For 100 Nights (100 2)

Chapter 1

Sunrise glistens on the meandering curves of the East River, the golden light of the August morning gilding the elegant hotels, mansions, and other prime real estate that surrounds verdant Central Park ninety-three stories below me. Lifting my head from my pillow, I sweep my bed-tossed tangle of blond hair away from my eyes, awed and breathless as I watch daybreak gently play over the city from my privileged vantage point far above it all.

I’ve been waking up to this view—in this bed on top of the world—for the past two weeks, yet I swear each morning is more spectacular than the last.

So are the nights.

As tempting as it may be to slip out from the silky sheets and savor the splendor of New York City’s waking skyline, my body is languid and flushed, my limbs too weak to move. All of my senses are still thrumming from an incredible predawn orgasm that’s only beginning to ebb.

I sigh in pleasure, and the firm, muscled arm that’s wrapped around me from behind flexes to pull me closer. Warm lips and a beard-roughened face nuzzles my nape with a kiss that sends wet heat licking through me, straight to my core.

The view from the penthouse of the tallest building in Manhattan is a jaw-dropper to be sure, but it’s the man holding my naked body against his who never fails to leave me amazed and breathless.

Dominic Baine.

He’s still inside me, his cock still erect even after the climax that had him shouting my name like a curse only moments ago. His hips move against my ass and I arch into his lazy thrust on a moan I don’t even attempt to bite back.

“So greedy, Ms. Ross. Such a sweet, demanding pussy you have.” He withdraws slowly as he speaks, each retreating inch a torment, a threat of loss that makes my walls clench around him in protest. I feel the vibration of his amused chuckle against my spine, his mouth teasing the sensitive skin behind my ear. “I’ve made you come twice since you woke up and you’re ready for me to fuck you all over again.”

Not a question. No pretense of propriety, despite the urbane polish of his deep voice or the fact that he’s one of the most respected, successful—wealthiest—men in the country.

We’re long past all of that now.

“Tell me, Avery,” he demands quietly, yet firmly, against the shell of my ear.

“I want you to fuck me, Nick. Right now. Again. I don’t ever want you to stop fucking me.”

“Good girl.” He rewards me with a tweak of my nipple as he pushes inside me all the way to the hilt.

I suck in my breath at the enormity of him, of how primal our need for each other is. It’s burned white-hot for nearly four months now, since the moment we first met—a chance encounter in this very building, then another, more provocative exchange at Dominion, the art gallery Nick owns on Fifth Avenue.

The same gallery where several of my paintings had hung unsold for more than a year before they were culled at Nick’s direction to make way for more promising artists.

I hadn’t realized Nick was Dominion’s owner that first night I ended up in his bed. As angered as I’d been to learn who he was a few days later, it hadn’t kept me from wanting him, or from falling headlong into the kind of carnal, consuming—infinitely intense—relationship I’d never had with any man before him.

Nothing had.

But then, to be fair, there were things Nick hadn’t known about me either. I’d been playing what I thought was a harmless game—pretending I was someone I wasn’t, letting him think I was someone better, someone without my ugly past and the onerous baggage that came with it.

I’d been acting like I belonged in Nick’s world when in reality I was a failed artist and struggling bartender living a temporary fairy tale existence as a house-sitter in his building.

For the first hundred days we were together, I let Nick believe all of my lies.

Even the worst ones.

When everything finally crashed down around me, I thought for sure he would be gone. Instead, he came after me. He found me. He forgave me.

And then he named his price for letting me back in.

One hundred nights.

For each day I deceived him, he demanded a night in return. He wanted all of me. In his bed. On his terms. At his total mercy.

I can’t imagine a more exquisite punishment.

He drives into me again, another long, hard thrust that wrings a broken cry from my throat. My body is spent, my sex swollen and sore from the fury of Nick’s passion last night and again this morning. But I crave this ache. I crave this man with a depth of need that probably should terrify me. Instead it only makes me hunger for more.