It was a riot inside my body.
He placed a hand on the small of my back—gentle, terribly gentle, and it unleashed an electric charge in me. “Can’t wait for what?” he asked.
Oh God, his voice. His deep, sexy voice was an aphrodisiac. It was the opening act in the seduction of me.
“For the evening to turn more exciting,” I said as I came face-to-face with the sexiest stranger I’d ever met—and he wasn’t going to be a stranger much longer.
“Looks like I arrived just in time. Because that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Excite me?”
The first notes of a sexy ballad sounded from the stage. “Yes. That’s why I came here. Right now, however, I’d like to monopolize you on the dance floor, Miss Sophie Winston.”
“You know my name,” I said, shooting him a look that said I was impressed.
“I do,” he said, holding me captive with his dark-blue eyes. “And I’d like to get to know more than your name.”
“That sort of intel might be obtained with a dance,” I said, clasping his hand and letting him lead me to the dance floor as the lights dimmed and the song wrapped itself around us.
5
Ryan
As the slinky, silky Vegas nightclub singer belted out a bluesy number from the stage, the lights in the ballroom dimmed. They turned the bright silent auction that I had caught the tail end of into a sultry nighttime affair. The chandeliers flickered, and violet lights shone on the dance floor. Men in tuxes and women in evening dresses moved and swayed, and the event reeked of old money and new money, mingling together. This was the cocktail mix of the Vegas built on the bedrock of Rat-Pack-era casinos, stirred up with the cool swagger of the sleek skyscraper crowds of today.
I led Sophie to the dance floor, my palm on her back.
Her skin was so soft. So bare. So fantastically naked in this backless dress as I pulled her near and we began to dance.
“So you made it,” she said.
“I would have been here sooner, but I had to walk my dog.”
She burst out in surprised laughter. “Really?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. It just came out sounding like an excuse,” she said as we swayed in time to the jazzy number sung by the red-sequined woman on stage.
“He’s a very demanding dog. Have you ever met a border collie mix? They can be quite needy. And I like to make sure he’s happy.”
“How good of you to think of him.”
“I was thinking of you too,” I said, my eyes fixed on her as I spoke. “I couldn’t get you off my mind.”
“Is that so?” she asked, but her smile made it seem less like a question. “I figured I’d read you wrong.”
“You didn’t expect me to show up?” I spread my fingers across the bare skin of her back. Goosebumps rose on her flesh.
“One never knows if a man has it in him to respond to an invitation on the street,” she said coyly.
My spine straightened, and I stood even taller. “When a woman like you tells a man she wants him, that man should do everything in his power to show up.”
She moved closer, her sky-blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “I don’t believe I said I wanted you,” she whispered.
I bent my head to her ear, catching the faint scent of her perfume. Something vaguely tropical. Something that suggested hot summer nights. I wanted to run my nose along her skin and inhale her. A groan worked its way up my chest. “You didn’t have to say it,” I said.
She shot me a sharp stare, but she didn’t let go of me. “My, my. Aren’t we a little over-confident?”
“Am I?” I asked, letting go to spin her in a circle then tugging her back as the music rose to a crescendo.
“Perhaps I just wanted to make sure the ballroom was full,” she said, gesturing to the crowd. “Maybe that’s why I invited you.”
“Is that what you wanted? One more attendee at your event?”
She swallowed and parted her lips. “Maybe I want other things.”
She pressed her hand against my shoulder, and the pressure from that slight touch sent electricity flying through me. I stopped swaying and dipped her, holding her in that pose, her back bent in an arc, her body draped over my arm, trusting me. “Tell me, Sophie. What other things do you want?”
I watched her like that as I waited for her answer. Her eyes never wavered from mine. There was no shyness in her gaze, no nerves evident in her expression. Only confidence, which was so damn alluring. She licked her lips, then answered, “A man who can figure those other things out.”
Oh, hell yeah. This woman turned me on fiercely. She was direct and naughty at the same time. I raised her up. Her full breasts were flush against my chest, and I was sure I could spend hours worshipping them. Or biting them. Or fucking them. “I can figure out all those things you want. I can deliver all of them too. But right now? Here on the dance floor? I presume this is when you need me to role-play being a perfect gentleman,” I said, casting my gaze briefly at the crowds dancing alongside us.
“So you wouldn’t be a gentleman if we weren’t in front of all these people?”
“I would absolutely not be a gentleman at all,” I said, letting my hand travel along her back. “But for the moment, you have your donors here to entertain.”
She raised her chin and looked at me studiously. “You did your homework, Mr.—” Then she laughed and cut herself off, placing a finger over my lips. “Don’t tell me your name. I prefer to think of you as Mr. Green Tie. So we can pretend we hardly know each other. We can be strangers.”
“Strangers can make the best lovers.”
“Are you? A good lover?”
“I don’t really think you want me to answer that question.”
“Why on earth wouldn’t I want the answer to that?” she asked, toying with my tie, her voice a purr that lit up my organs, setting every last part of me on fire.
I shook my head, then pressed my lips near her ear and whispered, “I think you’d rather I show you.”
She gasped, an enticing sound that ignited me. My body was strung tight, like a snare drum. I was torn between wanting to pounce on her now and drawing out the anticipation. Making her want me. Making her beg. I was willing to bet she was a marvelous beggar, that she could get on her knees and say please in a voice that snapped all my restraint.
“Show me,” she whispered, then her eyes floated closed as I touched her, fingertips brushing her back. They traveled higher, and she arched into my hand, like a cat being petted. I reached her hair, winding a loose blonde strand around my index finger, cataloging the expression on her face, the way her features were so soft, so open—her lips parted, her eyes closed, her breath gentle.
I let her long curls fall through my fingers as she molded to me.
Then I showed her what else I liked. That I wasn’t soft. That I wasn’t gentle. With my fingers gripping her hair, I tugged.
Hard.
Her eyes snapped open, and they blazed at me. “That wasn’t gentlemanly.”