I swallow. “I don’t know what this was.” I rise to full height, avoiding his eyes at all costs. “But I have to leave now. So… thanks for…for…”
“Saving you?” He’s watching me carefully. “Or for the second part that happened just now, the part that’s got you so turned on you can’t even look at me?”
My defiant eyes fly to his. “I’m not turned on.”
“Red cheeks? Swollen lips? Wild hair?” He smirks. “You look pretty turned on, darling.”
“Well, I’m not,” I snap.
He steps closer.
I step back.
“I’m leaving now.”
“So you said,” he murmurs, still watching me.
“Don’t follow me.”
“I wasn’t planning to.” He takes another step.
I hold out a hand to stop his advance. “And don’t even think about kissing me again.”
He grins. “Seems like you’re the one thinking about it, snookums.”
“Ugh!” I whirl around to the exit door and put my hand on the knob. Before I can turn it, he’s there at my back, pressing into me — a wall of heat and need. Damn if it doesn’t feel good.
“This isn’t over,” he whispers, his lips brushing the bare skin of my shoulder in the hint of a kiss, his hand tracing the sensitive skin of my spine. It takes all my strength not to lean back into his touch.
“You’re right,” I say, wishing my voice didn’t sound so rough. “Something can’t be over if it never even started.”
Twisting hard on the knob, I yank open the door and slip out into the hallway.
This time, he doesn’t follow me… but his voice carries softy at my back and I can’t tune out his final words no matter how hard I try.
“I wouldn’t count on that, darling.”
4
The Three Stooges
My Uber driver shoots me a strange look as I clamor into his backseat and I can’t exactly blame him— kiss-bitten lips, sex hair, and an ensemble featuring a white button down layered over an evening gown doesn’t exactly scream stable. Thankfully, he chooses not to comment as he drives me across town to my loft in the Leather District. I wouldn’t be able to keep up a conversation if he tried. My body’s in the car but my mind is back in that bathroom — remembering the way Parker West’s mouth felt against mine.
I’ve never been kissed like that in my life — kissed until I lost myself, kissed until I ceded control over my every autonomous instinct, kissed until I felt possessed, owned, kept like a bargain I didn’t remember making. His mouth hit mine and suddenly I belonged to him. Worse, I liked it. His lips are the only shackles I’ve ever allowed to hold me; it’s more than a little disquieting to realize I enjoyed the sensation of their weight against my skin.
My driver pulls up outside the towering brick warehouse. The faded white paint that stretches across the side in bold letters is visible even in the dark.
EDISON PIANO FACTORY, EST. 1922
I punch in the building code, shuffle down the hallway, and shove my finger into the small illuminated panel to call the freight elevator. I hear it coming long before it arrives — rattling and groaning as it descends slowly down the shaft. The clanging, ancient brute of a machine is a relic from the original factory, built to haul thousand-pound pianos between floors. It refuses to fall apart no matter how many decades pass. With its iron bars and odd shape, it looks more like a birdcage than a viable mode of transportation. Hell, it almost makes the prospect of walking up six flights of stairs sound appealing.
Almost.
I’ve aged several years by the time it finally arrives. Sliding open the wooden hoistway gate, I wait for the inner metal doors to spring apart, step inside, insert my key into the panel, and breathe a sigh of relief as I feel the box jolt into motion.
I’m home.
Parker West will soon be a distant memory.
And, most importantly, I’m pretty sure I got the intel Luca needed.
A smile drifts across my face as the elevator rattles to a stop on the top floor and I step into my dark loft. Sure, the whole Parker-saving-me thing wasn’t ideal, but that doesn’t matter, now. He doesn’t matter, now. All that matters is the Lancaster financial data, proving their CEO is a lying sack of dog shit.
My grin widens as I reach into my bodice, searching for the flash drive…
…and morphs into a grimace of shock when my fingers find nothing but flesh and fabric. I go completely still, panic overriding my every sense as I realize the USB is missing.
No.
No way in hell did I drop it. It was so tight against my skin, nothing save a full body search could’ve shaken it loose.
Then again, a quiet voice at the back of my mind whispers. You do know someone who recently attempted a full search of your body… Someone with burnished blond hair and broad shoulders, who kissed like a vow and touched without hesitation… Someone who could’ve easily taken that flash drive from your cleavage without you noticing, so distracted by his touch you weren’t even aware it was gone until now…
My hands curl into fists as I realize exactly what happened to my flash drive. Or, should I say, exactly who happened to my flash drive. I hear a husky voice, still fresh in my memory, making me a promise.