A tremble started in my knees and graduated to my center when his demanding tongue pushed inside my mouth. He didn’t ask for permission or give me a chance to stop him. Royce overtook me. His hands slid up my front, and he cupped my breasts, crushing and massaging me through the dress.
He squeezed a throaty moan from me, and the satisfied sound clung in the air of the dressing room.
Where have you been? I wanted to ask but didn’t. I should just be happy he was back and that I hadn’t lost him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sandwiched between two mind-numbing kisses.
His mouth roamed down the column of my neck, and when he sucked on my pulse-point, it felt like it was directly between my legs. It made it impossible to think about what he could be sorry for. Surely it wasn’t for what he was doing this very second, because it was the only thing that felt right.
“Hmm?” That was the best I could manage to ask for clarification. My hands were inside his suit coat, my fingers stroking over his dress shirt and wanting to get at the hardened chest beneath. It was exciting how he seemed to be having as difficult of a time breathing as I was.
“I’ve been avoiding you.” He carved a path with his mouth down my neck, across the center of my throat, and back up the other side. “You told me everything, and I didn’t do the same, and it wasn’t fair. It didn’t feel right.”
I pulled back. “And it does now?”
His eyes were lidded, and he looked vulnerable, but I wasn’t deceived. He was more dangerous than ever like this. “No, but it will. I’m going to make it right.” A smile hinted. “But also, I’m an impatient motherfucker. I’ve been waiting for this day for . . . a while.”
The way he’d said it, you’d think he’d been waiting years.
Perhaps he had been. Maybe tomorrow I’d read in the finance section of the news that he’d tendered his offer to buy Ascension. The question was on the tip of my tongue, but then he was there, his mouth pressed to mine again, and all the words fell away.
He eased me back against the mirror in the dressing room, and I gasped as my bare skin pressed to the cold glass. It was immediately followed with a heavy moan because the rest of him pushed against me, all hot and urgent.
A female voice carried loudly through the closed door. “You’re not damaging all my hard work, are you, Mr. Hale?”
We both froze at Donna’s question. A wild, guilty smile splashed on Royce’s face, and—fuck—it was so sexy, it was indecent.
“No, ma’am.” He straightened away, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His gaze assessed every inch of me, and I could see him weighing his options. He could have me right here and now, if I was willing. Which—oh, yes—I was.
His money meant he could do whatever he wanted. Pay off the staff in the shop to leave us. Tear this dress off me and hire whoever Donna would need to make a replacement in time. Everyone in Cape Hill, and especially the Hales, viewed wealth as a superpower. It could do anything.
But fucking his fiancée in a tiny dressing room while his stepmother and her dress designer waited outside would certainly get back to Macalister, and the distance Royce put between us cooled our raging bodies enough to see reason.
He raked a hand through his hair and settled the mess I’d created, pulling himself back together. He took a final look at me, all wanton with my kiss-swollen lips and wrapped in his favorite color, and his eyes smoldered. They made a promise he was going to deliver on very soon.
“I should get out of here,” a smirk broke on his lips, “while I still can.” He strode to the door and pulled it open but hesitated before going through it. “Come find me tonight after your game.”
He vanished through the door, and a moment later Donna appeared, gazing into the dressing room to survey the aftermath. She scoured the dress with her sharp eyes, and when she discovered it was unharmed, relief softened her expression.
I hadn’t finished recovering, so my voice was shaky. “Do you do wedding dresses?”
The woman’s laugh was bright and full. “For you? I’d be honored.”
With practice every night, I’d become quite good at chess.
The unfortunate thing was Macalister benefited from the practice as well and was also improving. Playing the same person repeatedly taught him my thought process and my weaknesses, and he used all of it to his advantage.
Tonight, I’d gotten closer than ever to beating him. The game had taken forever, and I’d put him in check more than once, but then he’d castled his king, and the repositioning move obliterated all my plans.