I’d seen him in a T-shirt, in a soft linen button-down, and even bare-chested, but nothing—nothing—had prepared me for the sight of Boone Smith in a crisp, clean, starched-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life tuxedo. I stopped dead in my tracks.

He was standing to the side of the bar, away from everyone else, and for a moment I allowed myself to wonder if he had taken an extra job as a cater-waiter. But that was impossible. He was leaning on the bar, his eyes downcast, his elbow draped casually on the edge. The bartender handed him a long-necked beer wrapped in a cocktail napkin and he took a swig.

What the actual hell…

I strolled right up. “Boone.”

His eyes shot to my face. They were filled with panic. “Hannah.”

“Are you stalking me?” I asked. “I didn’t answer the phone so you’re…” I gestured to his tuxedo helplessly. “What are you doing?” God, that tuxedo was nice. Really nice. And I’d thought he was hot in a sweaty old T-shirt.

He nodded, once, and his voice sounded stilted as he replied. “Yes. I’m stalking you. You caught me.”

I rolled my eyes. In approximately two seconds my parents were going to notice. The last thing I needed was to make introductions to the bit of rough I was supposed to be forgetting about. “Come with me.” I’d had my debutante ball here. I knew where to find a private place to chat.

I slipped out of the main hall, and up a small side staircase, checking once to see if Boone would follow. On the second floor was an anteroom. For weddings and debutante parties they used it as a dressing room for the girl or her family, but I knew it wouldn’t be occupied at a fundraising dinner. Fortunately, it was unlocked. I opened the door and ushered Boone inside. As he brushed past me on the threshold, I smelled cologne, or maybe aftershave. Something dark and woodsy, and so foreign to my senses that for a moment I thought this was all some terrible mistake. This couldn’t be Boone.

I shut the door behind us and turned to face him. He still clutched the beer in his hand, and his expression was so lost that a part of me just wanted to fold him in my arms and hold on tight. But first I needed answers.

“So,” I said. “Speak. What are you doing here?”

“I know, right?” His laugh was mirthless as he set the beer down on the mantle. “I haven’t a clue, to be honest. I look ridiculous.”

He did not look ridiculous. He looked good enough to eat. No waiter I’d ever seen had worn a tuxedo like that. In fact, I don’t think anyone outside of Hollywood wore a tuxedo the way Boone was wearing his. The fabric contained his broad shoulders and muscular arms, but only just barely, perfectly setting off his physique the way only an expertly tailored suit could. The material was no cheap rental. The bow tie was real, not a clip on. “Where did you get that suit?”

“It’s a costume,” he replied grimly, spreading his hands. “Is this what you like? If I looked like this all the time, would you have answered my texts?”

“I didn’t answer,” I said, “because the last time we talked, you told me you didn’t want to see me anymore.”

“I made a mistake,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Bullshit,” I snapped at him, as something hollowed itself out of my chest. No. He couldn’t just say that. It wasn’t fair. He said beautiful things and then turned around and acted mean. “I’m just some rich bitch you’re playing a game with. That’s what you told me, isn’t it? I’m Hannah Swift and I’m trust funds and designer clothes and you think this whole life of mine is ridiculous.” My eyes burned and my throat seemed to close, but there was no way I was going to let Boone see me sweat. “So thanks for throwing that in my face and all, but I’ve come to my senses, now, too. I’m done with this game.”

I turned back to the door, but no sooner had I placed my hand on the knob than Boone’s arm shot out and blocked it from opening. I spun around. He was right there, his hand braced on the door jamb above my head, his eyes on mine, his gaze filled with a dark intent that made me catch my breath.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I sounded like a broken record.

He leaned in and I smelled that strange, woodsy scent again. Aftershave, definitely. His face was close-shaven and soft, like he’d been to a barber. He said nothing, just stared, as my breath caught and my heart pounded. His free hand touched my cheek, brushed strands of hair from my face, and then trailed down my face to my chin. He tilted my face up, his hand cupping my chin and my throat, and ran his thumb slowly across my bottom lip.

