Rory smirked and snaked his arms around my waist, bringing his lips to my ear.

“What’s your angle, Red?”

I jolted slightly against him, pulling away from his chest to meet his eyes. They were sharp as a hawk. He didn’t miss a beat, so I damn sure wouldn’t miss mine.

“I want you,” I forced out, my eyes wider than the sultry demand required. Okay, so I wasn’t a born seductress, but damn he made me feel like maybe I could be.

He cocked an eyebrow. “I picked up on that. But we’ve been at Gage’s with drinks flowing enough to need guest rooms for the night, and you never made a move. My question is why now?”

“Is it that hard to guess?” Don’t look further. Don’t make me look deeper.

“Sometimes. You’re a smart woman, and I don’t see any delusions of love flashing behind those green eyes of yours. So again I wonder, what’s your angle?”

I shook my head. “How do you know I’m smart?” Because this now seemed like the stupidest thing I’d ever done. Turning myself into a puck bunny over a fucking list.

No. A groupie would follow him around and beg for sex. I would not do that. This was a business offer. He’d either accept the proposal or not.

“Anyone who is about to head up a world-wide organization has to be more than sharp.”

“First with the drink and now you know about my career?” I tilted my head at him, curious as to what all he noticed from afar.

“Do you think I’m completely oblivious?”

“Of course not.” I smirked and took a deep breath, allowing my breasts to graze against his chest.

He hissed but pulled me closer. “Is it the trophy? Bailey tell you fucking a Shark is the way to go? Because I’m nothing like Gage,” he warned.

The direct question, paired with the way his body tightened against mine, fueled my drive. That and the way his lips moved when he dropped the f-bomb like it was a promise, was hot as hell.

“No.” I slipped my fingers into the hair at the base of his neck like it was the most natural thing in the world to touch him so intimately. “I like to keep my personal life private. I don’t want you for your money, or your status, and I have zero inclination toward becoming your girl.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Well, those are all great reasons for why you don’t want me. What’s the reason you do?”

I tugged at my lower lip with my teeth. “Look at you.”

His gaze drifted along my features like I was a puzzle he was trying to put together.

The music stopped, and we broke apart, our eyes locked in what was the most intense eye-sex of my life.

In fact, I was pretty sure he’d make me come on the dance floor if he kept looking at me that way.

“I’m so glad I found you!” Jeanine said, swooping in with a grin. “You left your key card at the table.” She pressed the cards into my hand. “Penthouse,” she said with a wink at Rory. “Knock him dead. I want details,” she whispered in my ear before dancing off.

My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, my body at war with my very reasonable brain. His tongue slipped out, wetting his incredibly full, wickedly sexy lower lip, and my body won the war. How could it not?

I slipped the extra key-card to the room inside his jacket pocket, not asking, or even waiting for him to answer. The words wouldn’t come out anyway. I made sure to put a little extra swing in my hips as I clicked off the dance floor and out of the banquet room, high-fiving myself once I was clear. I hadn’t fallen or made an ass out of myself. Yet. I stopped in front of the elevator bank, my own access card in hand. My heart raced, the anticipation and adrenaline mixed inside me and forced my brain to go beyond rational. I’d never been so direct in any of my relationships before, but I suppose this wasn’t a relationship situation.

I wasn’t a starry-eyed Cinderella, and my shoes weren’t glass. I wasn’t stupid enough to think this was my happily ever after. No, this was my incredible now. This, if he agreed, would be the memory I kept locked inside my vault for when my boring, acceptable future husband couldn’t get me off anymore. I grinned like a lunatic at my uncharacteristic behavior. I was good at business, and that’s what this was. Dirty-girl business. And I hoped like hell he’d become an investor.

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

Rory

 

 

I flipped the key card over my knuckles as the elevator rose to the penthouse floor.

What the fuck are you doing?

Maybe the real question was: what the fuck was Paige thinking? The floors dinged by as I rose, each one bringing a new thought.

Ding. Paige was a flawless beauty, the kind you didn’t see in magazines—they’d never lower themselves to be judged by their looks because she…

Ding. ...was brilliant. Her brain never slowed down. Hell, she outmaneuvered men in business as if they were driving bumper cars at the Indy 500.

Ding. She could have any guy she crooked her finger at, which hadn’t been any since she’d started coming around Gage’s place to hang with Bailey. Why me?

Ding. There were a thousand reasons it shouldn’t be me.

She wasn’t a one-night stand kind of girl, no matter how she swayed her ass after that little offer she’d laid out downstairs. No, she was the woman you meticulously planned dates for, strove to keep her interest, and then drove onto Relationship Ave with as quickly as possible before taking the Engagement onramp to Matrimony Highway. I, on the other hand, was a total one night guy.

The floors sped by, and I rubbed my thumb against my forefinger, grappling with a decision I should never have been presented with in the first place.

She was champagne, and I was beer.

She was Chanel and Dior, and I was Under Armour.

She was responsible where I was reckless.

Ding. The doors opened directly into the penthouse.

All of these things were still true, but I also knew none of them were going to stop me. That’s what made me the asshole in this whole situation. When given a choice, I inevitably made the wrong one.

But damn, did that woman look so right.

The French doors were open to the balcony, and she stood with one hip jutted out, a champagne flute in the opposite hand, looking at the city beneath us.

She was all graceful lines and fuckable curves, from the delicate slope of her shoulder to the neck I wanted to mark in some outdated, primal need to show the world that for one night, this woman found me worthy of her.