“You think it’s funny?”
“I think it’s practical.”
“Mercenary.”
“See, you do know me.”
“You should leave.”
>
“I should, for more reasons than you can know. I need something first.”
She looked around as though trying to figure out what the object in that sentence was. “It’s all yours. Take whatever you want.”
He felt the kick in that invitation in the soles of his feet, in the tension in his shoulders and the coil in his guts. They were standing close, but not close enough for him to touch her without his sudden movement giving her a reason to shift away. If he touched her the way he wanted to, all pretence of polite civility would be yesterday’s exchange rate, and he couldn’t touch her unless she wanted it too without it making him a complete brute.
Fuck that.
He jerked her to him and she braced a hand on his chest to hold him away. He wanted to eat the wet shimmer of pink off her lips. He kept his grip on her arm light. She didn’t push, she didn’t struggle, but her breath was coming in shallow and fast.
Ah fuck. He let go with a grunt and stepped back. It wasn’t going to stop at one kiss. Better to get out now. He was across the room, frustration an ache in his chest before she spoke.
“Don’t go.”
He bit down on his back teeth, ground the words out. “Don’t ask me to stay out of misplaced guilt. You can keep the suite. It’s a comp from the hotel. I thought you’d enjoy it. It was going to go empty.”
“Is that the truth?”
“It’s the truth.”
“So stay.”
He took a couple of steps back towards her. Her expression gave nothing away. She’d be a shit hot poker player. “Why am I staying?”
“Because I don’t care what your name is, and I want you to.”
God, he might expire in those eyes, at the touch of her warm soft skin. “I’m not just staying for dinner.”
She wasn’t smiling, but she reached up and undid a button at the neck of the dress. “I don’t intend wearing this all night.”
He saw cleavage, the edge of a plain black bra. He saw the night spread out as a feast of pleasure. “Is that a dare?”
Now she laughed. “No, it’s a fact.”
“I need to know another fact.”
“You don’t get my name unless I get yours.”
“No names. No recrimination. No regrets.”
“Spoken like a gun runner.”
He huffed a laugh. “I’m not a pirate. I need to know where you draw the line. What’s too much?”
“Are you clean?”
“Right.” He grinned. There was no bullshit to this girl. “Yes. I have to be to use the services of a very fine pleasure house.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and toggled the screen, used the Wi-Fi in the room to print the report. It identified him by number for privacy reasons, but it’d have to do.