“You are not done with me.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but the second my lips parted, he bent to kiss me, and, God help me, I kissed him back. Our tongues fought and I reached up to cling to his shoulders because I was pretty sure my legs couldn’t support me anymore and his mouth—oh, his mouth. I was lost. Boone kissed me and I was lost.

His hands slid down my body with purpose, his fingers digging hard into the flesh of my thighs. “Stop me now, Hannah,” he growled against my mouth. “God, you’re so hot.”

“Boone,” I moaned, but it wasn’t a protest. It was a plea. I felt the material of my dress riding up over my legs, over my butt, felt his fingers working between my thighs. My panties were already ruined, slick with moisture and desire, and when he slid them down my legs it felt only right to kick them off.

“Stop me now,” he repeated. “Or I’m going to fuck you up against this wall.”

Oh. Oh. This was wrong. This was precisely what I wasn’t supposed to be doing. He slid a finger inside me and I gasped. I should stop him. I should stop this. But instead I angled my feet apart a bit more. “Please,” I said, desperate. “Don’t stop.”

“Is this what it was like?” he whispered in my ear as he withdrew his finger, slick and slippery, and circled it around my clit. “When you banged that Canton boy in the coatroom at your formal?”

“I can’t believe you remember that.” I could barely stand upright and he was recounting my sexual history.

“Is that what you like?” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard. His clever, eager, evil fingers never stopped. He was going to make me come just like this. “Slipping away with some guy while all your boring, rich friends socialize a few feet away?”

“Not usually,” I managed to say. “Certainly not then. But now—”

“I think it is,” he hissed. His fingers left and then with one twist he flipped me around and pressed me against the wall. “I think it turns you on. Spread your legs for me.”

I obeyed. The plaster was hard, flattening my breasts, cool against my face and thighs. I turned my cheek to the wall and tried to glimpse him over my shoulder. “Boone—”

“Shhh, Hannah,” he admonished me. I heard the sound of a zipper and the crinkle of a condom wrapper but as soon as I started to look at him he pressed a hand against my shoulder blades, holding me in place against the wall. “You don’t want them to hear you, do you?”

“They can’t—” I began, but then he was behind me, and he plunged his erection inside me so quickly I almost cried out. I clamped my mouth shut and it came out like a whimper.

He stilled. “You okay?” His tone was soft, suddenly, the Boone hiding beneath the harsh facade.

“Yes,” I whispered. Oh God, yes. “Keep going.”

“See?” he said, soft and low in my ear. He snaked a hand about my waist. “Isn’t this nice?”

I nodded and spread my legs more, tilting my hips back to meet his thrusts. “Yes.” And it was. It was more than nice.

“Maybe you do want them to hear you,” he went on, setting up an easy, insistent rhythm. “Maybe you want them all to know how wild you are.”

I shook my head, even as the thought made my muscles clench and my knees go weak. “No. I—”

“I could make you scream,” he said. “I could bring them all running.”

I clamped my mouth shut over the moans rising in my throat.

He ran his hands up under the chains at the back of my dress, spreading his fingers wide against my skin. “I could rip these,” he warned me. “I could rip them all off, and then you’d never be able to go back downstairs. Everyone would know.”

“Boone!” I turned my head. “Don’t you dare.”

“Why?” he punctuated his words with quick strokes. “Because I’m your dirty little secret?”

“No—”

“Yes,” he said, his grip on me tightening. “I am. I’m the thing you do in the dark, the one you can never let anyone know.”

I couldn’t form words now. Just moans.

“It didn’t work with that Canton boy in the coatroom. He wasn’t dirty enough for you. That’s it, isn’t it?”

No. No…

“You like it like this,” he insisted, pounding into me now, each thrust hard and punishing. “Perfect Hannah Swift, her dress hiked up around her waist, getting fucked by some stranger at a fancy party.”

There was something dark in his words. Something dark and cruel and…angry. This was more than just a game. I twisted around to look at him. Boone’s eyes were hooded, his face a mask of concentration. When he withdrew for a split second I spun around fully to face him. “Boone…wait.”

He lifted me up around my waist. “That’s what you want,” he went on, as if I’d said nothing. He arranged my legs on either side of his hips and slid inside me again. I gasped in pleasure and wrapped my legs around his waist, hooking my ankles behind his back and holding on tight.

