Satisfaction Guaranteed(44)

Sloane follows my lead. “And you have so many charter members already. By the way, count me in. ‘I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You’ is a favorite tune of mine.”

The reference isn’t lost on me. We kissed to that song seven years ago. Kissed to the whole damn number. I hum a few words as we walk.

She squeezes my arm. “If you do that . . .”

“If I do that, what?”

“I’m going to jump you.”

Laughing, I add a few more lines, a little louder, a little deeper this time. She runs her hand down my arm. “It’s your fault I’m aroused.”

I hold up my hands in surrender. “I fully take the blame.”

“Hey!” She stops walking and grabs my arms. “You should record an album.”

I laugh it off. “Please.”

“No, you should. Do it for fun. It’s an adventure. Put something together. And then everyone can swoon the way I do.”

“You want to share me?” I tease.

“That’s the only part of you I want to share. But look at it this way—you could help couples everywhere. Your voice is total sex.”

And as I hum a few more lines to her, she’s like a cat, rubbing against me.

When we reach the club, she tugs me close and whispers, “You were warned.”

We make our way down a wooden staircase, below ground level, and find a velvet couch. Sloane slides in next to me and is all hands on my legs and fingers in my hair for the next hour. It’s distracting and heady as she whispers sweet nothings in my ear. As she tells me she wants me. As she tells me how good I am to her.

I’m buzzed, I’m drunk, I’m wildly aroused.

With Sloane’s busy fingers and constant touches, I barely hear a word Delilah sings.

Nor do I care.

I’m nothing but an electrical line, charged and ready.

I’m not sure who’s seducing who. But from the way she kisses my neck and slides her hand along my pants, I think she’s leading me up the mountain tonight. I have the idea, too, that the more she leads, the harder I’ll fall.

The more I’ll be the one wanting the romance.

The more I’ll be the one singing the love songs about the one who got away.

Singing it and meaning it.

That’s the problem.

My jaw tightens as reality inches back in, undeniable.

I’m falling for her.

Yet again.

By the time the singer finishes “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry,” I desperately need to go. I need to reframe this night, put the focus back on sex and seduction.

If I stay in this club, with these songs and her sweetness, I’ll be a sad, pathetic jerk begging her to stay with me for another week, then another.

That’s not our deal.

I call a Lyft, and the whole ride downtown, I take control, whispering to Sloane all the things I want to do to her when we get inside. I tell her how I want to touch her, taste her, strip her down to nothing. By the time we make it to my apartment, she looks like she’s hovering on the edge.

I intend to send her all the way to the other side.

That’s what I need right now.

To recalibrate us back to pleasure and pleasure only.





36





She’s all fire and heat.

The second we’re inside my place, she pushes me to the door, slamming me against it.

I growl at her roughness, loving it.

She growls back, rubbing up against me, grinding her pelvis to mine.

The first night we were together, I slowed her down. But this time, I let her have her way. There’s no need to tap the brakes tonight, because I understand now what she’s driving toward.

This is how she blots out her overactive brain. She quiets the noise with intensity. She seeks a fevered kind of contact because it leaves room for only that in her head.

Pleasing her isn’t about possessing a magical penis or a special-powered tongue. It’s as simple as listening to the woman’s cues. Judging from the way her hands hurriedly roam up and down my arms, touching, seeking, squeezing, she might need to be in charge for a while. I’m man enough to let her lead when she needs to.

She tugs at my shirt, yanking it from my pants. “You. I want you,” she gasps. “It’s so good with you. Like it’s never been with anyone else.”

Best. Words. Ever.

“Same for me,” I mutter as the heat intensifies, sizzling over my skin.

But soon, with her mind-bending kisses, her greedy touches, my restraint unravels. I thread my hand into her hair and yank it back, tugging hard. Bringing my mouth down on her neck, I suck and I bite. She moans and writhes against me, grabbing at the buttons on my shirt, trying desperately to undo them.

“Just rip it off,” I tell her.

With wide eyes, she stares at me, dirty delight in them. “Really?”

I nod savagely. “You know you want to.”

“I do.” She pulls, tearing the buttons down.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

They clatter to the floor. Sensual glee spreads in her brown irises as she inhales sharply. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” she says.

That’s the operative word. Want.

I tug her hair, travel up her neck, and bite her earlobe. “I think the issue isn’t in your head, sweetheart.”