When she reached the second level, she shifted slightly to look over her shoulder, and he grinned at her.
Hot and certain. Fallen angels and a thousand sins in that searing blue gaze, and she felt it like a blow. Like a lick of fire, trailing from her shoes up the length of her spine, burning her alive where she stood.
“Keep going,” he said in that same low, growly way, that made her body clench and then flood with more of that exquisite heat.
He was a few steps below, one hand on the rail and one hand braced against the stair above his head, and she had the dizzying notion that he was doing that deliberately—to keep his hands off her.
For now.
As if he wasn’t sure he could control himself if he didn’t.
Zoe turned away from him and swallowed hard against her pounding pulse, her growing inability to breathe. Her limbs felt heavy, weighed down with that same fire, and she wanted nothing more than to simply let herself burn.
Instead, she kept moving. She kicked off one ankle boot, then the next, smirking at the greedy sound he made when she did.
“Everyone likes a Cinderella fantasy,” she murmured. “Even the most hated man in New York, it seems.”
“Does that make me—?”
“Prince Charming? Hardly.”
“I’m remarkably charming. Nine out of ten tabloids agree.”
“I’ve seen absolutely no evidence to support that.”
“Would you like me to prove to you how charming I am?” His voice was smooth and closer than it should have been, his breath fanning against her ear, the exposed skin at her neck, and she had to fight to keep from shivering. From melting. From surrendering then and there. “All you have to do is reach behind you, and I’ll charm you all you like.”
Zoe laughed, amazed it came out so throaty, so full. Sex and desire, right there in the sound, as naked as if she was helpless beneath him, spread open to his touch. As powerful as if she knew what she was doing with this, with him, with this pointed flirtation that could end only one way.
It was almost as if she was doing this simply because she wanted to do it. As if she really did want him this much.
The novelty of that crazy notion made her sway on her feet and, deeply off-balance, she went with it, holding on to the rail for support as she turned to look down at him again, now only a single step behind her. Big and hard and blocking her retreat.
Weakness was bad, she told herself, no matter what kind. It shouldn’t feel so good, so deliciously feminine, as if this kind of breathlessness was a good thing. Hot. Encompassing. As if she might never breathe fully again, thank God.
“There are better uses for you than shoe retrieval, I think.” She told herself she was trying to sound like that, sexy and alluring. That it wasn’t simply how she sounded when he was this close to her, making all her senses go haywire.
He smiled, and it was edged with a dark intent she felt against her skin, sensual and stark, then deep inside, like a harder, deeper ache. The air around them—between them—felt thick. Sultry. Humid with this need, this pulsing desire, that made her feel real. Real. Flesh and blood, filled with yearning and capable of longing, like anyone else. That was what he did to her.
That might be the death of her.
Then again, that traitorous part of her whispered, dying might be a small price to pay. Hunter might be worth it.
It didn’t matter what she felt, she reminded herself fiercely then, astonished at herself. It mattered what he felt, and she had to be prepared to manipulate that—and to handle it when he forgot her the moment he turned over and went to sleep. To use that.
This was all part of the plan.
“Unzip me,” she ordered him then, presenting him with the hidden zipper at her side by lifting one arm up over her head, very slowly, with a deliberately sinuous grace designed to make him as wild as she felt.
She thought he froze for a second, but she must have imagined it, because when he reached for her, his hands were as steady as all those dark promises in his deep blue gaze. The feel of his hands against her was a torture, a gift. She forced herself not to react when his fingers brushed gently over the skin he exposed as he tugged her zipper down to her hip, though deep inside, she cracked and shattered.
Soon there’d be nothing left of her but rubble.
But she could hide that, she knew. She could hide anything.
“Thank you,” she said with a deep calm she didn’t feel at all. “Remember when you promised to be my willing slave? Now’s your chance to prove it.”
That smile of his went wolfish and her breath deserted her in a rush.