“Please,” I gasped. “I’m going to come.”

“I know you are.” He buried his face against my shoulder as he started slamming into me again and again. “Because that’s what you want out of this. Some nobody to stick his dick in you, all filthy and secret. That’s all you ever wanted.”

A rush of cold washed away every ounce of lust I’d felt. Every time I’d called him my bit of rough, even in my head, came back to slap me in the face. This had gone beyond dirty talk. I tightened my legs around his hips, stopping his thrusts, and put my hands on either side of his cheeks to lift his chin and look into his eyes. “Don’t say that! That’s not what this is, Boone.”

He jerked his head away, looking down. “Don’t, Hannah. Stop. I’m trying to make this easy.”

“I don’t care,” I cried. He was still buried deep inside me. And I was nothing like my father. I wouldn’t fuck around with someone I thought was beneath me. “I don’t want this to be easy if it makes it cheap. I like you, Boone.”

“Hannah—”

“I can’t stop thinking about you, either. And yes, it’s nice to have sex with you, but it’s really, really nice just to talk with you or flirt with you or smile across the fence at you.”

“Stop,” he begged.

“And fine, you don’t think I fit into your life or whatever. Fine. We’re done. But you know what this was, Boone. You know what you are to me.” I dipped my head and kissed him, long and slow.

He thrust again, once, twice, three times, and went rigid in my arms. I felt him pulsing inside me as his orgasm overtook him. He tore his mouth away from mine and pressed his forehead into my shoulder.

“Shit,” he murmured. “Shit.”

I stroked my hands through the rough stubble of his short hair and smiled. “What, that you came before me?”

He set me gently on the floor, breathing heavily, not meeting my eyes. “That too,” he said ruefully. Without another word, Boone strode over to the tiny powder room and shut the door between us. I stared at it, not sure what to think. When we’d entered this room, I’d been mad at him, but here I was, making mid-coital declarations of…affection? And now he’d left me alone in the aftermath. I should run. I should grab my panties—where were my panties?—and run.

The door opened and he emerged, looking dashing and debonair and clean. “You should fix yourself up,” he said grimly. “You look like someone just fucked you up against a wall.”

I glanced in the mirror behind him. It was true. My hair was matted and wild, and a sheen of sweat covered my brow and cheeks. My skirt was still hiked up around my waist, and I could feel slick moisture on the insides of my thighs. But Boone wasn’t getting rid of me that easy.

“Wait here while I get cleaned up,” I said.

He shook his head, all the bluster gone. “I can’t. I honestly can’t, Hannah. I’m crawling out of my skin. I can’t be here.”

“So that’s it?” I spread my arms. “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am?”

He shut his eyes. “No. Yes. Dammit.” He took a deep breath. “I have to leave. I’ll call you.”

“You’ll call me?” I asked, incredulous. “Are you kidding?”

He hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. “I will call you,” he said gruffly, meeting my eyes. “I promise. We are not done.”

I grabbed his lapels and kissed him again, hard. “You’d better.”

After Boone had gone, I took my time straightening myself up, washing my face and neck and between my legs, brushing my hair until it was smooth and glossy again, and reapplying the makeup Boone had smudged or kissed off my face.

But mostly, I tried to get my bearings. What had just happened? I’d brought Boone up here to tell him in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to follow me around like some kind of stalker creep and I’d ended up having sex with him, again, in the dressing room of the Monroe House, where once I’d donned a white satin gown and Mom had placed my grandmother’s pearls around my neck and they’d announced to the world that I was the type of society lady who would never dream of engaging in that sort of activity.

And now Boone had left me here, and I was still throbbing with need despite several cold paper towels, and I’d shot to hell any chance of putting the whole Boone episode behind me. I could ignore his texts and turn off my phone, and all it took was him showing up in my line of vision for me to forget my misgivings and spread my legs and offer him my body like some kind of…

No. It wasn’t that simple. Whatever was happening between Boone and me, it was more than just sex.

Now I had to go downstairs and rejoin the party and pretend to be a good little girl again.

At least until Boone called.