Hard Rules
“The view is the best part of the apartment,” he says, twining my fingers with his, and damn it, there is a hot spot in my chest that isn’t about sex, but about how he makes me feel with him. Together, we walk toward the steel railing that sits atop a glass half wall, allowing it to feel as if we are almost standing in the middle of the sky.
I grab hold of the railing, staring out at the city, while he does the same beside me. “How high are we?”
“Fifteen floors.”
“Low enough that we can see every street and building.”
“But high enough to be on top of our new home,” he murmurs. “It even looks worth staying from here.”
I glance over at him to find he is already looking at me. “You’ve been back here a year,” I remind him. “And you’re from here.”
“I didn’t decide to stay until today.”
“Why today?”
“It should have been sooner.”
It’s not a real answer, and he doesn’t give me time to decide if I want to press for more. He steps behind me, his hips framing my backside, his hand at my sides. “And thanks to you,” he murmurs, his lips near my ear, “I’m not thinking about what I left behind. I’m thinking about what I have right here.”
The words infer more than a night, or maybe they don’t, but it doesn’t matter right now. He is caressing up and down my sides, his fingers grazing my breasts, and I can no longer think. My nipples are tight, aching nubs, and my sex is clenched tight. I bite my lip and tighten my grip on the railing, sucking in air as his exploration moves to my hips and then my backside. And suddenly, or not so suddenly, I want to touch him and see him. I try to turn, but he is quick to step to my side, holding me steady. “Stay facing forward,” he orders, his fingers splaying on my belly where they’ve settled, that other hand, still branding my backside, gliding upward until his fingers find the zipper to my skirt, deftly dragging it down. “Shane,” I say, not sure why, and when I turn my head to look at him, he kisses me, a sultry, sexy, slide of tongue against tongue that leaves me breathless, and wanting more.
“I like it when you say my name like it’s a pleasure.”
He steps behind me again, a light breeze lifting my hair and reminding me we’re outside. I think I should care, but he caresses my skirt over my hips, and I can’t find a reason why anymore. Material pools at my feet, and he lifts me, kicking it aside, and leaving me in nothing but a thong, thigh-highs, and heels from the waist down. He sets me back down, his hands cupping my now naked backside, his fingers intimately exploring the crevice between my cheeks, promising much more to follow.
He moves back to my side, one hand squeezing my cheek while the other cups my sex. My lashes lower and I pant, only to gasp as he grips the lace and yanks. I am shocked, and somehow much more vulnerable without that tiny stitch of lace. “Shane, damn it, we’re outside.” I try to turn again, not sure why this moment sets me off.
He holds me, his hands bracing me front and back. “Easy, sweetheart.” His teeth scrape my shoulder, my eyes squeezing shut with the tightening of my nipples beneath the silk of my bra. “No one can see us and we’re on top of our city, the day we both reluctantly decided to call it home.”
“Home?” I rasp out, that word only one of the nerves he’s hit. And I say it. I don’t know why but I do. “I hate that word and I’m not like you. I had no choice.”
He turns me, pressing me against the railing, his big body in front of mine, his legs pinning my legs. “Why am I different? Because I have family? Because you don’t?”
“I do. I have an asshole brother just like you.”
“Then you know that having family that doesn’t give a shit about you is being alone.”
Damn it, my eyes prickle, and I look skyward. “Yes,” I whisper, turning my head, and wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.
He cups my face, forcing me to look at him, his thumb wiping away a stupid tear that makes me weak. “I don’t cry,” I say. “This is your fault. I don’t know how you made me feel this. I don’t even know what ‘this’ is and I don’t know you. We’re strangers.”
“Not anymore we aren’t.”
“Yes. We are.”
“You always have a choice,” he says, sideswiping me with the change of topic. I am shaking from yet more stupid adrenaline and whatever “this” is that I still don’t understand.
“No,” I all but hiss. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Everything or nothing, Shane. I said nothing. Stop trying to get into my head when I want out for just one night.”
His eyes glint, a mix of hard steel and more of that blue fire. “You want to forget everything else?”
“That was the whole point in this.”
He reaches down and grabs the top of my shirt and before I have any clue what he intends, he yanks, and the buttons fly here and there. I gasp, my hands flattening on his shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“Making you forget.” He reaches around me and unhooks my bra, dragging it from my shoulders, and tossing it aside. I am left all but naked, when he is not. This realization shakes me. He shakes me and exposes pieces of me I don’t want exposed. I try to hug myself but he gently catches my wrists.
“Emily,” he says softly, and again he’s made it sin and seduction.