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.
Seth’s groan mingled with her own as he caressed her sensitive skin with light, teasing strokes.
She arched against his hand, trying to get more contact, and instead of torturing her further, a finger slid into her with one slick satisfying thrust.
“Oh God,” she said, her head falling against his shoulder. “Oh God, that feels good.”
He slipped another finger inside of her and began pumping them into her steadily, and without even thinking about it, she began to ride his hand, shamelessly, wantonly. Seth kissed the sensitive skin of her neck as he rubbed his thumb roughly against her clit, and she pivoted her hips onto his hand in desperate, aching need.
She wanted the dirty, unabashed moment to last forever, but he found her rhythm almost immediately, and suddenly her orgasm was tearing out of her in a harsh cry that seemed to echo off the walls.
Brooke’s body immediately went into recovery mode, her knees buckling.
Seth slid his free arm around her, his mouth moving to her ear. “I’ve got you.”
Brooke slumped against him, letting him absorb her, giving in, just for a moment, to the boneless pleasure of losing one’s mind.
Seth adjusted his hand slightly, pulling out of her panties, but resting there against the vee of her thighs. She had the fleeting thought that she should be embarrassed, but instead she felt satiated.
Wanted.