leather chair, on my way to stand at the window. I grip the railing splitting the glass, staring out at a strange city I barely know as my own, the sky’s inky canvas waiting to be painted with what I make of this new life, starting with this night. Shane appears to my right. I turn to find him standing at a bamboo minibar, the air thick with our awareness of one another.

“Drink?” he asks, lifting the topper to a crystal decanter.

“Most definitely, yes,” I say, walking to stand beside the minibar, close to him. “Please.”

At my eagerness, he gives me an assessing look, too damn smart not to know that I’m a ball of anxiety and not because of my secret. Because he’s amazing and I want this and him in a way I am not sure I’ve ever wanted anyone before him. He pours a golden brown liquid into one glass only and replaces the stopper, clearly having no intention of filling another. “It’s cognac,” he says, picking up the glass and closing the two steps between us. “Expensive, strong, and smooth.”

I take the glass and start drinking, warm spices exploding in my mouth. Three swallows in, he grabs it and stops me. “Easy, sweetheart. I said I want you to remember me.”

“I want to remember you, Shane.”

“But it’s not me you’re trying to forget.”

“Something like that.”

He downs the rest of the cognac, setting the glass on the table, and before I know his intentions, his hand is under my hair again, cupping the back of my neck, and he’s aligned our bodies, his powerful legs pressed to mine. “What are you running from, Emily?”

I’m taken less off guard by the question that forces me back to my secret, than I am by my desire to tell him what I can’t. “Everything or nothing,” I say. “And I chose to tell you nothing.”

“So you don’t deny you’re running?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I’m not or I wouldn’t be in Denver.”

“Ironically,” I say, daring to tell a piece of the truth because it is only one night, “the opposite is true of me.”

“I already knew that.”

“Of course you did. You see too much.”

His fingers flex at my neck, and he lowers his head, his lips a breath from mine. “I haven’t even begun to see enough of you,” he declares, and then his mouth is on mine, his tongue a soft caress, a tease that promises that even if I will give him nothing, he will give me everything.

I am breathless when his mouth leaves mine, my tongue flicking over my lips. “You taste like cognac.”

“I’m going to taste like you,” he says, and after hours of wanting this man, my sex clenches with this certainty that very soon he will make good on that promise. “Come,” he orders, once again leading where he wants me to follow. This time it’s the door opposite the minibar that I hadn’t noticed before now. He opens it and motions me forward into a dark outdoor abyss that’s a bit spooky. I step outside, and not only is Shane quickly by my side, motion detectors trigger lights, and we are instantly cast in a warm, intimate glow.

I glance around a balcony hugged by tall concrete privacy walls that successfully block the wind and cold, finding a couch and chair, and dangling teardrop lanterns that might actually be heaters. “This is spectacular,” I murmur.