The Kingpin's Weakness

He raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

Why indeed? Why does everything happening in my brain seem to fire right out of my mouth around this man? I’m not a smooth person by any means, but I’m usually not so goofy. Am I? “It’s a very intimate name. Isn’t it?”

A muscle ticks in his cheek. “Why do you think I brought you up here, cutie?”

Heat travels up my limbs like creeping fingers, warmth slowly curling in my belly. He wants me. My father is a gambler and bets on a lot of fights. Gets in a lot of trouble, too. On the way up here, I kind of convinced myself Easton wanted to speak about that. But no. His interest in me is sexual. And I suddenly feel very small and vulnerable sitting on that couch, the most notorious criminal in modern history towering over me. Vulnerable and…tingly.

His green eyes meander over my breasts and I’m shocked when my nipples plump up, as if wanting to show off. Rude little things. Do I hear him groan?

“Is this what you do?” I sound breathless. I am breathless. “You select a woman from the crowd and bring her up here for sex?”

He lifts a hand and cradles my jaw gently, running his thumb along my cheekbone. And I wish I hadn’t looked up, because his eyes smolder down at me. Making promises I don’t understand. “No, as it happens, this is not something I do. Ever.”

Okay. That makes this even more scary, so I pretend he never said it. Easy peasy. “Because I have to tell you, I don’t think that sounds very, um…satisfying.”

His laugh is pained. “You don’t think I’d be satisfied with you underneath me?”

Lord. My face is on fire. Other parts of me are suspiciously hot, too, now that the image of Easton Brawn on top of me, unclothed, is floating around in my head. “Don’t you want to get to know a woman before you j-just…” I flail my hands. “Otherwise, it would probably be very impersonal and, um…”

His thumb has stopped moving. “You’re a virgin.”

“Yes. Very much so.” I try to appear as rigid as possible. “You would hate it.”

“I sincerely doubt that.” Easton seems contemplative for a moment. Torn. Then the fingers on my cheek trail down to the strap of my dress. One digit tucks beneath the thin strip of material and drags it over my shoulder slowly. Down, down, until my nipple is just about to be exposed. “I’m a very bad man, cutie. So why am I having such a hard time taking what I want here?” His fingers trail across to the opposite strap and pull it down until the dress slithers down to my waist, my breasts fully exposed, my nipples in tight points. “I could make you want it,” he rasps, his chest expanding. “You’re already halfway there.”

Wow. This is what turned on means.

I can feel his need for me. It’s calling out to something untapped in my own body. A need to please. To seek relief with the help of a man. To be trapped under his weight. To be taken in this unrestrained way. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be anything scientific about sex, but…there is. There is chemistry and hormones and methods to the madness. A culmination of energy and movement. All of it calls to me now when it never has before.

But he’s a stranger. This isn’t how I imagined my virginity being taken.

I’m not the type to rush into important decisions. I can’t let this unexpected attraction to Easton Brawn force me into something I could regret later.

“But I want my first time to be romantic,” I whisper, resisting the urge to cover myself.

That draws him up short, though it’s just a flicker of interest in his eye. The rest of his face remains impassible. Hard to read. “What does romantic mean to you?” he asks, cupping my bare breast in his hand, teasing the achy nipple slowly with revolutions of his thumb.

“Um,” I breathe, wetting my lips. And…those aren’t the only wet lips in the room. His touch is sending a wealth of confusing and exciting sensations through me, starting pulses in places that shouldn’t have pulses. “Soft lights and flowers and—”

“Those are just things.” He kneels in front of me, shrugs off his jacket and leans in to kiss the area between my breasts. His breath, his tongue, the side to side brush of his lips, the way his hands massage my sensitive mounds with such possession, is short-circuiting my brain. And then his hands slide up my outer thighs, gripping my hips beneath the dress and I have to trap a moan. “Lights and flowers have no importance.”

“No.” I struggle through the sensual haze he’s wrapped me in. “No, but I also want to know the person.”