My heart thumped.
“You make me insane. I can’t fight you. You kill my common sense. I make nothing but bad choices around you. And you’re sure as shit too damn irresistible for me to leave you alone for a single day.” Damien dug his fingers into my skin, shooting thrills throughout my body. He dipped his face right against mine. His stubble scrubbed across my jaw, rough and tough, tickling as the hairs flicked across my face. “I want you,” he breathed, lips barely a heartbeat from mine. “And if you had any fucking idea how badly, you’d run into the wind.”
His shirt was as smooth as silk, flawless beneath my fingers as they mapped their way across his muscular body. The fabric rippled and slipped beneath my touch, and that smoothness only stopped when my fingertips left the material and fell upon his neck. Hot yet rough courtesy of his trimmed stubble, his skin sent tingles across mine, starting from where we touched until I felt them all over my entire body.
“This is a bad idea,” I said breathlessly, hand on the side of his neck.
“Good things come from bad ideas.” His eyes bore into mine, a raging inferno of want and lust that burned. “Didn’t you know that?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever really carried out any of my bad ideas before.” My voice gave out on the final word as the truth hit me.
I hadn’t.
Not ever.
Except him—except every idea I’d ever had that he was involved in.
“Then,” his voice was low, and he slid one hand down my back, holding me tighter against him. “I’ll be the first.”
His mouth covered mine before I could think of a response. Not that I had one—hell, if I had to make a really bad decision, it might as well have been this. I’d already made it, too. After that kiss this morning, there was no way I’d be ending this evening without sleeping with him.
I’d come here to do that, hadn’t I?
I shut off the voice inside my head and fully gave myself over to the man in front of me. His lips were hot but slow, moving over mine in a way that was firm yet easy—that put him in control. It was a kiss that laid out his intentions.
His intentions to control this, to dominate me, to own this entire thing.
I had no chance of taking any of that away from him, so I rolled with it. I let him think he did, even as he broke the kiss, clasped my hand, and pulled me toward the stairs. I paused at the bottom to remove my heels, but he stopped me.
Damien shook his head. “Don’t even think about taking those off.”
I raised my eyebrows but said nothing. I wasn’t against it or anything…
We carried on up the stairs until we reached the upstairs hallway. Like the one downstairs, it was plain and clean, almost clinical in its appearance. But I didn’t have a whole lot of time to focus on it, because Damien dragged me down the hall to a door at the end. All the doors were ajar except this one, and when he opened it, I saw why.
“This is your room,” I said, not bothering to hide my surprise.
He rolled his head to the side and looked back over his shoulder. “What were you expecting? A sex dungeon?”
“Now that you mention it…”
He laughed and pulled me inside, pushing the door shut behind me. He walked backward as he guided me into the room with slow steps. “No dungeon, no special room, no sordid basement…I promise. I don’t usually…entertain…at my house.”
“Then why am I here?”
He stepped toward me, slipping his fingers between mine and holding me close. “I make exceptions for exceptions.”
“What does—”
He silenced me with a kiss. His fingers slid into my hair, easing to the back of my head and cupping it. I gripped his shirt, leaning into him. A shiver raced across my skin when he flicked his tongue across my lower lip, and my toes twitched as if they wanted to curl. Just when I thought he’d deepen it, he released me.
My lips parted. I drew in a deep breath, my lame attempt at hiding the desire that was building.
Damien’s footsteps were silent on the plush carpet. He came behind me and rested his hands on my waist, stopping me from moving, and reached up. Hair rose across my skin as he ghosted his fingers over my shoulder to my hair. He swept it to the side, brushing it over my other shoulder, exposing the curve of my neck and top of my dress.
His fingers closed around the zipper pull.
Warmth flushed through me.
With my harsh breathing as the only sound for it to contend with, the deep buzz of the zip as he undid it seemed unnaturally loud. The brush of his knuckle following the zip down my spine only heightened the sound—heightened the way my heart beat a little too fast. But then—then, he touched his lips to the base of my neck, and I shivered, my entire body feeling the effects of just one touch.