“My room is just along . . .” He doesn’t follow the vague wave of my finger, instead taking my hand in his.
“You just don’t know how lovely you are.”
“So you’re saying it’s my fault we’re not in my room yet?” I pout a little, though I’m not sure it does anything to contain my excitement.
“Yes, for being irresistible.”
Says the man with a commanding aura and the superhero chest.
At least he doesn’t wear jockey shorts on top of his pants.
“Something you’re finding amusing?” His gaze turns playful, but there’s an intensity there, too. The kind that makes my heart beat a little too fast, an arrhythmic beat I can feel everywhere.
“I was just thinking about your underwear.” I might not physically be able to raise one brow—I’ve tried, and the best I’ve got is a strange-looking duo waggle—but I’ve found this tone is a pretty good substitute.
“That sounds promising.” Under my fingers, his chest flexes again, muscle and sinew reacting to my touch.
I can’t wait to see what’s under here.
“There are security cameras,” I whisper, spreading my fingers wide and pushing him back as he looks about to kiss me again.
“Then you should stop looking at me like that.”
“Exactly how is it I’m looking at you?” I half ask, half taunt.
“Like you’re picturing me without my underwear.”
“I think that’s called projecting, Lyle. Maybe I was thinking about offering you a very respectable—”
“There is nothing respectable about the things I want to do to you.”
I’m not sure if it’s the pictures those words create or the delivery of his wicked promise in that very proper accent that makes my knees buckle a little.
“—tea,” I respond, surprised I manage to respond at all and more surprised still at how natural my voice sounds. “I was going to say cup of tea.”
“Then I’m about to be very, very disappointed.” His serious reply is accompanied with the kind of grin that would make a nun weep into her communion wine.
“Should I save the tea for afterward?”
“You’ve heard about the deviancy of Englishmen, then?”
“This smile.” I find myself pressing my hand to his cheek, my insides tightening at the brush of his stubble. “I wonder when the devil wants it back.” Surely, it can only be on loan.
“You think I have the devil’s smile?”
“On such a beautiful mouth, too.”
He turns his lips into my palm, pressing a kiss to the meat. His eyes are like twin flames as he turns his attention back again. “I have heard it said that I have the devil’s own tongue.”
All the tingles. All between my legs.
I don’t for one hot minute think this is the kind of man who drinks tea as a post-sex treat. He looks more like the kind of man who’d roll me over, slap my ass, and start again. Yes, please!
And who knew Englishmen had such aural game! Let me tell you, if I’d known, I might’ve dipped my toe in the waters—the waters of eligible men—long before now.
“Oh!” I suck in a sharp breath at the shocking awareness of his teeth pressing down on my knuckles. Delicately at first, then not quite so gently, his eyes watching my reaction, almost feeding from it. Something inside me twists, a sensation sweet, deep and urgent. It’s just his mouth. On my hand. How can this feel like . . . everything?
“I think we should find this room now.” His voice is like velvet. I want to wrap myself in it.
“Yes.” Oh, boy, yes, we should. I step forward, and he steps back but doesn’t let go of my hand. “It’s this way.” I swing right and take a couple of stumbling steps before catching sight of a sign containing room numbers. Son of a biscuit, I’m going the wrong way. I swing around, almost colliding with his chest. Again. “My bad. I-it’s this way.”
His chuckle follows me along the hallway.
At the door to my hotel room, my hand trembles as I slide it into my purse, but I manage to find the key card. Pulling it out, I swipe it against the door’s reading mechanism.
The tiny judging eye remains red.
The heat of him burns at my back, and the shadow his frame casts against the pale door is large and looming. It drowns out my own. A sensible person would say it’s no wonder I feel nervous with that hulking body behind me, but it’s the experience of that body that I’m desperate for. Desperate to discover the man behind the suit. The muscle and sinew, ridges and dips. The absolute need is one I haven’t felt before.
I inhale and swipe it again.
Red. Still. The colour of warning. The colour to halt. Stop. End.
“These things are so pesky,” I whisper shakily, glancing over my shoulder and failing to tempt the green light again. “Dammit!” I fumble, and the thing flips from my fingertips, landing flat on the floor.
Before I can move, Alexander is already straightening, the card balanced between his fingertips. “So very pesky.” His words are hot at my ear as he trails the edge of the card up my jean-clad thigh. The skin beneath reacts like a million hot pins; my whole body in fact. I feel wound so tight I can barely breathe.
But no, that’s not true as a breath flutters from my mouth. Ha. As I luxuriate in the press of his lips at my neck. I arch into him, elongating my neck to give him more skin to kiss, my palm finding the door as I reach for support and—
It opens. The light has switched from red to green.
“Let’s move this inside,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to the skin behind my ear. “Before we give the whole floor a show.” His hand braces solicitously against the marginally open door.
“I—” I turn my head over my shoulder, his darkened gaze falling to my lips. Almost in slow motion, he inclines his head, and our lips meet fleetingly. As his arm comes around me, turning me, everything speeds up again. Lips slide, and tongues clash, this kiss taking on a savage edge as Alexander’s arms band at my back, almost carrying me into the room. His presence is encompassing, and his kiss all command as he presses me back against the nearest wall, his body following. A frantic heat swims through my veins, my hands scrambling against him, against his chest, pushing his jacket from his shoulders, unable to get enough of him. Touch enough of him.
“Take it off.” I swallow over a rapid breath, drowning in the sight of him. I want to place my teeth against his strong throat and bite. Why is that even a thing I want to do? “Take it all off.”
His low, dirty chuckle is like a lick of heat between my legs.
“As the lady commands.”
I’m barely able to retain thought as he shrugs his jacket the rest of the way from his shoulders, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor. He’s so large, so virile, standing in front of me, the city streetlights casting an arc of illumination behind him.
“Holland,” he growls, pulling me closer, allowing me to breathe him in. Musk and heat and spice and man. Fabric scrapes against my shoulders, my jacket following his.
“Such tiny hands.” Catching my hands in his, he stares down at where we’re palm to palm. Our fingers are suddenly linked, and my stomach is twirling and tumbling as he presses them to the wall near my head. “What should I do with you now?” The look in his eyes could burn whole buildings down.