‘Because I meant what I said in our messages. I just needed to have sex.’ More heat in her cheeks but she doesn’t blink away from me now. ‘I hadn’t been with anyone in ages and I felt like I’d forgotten what intimacy is like.’ She lifts her shoulders. ‘I wanted to get laid. And let’s face it, you’re somewhat of an expert in the meaningless sex department.’
She’s right. I’ve made one-night stands an art form and my reputation makes sure everyone knows it. So why does it piss me off royally that she says it so casually?
I make no apologies for the way I live my life. This is who I am. I’ve tried to fit myself into a different mould before, to be Lord Rothsmore In Waiting, and it was an abject failure.
At least when I get back to England this time I’ll have a better idea of who I really am.
‘You weren’t supposed to come looking for me,’ she says.
I roll my hips once more, enjoying the look of heat that shifts over her features. Desire flares between us, a flame too bright and searing to ignore.
‘Why did you come looking for me?’
That’s a great question. The thing about one-night stands is that they’re always one night. That was what we’d agreed. I’m the one who wants to shift the goalposts, to make this something else.
Except, it’s not as if I’d be changing the terms of our deal substantially. She wanted casual, no-strings sex. We obviously still have chemistry. So why not have fun until I leave? It’s exactly the kind of relationship I do. Never commitment, never serious, never more than great sex, and lots of it. I am the king of casual fun, and suddenly it feels like a month of that with Imogen would be a lot like bliss.
‘You know who I am,’ I murmur, and with her back propped against the glass, her legs wrapped around my waist, I separate the lapels of her blazer so I can see the skimpy yellow singlet top thing she’s got on underneath. It’s soft like silk. I slide my hands under it; her skin is warm to the touch. She’s not wearing a bra. My dick is hard again. Rock hard, as if I didn’t have sex just minutes ago. My palms curve over her breasts, tormenting her nipples just how she likes it.
It was only one night but I learned a lot about her and I’m not ashamed of using it to get my way.
Her eyes hook to mine, powerful and yet powerless, lost as well as found.
‘You know who I am,’ I say again, and drop my head to take one of her nipples into my mouth through the flimsy fabric. It adds an extra layer of eroticism to something that’s already pretty damned hot. I press my teeth to her nipple, just enough to make her draw in a sharp breath of pleasure.
‘Yes.’
It’s not clear what she’s saying ‘yes’ to.
‘You know I am due to inherit my father’s title, the estate, the whole thing.’
She groans, nodding.
‘In one month, I’m due back in England to take up my place in that life.’ I’m surprised how flat the words sound—the usual derision not in evidence. ‘I have only weeks left in Manhattan.’
Another gurgling noise as I transfer my mouth to her other breast and give it the same little bite. Her insides squeeze my cock so tight. I need more of her. All of her.
Impatiently, I push at her blazer and she pulls her arms from it, understanding that I need all of her, all of this. The camisole follows, the wet patches from my mouth visible as it scrunches to the ground at our feet. I have to put her down to get the tattered skirt from her body and I drag it off her with the lace thong, leaving both on the floor before spinning her around so her back is to me.
I push her forward at the hips, so her arms are braced against the windows, and I take the briefest second to imprint this memory on my mind—the sight of her naked ass, how hot she looks from behind. I spread her legs with my knee, and bring one hand around to her breasts, keeping it clamped there as my other holds her hips steady. I take her from behind quickly, thrusting into her, our voices mingling at the total possession of this, the rightness of my being buried deep inside her. The hand on her hip travels lightly to her clit, and I run it over her cluster of nerves as I move deeper and harder inside her.
My voice is music, deep and throaty, taking over the room. There’s no clock here ticking as a background accompaniment to this passion, but the desire is just as intense and just as overwhelming.
I forget that we’re in her office, I forget there’s a secretary just down the hallway. I forget everything except how this feels, how badly I need her, how it’s been nine nights of tormenting, snatched memories, of how I didn’t even want to go out and hook up with someone else because I didn’t think it could live up to this.
I am angry at that—angry at my dependence on being with her—but I am also thrilled because I’ve found Miss Anonymous and I have four weeks in which to enjoy her.
So long as she agrees...
CHAPTER FOUR
WHAT THE HECK just happened?
I press my overheated forehead to the glass, staring down—way down—at Manhattan. My office is on the ninety-second floor of this glass and steel monolith. Believe me, I’d have preferred to cut costs and rent something cheaper, but my parents own two floors of this building and gave me a great deal on rent—besides which, my clients expect a certain air of wealth and prestige. The whole Billionaires’ Club is predicated on the idea of unattainable wealth and prestige, so I can’t exactly have my office headquarters in some three-storey brick walk-up in Brooklyn.
His breathing is ragged, just like my own. I stay right where I am, pleasure like fireworks just beneath my skin, exploding fast at my pulse points. I stare down at the snow-covered city, thinking of the time I went to visit Meemaw and Pa. I’d heard about them, but had barely spent more than an hour in their company. My mother worked hard to distance herself from her working-class roots. She’d married Hollywood royalty, she was a theatre queen and she wasn’t going to have the fact that she came from an ordinary family in the south do anything to harm her carefully cultivated image. I didn’t have those hang-ups, and right after Abbey died, I just felt as if I needed to see my grandparents, to spend time with them. I wanted the authenticity their life offered; I wanted to be as far from my parents and their set as possible.
So I went to Meemaw’s, and only a day or two after I arrived, a tornado crossed town. It was loud and fierce and so fast. It must have lasted only two or three minutes before it moved away again and the most surreal, unnatural silence followed.