“I do want,” she said, feeling a little foolish. “It’s just, last time we went to your place, it didn’t end well, and I don’t want all that bad energy to crash my horny, you know?”
“Crash your horny, huh? You’re something else, Baldwin.” He kissed the side of her head. “Okay.”
Seth reached for the small button that controlled the partition separating the driver section, and rolled it down just enough so that Dex’s busy salt-and-pepper eyebrows were visible in the rearview mirror.
Brooke fought the urge to hide her face in Seth’s shoulder. Groping in the back of a car, for God’s sake.
“We’ll be going to Brooke’s place,” Seth said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Eighty-Second and Second.”
“Yes, sir,” Dex said with a nod.
Brooke’s head whipped around to stare at Seth’s profile as he rolled the divider back up. “You know where I live?”
“Obviously.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve never told you.”
“Nope.”
She pinched his arm. “Don’t be creepy. How do you know that?”
He caught her fingers before she could pinch him again, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles. “Maya told me.”
“But how would Maya know?”
Brooke thought back, remembered that Maya had given Brooke a crash course in the various Manhattan neighborhoods recently. They’d discussed Brooke’s current neighborhood of Yorkville. But had she mentioned her specific address?
Possibly. Probably.
Maybe it wasn’t so weird that he knew. It was just—
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his lips still warm against her fingers as his mouth drifted down toward her wrist, his tongue flicking against the delicate pulse there.
“Nothing,” she said. “Not really. It’s just a little unnerving that you can be so . . .”
“Controlling,” he said.
“I don’t know that that’s the right word,” she said.
But it wasn’t the wrong word, either.
“I think you might find people appreciate you asking them directly if there’s something you want to know rather than just deciding it’s your right to know.”
He met her gaze steadily. “This isn’t really about your address, is it? It’s that I’m still against the Maya/Neil thing.”
“You have a right to your opinions and your hunches; I just think you should talk to your sister about it.”
He turned his head slightly toward the window, his face looking bleak and hollow. “I’ll consider it.”
“Do. And to bring this back to us, I don’t want to be one of your projects that needs fixing.”
His head snapped back to look at her. “Why the hell would you need fixing?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Because of the thing with Clay.”
Seth touched a knuckle softly to her cheek. “Thought you were over that.”
“I am,” she said automatically. “It’s just important to me that you don’t see me as that woman. The one that got ditched at the altar.”
“All right,” he said slowly. “Is it all right that I think of you as a woman though? Maybe my woman. For tonight.”
She leaned forward slightly and brushed his lips with hers. “Yeah.”
The car slowed to a stop, and Dex came around to open the door for them. Brooke accepted the chauffeur’s hand, forcing herself to smile as though she wasn’t horribly embarrassed, hoping that the dark night sky would hide her blush.
Seth muttered something to Dex along the lines of don’t wait up, and a moment later the car pulled away, leaving them in the quiet of her neighborhood.
His hand rested on her back as he glanced up at the mid-rise where she lived on the fourth floor. “It’s lovely.”
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 fuck 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.