The Initiation (Filthy Rich Americans 1)

“You owe me.”

“I do,” he agreed.

He undid the button of one of his cuffs and worked back the sleeve. One careful fold, then another, moving at a painstaking, deliberate pace to roll up his sleeve. And when that one was done, he did the other, watching me the entire time.

Seeing him prepare to touch me was the most delicious kind of foreplay I could imagine. Lust coiled inside me, winding tight as a spring. He rose from the couch and moved toward me, a stalking predator, and I was his prey too enamored to run. When I uncrossed my legs, he licked his lips, and the pull in my center was so acute, it verged on pain.

God, how I wanted him.

When I absolutely shouldn’t.

He’d literally told me he’d never put me first, and here I was, throwing myself at him anyway. Begging for his hands on my body.

He leaned over and gripped each armrest of my chair, trapping me beneath him. He looked down his long nose at me, his eyes gleaming like the Big Bad Wolf. “Do you still taste as good as I remember, Marist?”

“Find out,” I ordered.

There was just a flash of his smile, all sharp teeth, before his lips crashed to mine. It ignited a fire between us that instantly burned so hot I worried I’d vaporize. His hands were in my hair and his tongue filled my mouth, and every cell in me cried out with relief.

“Fuck,” he groaned, catching his breath before going back for more. His knees thudded to the carpet before me, and inside I was dying. Kissing me had literally brought Royce Hale to his knees. It was ridiculous and wonderful.

No one would believe it.

I could barely, and I was witnessing it firsthand.

His mouth moved against my lips, persuasive and commanding. His tongue slicked over mine, and when I moaned, he jerked me closer to the edge of the chair. My legs parted around his hips, and the champagne-colored lace skirt I wore rode high across my thighs.

It’d been a year since we’d kissed, but our bodies remembered. He curled a hand under my knee and pulled me closer still, until there was no space left and we were connected, his chest to my heaving chest.

His palm remained against the bare skin of my leg as he waged war with his mouth. He tasted like sex. Like uncontrolled, dangerous desire. And as his hand inched up my thigh, he ratcheted up the intensity of his brutal kiss.

Everything was moving too fast and not fast enough. My heart raced like a jet engine, but his fingers moved at an irritatingly slow crawl. I ripped my mouth away from his and sucked in a ragged breath, only for him to steal it when his hand curved inward, going exactly where I wanted it to.

“Better?” he asked on a low, husky voice. He wasn’t breathing as hard as I was, but he did struggle. He brushed a thumb over my panties, massaging me through the thin fabric.

“Yes,” I hissed.

Thanks to Alice and her salon of torture, I’d had my first ever Brazilian wax this afternoon. I was still a little warm and tender, but I’d grin and bear it. I was too desperate not to.

“Such patience, waiting for me.” He nipped at my earlobe.

I growled it out. “You better make it worth it.”

A sound of amusement drifted from him, but he made a silent promise with each fiery kiss he dropped in a line down the side of my neck. Lust was thick, choking the air swirling around us.

“Sit back,” he commanded.

I swallowed thickly, and as soon as I was slumped against the chair back, he followed my command. I’d ordered him to touch me, and he delivered. He slid a hand beneath the hem of the silk top I was wearing and coursed his palm over my trembling stomach. As his hand moved up, so did my top, bunching over his forearm and revealing more of my skin.

Royce had one hand on my bra and the other on my underwear, massaging and teasing, but it was his dark, focused gaze that possessed me. I’d sold myself to him, and this was the first moment I felt truly owned.

I didn’t mind the feeling. I liked it, maybe a little.

His lips were turned up in a shadow of a smile. He spent so much of his life under his father’s command—did he revel in having control over someone else? Getting to give the orders rather than having to follow?

I arched into his hands, stretching and writhing and needing his touch to survive. The cup of my bra was pulled down and my pebbled nipple exposed to him. First to his gaze, then his fingers to pinch, and lastly his hot mouth.

“Oh,” I sighed.

It felt good, and even better when he hummed his satisfaction. I’d had fantasies about this on nights when I was tired and weak, and just wanted to get myself off quickly. That was the only time I’d allowed myself to think about Royce over the last year. But those fantasies weren’t nearly as good as this.