To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(65)

She snorted. “It’s not.”

“It is,” he insisted. “It’s homey.”

“I suppose,” she said, trying to see the building through his eyes. Mostly she’d just been so darn glad to be out of California when she’d arrived that she hadn’t paid much attention to the building that would be home.

She liked it well enough. The doormen were nice. The building was clean. Sure, the elevator was a little slow, and her door squeaked, and maybe the neighborhood was just a touch more secluded than she’d like. But she was determined to like it, therefore she did like it.

Seth linked his fingers in hers. “Take me home, Baldwin.”

She laughed. “You know, for such a rich, savvy guy, you can be a total dork.”

“I like to think it reveals my vulnerable side.”

She glanced up at him suspiciously. “Do you have a vulnerable side?”

“I do. Her name is Brooke.”

Her lips parted slightly as happiness washed over her. “You know I’m already going to sleep with you, right? You don’t have to woo me with romance.”

“No? In that case . . .” He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Take me upstairs so I can f*ck you. Hard.”

Brooke’s thighs clenched in want, but she didn’t have to be told twice.

On autopilot she made it through the front door, said hello to Christian, the nighttime doorman, and managed to get Seth into the elevator before dragging him against her.

He shoved her against the wall of the elevator, gripping her chin with one hand as the other slid down her hip, kneading the soft flesh as he nipped at her mouth.

Seth let out a low growl when the elevator jerked to a stop a second later. “Seriously?”

Brooke giggled, the sound happy and girlish. “This isn’t a Tyler high-rise. There are only six floors, and I’m the fourth.”

“Just as well,” he said, against her neck. “Now I won’t have to get you naked in the elevator.”

His hand shot out, opening the elevator door before it could shut again, and he tugged her forward and out into the hallway with such sexy authority, that for a moment Brooke thought she might want to be stripped down and seduced in the elevator, spectators be damned.

“Which way?”

Brooke’s apartment was the first door on the right, and though she expected him to pull her close the second they stepped inside, he surprised her by stopping to look around first, keeping a tight grip on her hand.

Not that there was much to see. Her condo in LA had been nearly three times the size of her apartment here, and the furniture she’d had shipped from California looked horribly out of place, the light wood and white linens of her West Coast lifestyle clashing with the old walls and dark flooring of her New York place.

“It’s nice,” he said.

Brooke shrugged, seeing it through his eyes and realizing how horribly temporary it looked. She wanted to settle in. She’d tried. But everything looked sort of mismatched, and not in the quirky, eclectic way. It was more the disorganized mess of someone with an identity crisis.

“You okay?” he asked.

She glanced up, surprised to find him looking at her instead of the apartment. The question was so simple, so no-bullshit that she felt herself nearly crumbling in the face of his basic, direct question.

She didn’t even know that she wanted to crumble.

But being here in a home that wasn’t yet fully home, with a man who liked her, she felt a strange sense of pain and happiness at the same time, and she felt . . .

Confused.

Something that felt suspiciously like tears pricked at the corner of her eyes and she frowned. Oh no. Not now. She hadn’t cried once. Not in the days after Clay went to jail, not when every single client had left.

It made no sense that this would be the moment where she felt the most fragile.

She blinked rapidly and did the only thing she could think of to ward off whatever unfounded breakdown was on the horizon.

She threw herself at Seth.

He grunted in surprise but caught her easily, his arms going around her as she grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers.

She raked her teeth against his lip just a bit harder than was nice, and he pulled back slightly, his eyes puzzled. Searching.

Brooke shook her head. “Please.”

For a second, she thought he wouldn’t understand what she was saying. Wouldn’t understand that she was begging him to help her forget.

But then he pulled her to him, kissing her roughly as his palms molded possessively over her back, and she smiled.

He got it. He definitely got it.

Seth’s hands weren’t gentle as he tore at her clothes, and hers were greedy right back, shoving his coat to the floor and tugging at his shirt so hard a button flew off.

He growled against her neck. “You’ll pay for that.”

“Yeah?” she said a little breathless. “Charge it to the Belles.”

“Not the type of payment I had in mind.”

And then his hands were undoing the buttons of her pants, his hand sliding inward until he rubbed against the front of her panties.

Seth drew in a hiss of air. “You’re so wet.”

“Seems to be a constant state with you,” she said, her voice breathless.

His hand slipped down further, one finger easing under the elastic and stroking against her damp flesh.