“You want to be alone with me?”
“Isn’t it abundantly apparent?”
“From the hardness of your bones? Why, yes, it does seem quite abundant,” she said with an amused expression as she cast her eyes to my pants.
I stopped at the side door, away from the crowds. I lowered my voice and spoke in a rough, husky tone. “You turned me on from the second I laid eyes on you this afternoon. You are gorgeous and beautiful, and everything about you arouses me. Abundantly.”
Her chest rose and fell, and she exhaled heavily. “Oh God,” she whispered.
“Can you get away?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I have to present a few awards on stage in—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a woman in a sharp black dress marching purposefully in our direction. She pointed at Sophie.
“I think someone’s looking for you.”
The woman stopped when she reached us. “Sophie, you have seven minutes before we need you onstage again.”
“Thank you so much, Kelley.”
The woman spun efficiently on her heel and walked off.
Sophie turned back to me. “I can’t get away.”
“No. You can’t. Let me walk you backstage so you don’t miss your presentation.”
6
Sophie
The black curtain hugged the small stage, shielding us from the crowds still dancing and enjoying the music. Here, off to the side in this section of the wings, I was all alone with my stranger.
His eyes roamed my body. The look in them was predatory. He stalked me, and I backed up, step by step in my heels, until I hit the black wood wall. “You have six minutes now before you go out there,” he said in a hungry voice, his fingertips brushing the fabric of my dress along my thigh. “Do you know what I can do to you in six minutes to make you feel amazing?”
The temperature inside me shot sky-high. A pulse beat between my legs. I was hot, and I was wet. I’d been turned on ever since he’d asked me to dance.
“What can you do?” I asked, feeling both utterly vulnerable and completely aroused. It was a matchstick combination for me.
“Do you want me to tell you?” He roamed his hand up the outside of my leg, reaching my waist, making me shudder.
“I do,” I said breathily, my body on the cusp of something intense. Something I wanted desperately.
“What I’ve been thinking about since I met you.” He raised his hand and cupped my cheek. His touch was both gentle and possessive. “First, I’m going to place my hand on your beautiful face, and your knees will go weak because I’ll finally be touching you the way you’ve been fantasizing about since this afternoon,” he said, his hot breath painting my skin.
“Cocky.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod as he ran his thumb along my jawline. “But also true. From the moment I met you, I knew I’d have my hands on you. You knew it too. Felt it too.”
I nodded as I trembled from the trace of his finger. “I did feel it.”
He brought his mouth to my ear and spoke softly. “If I ever do or say something you don’t like, tell me. Or smack me. I only want to bring you pleasure.” His words were both sexy and earnest. The combination sent flutters through my belly. “Immense pleasure.”
“You already are. So tell me something else that’s true. Something else you know,” I said, loving the hot, dirty way he talked to me as he touched me.
“I’m going to look into your eyes like I want to take you,” he said, his eyes blazing with desire. “That look will drive you wild. And you’ll swallow nervously because you don’t know me, and it’s odd wanting a stranger as much as you do.” He was reading me like a teenage diary. On the one hand, I was nervous. I didn’t know him at all. But I was also aroused beyond words. Beyond reason. Beyond any normal limits.
For that same reason—because I didn’t know him.
“Then, you’ll run a hand down my tie,” he told me, and I reached out instantly, doing exactly as he said, loving the directions he gave. I craved this kind of interaction. So much time was spent deciding and doing and planning. It drove my brain batty, and I longed for this kind of release from my everyday.
“Do you know why you’re so fascinated with my tie?” he asked huskily, his eyes pinned on me. He practically fucked me with his gaze. It was so intense. His confidence set me on fire. It torched a path across my body, sizzling my skin.
“Tell me,” I said, eager for more of his words. “Since you seem to know me so well, tell me.”
He brushed the backs of his fingers against my cheek. Oh God, I was dying for him to kiss me. I was so eager to feel those lips. To taste him.
He grasped my wrist with one hand, yanking it up his chest and loosely wrapping the end of his tie around my hand. “You want me to tie you up.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, my voice stripped to the bone. He knew me. He read me. He could sense everything I wanted. He crowded me against the wall. Heaven Leigh belted out her song onstage while the inky black of the backstage cloaked us.
“Am I wrong?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “If I’m wrong, tell me and I’ll walk away.”
I shook my head in answer, then glanced at his tie. “Are you going to take it off? Tie me up?” I asked in a voice that hardly sounded like me. It belonged to the part of me that had been untended for years.
He grinned wickedly. “No. I have other ways to tie you up,” he said, and in a flash, he gripped my wrists in his big, strong hands, wrapping his fingers around me, binding me as he yanked my hands behind my back. Heat flared in my body, spinning through me, settling between my legs. My gorgeous, sexy panties were so damp right now they were useless.
I ached for his touch. And I could do nothing but wait for it, since I was his hostage.
He was so strong I couldn’t wriggle away if I wanted to. His thumbs dug into my wrist bones, pinning my hands above my ass, rendering me helpless. The pressure from the twist in my arms bordered on pain, and felt oh so good.
There was no space between the two of us. Only breath. Only words and his bare, husky voice. “Do you know what else I’ve been thinking about all day?”
I shook my head.
He inched closer, his mouth mere centimeters from mine. My lips parted, so ready for him. God, I needed him to kiss me, badly, but he was making me wait for it, making me nearly ask for it. His mouth hovered so close I wanted to dart out my tongue and lick him. Draw him to me. His forehead brushed mine, and my breath fluttered.
Somehow I managed a “Please.”
“Please kiss you?” he asked. “Is that what you want me to do?”
I nodded, too turned on to form another word, even a yes.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about all day,” he whispered.
Then he kissed me, and he wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t sweet. He was rough as he claimed my mouth, kissing hard. I moaned as he drew my bottom lip between his teeth then fused his mouth to mine.
His stubble rubbed against my chin. I’d have whisker burn later. I longed for the redness, the proof, the evidence of his bruising kiss.