“That would have been a damn shame.”
Her tongue slides out, wetting the seam of her lips and my cock grows, stretching the cotton of my briefs. “I don’t know why I said that. I didn’t mean it to sound as if my never dancing again would have been the real tragedy.”
“I promise you, angel, it would have.” I mean every word of that, too. My father passed on his legacy to me, his portrait hangs in the lobby, and the people who pass it every day don’t give a shit about his investment strategies. But if they had an ounce of blood running through their veins, they would stop and watch this girl dance in awe.
I go toward her, because she’s fucking magnetic and I w
ant to know her scent. Everything about my behavior makes me unrecognizable to myself. People come to me. Furthermore, I’ve never given a thought to what someone else smells like. Not in my entire damn life. “Did you come from the party?”
She nods and a lock of long, blonde hair trails over her shoulder, disappearing into the neckline of her dress, where a simple gold locket lays just above her cleavage. We both watch it happen, but she has no idea the effect the mere existence of her breasts are having on my cock. “Yes, I’m here with my dad.” The girl moves past me to rest her arms on the very ledge where I’d been standing. “He works on the forty-third floor.”
It takes me no time at all to remember what takes place on forty-three. I know every nook and cranny of my business—my teeth were mercilessly cut within its walls—and everything that makes it tick. This girl’s father is a member of my accounting department—probably in his mid-forties, based on his daughter’s age—and likely earns a decent salary, if not an exorbitant one.
Filing that information away, I move up behind the girl and following impulse, lean in and take a deep inhale near the crown of her head. When the unmistakable scent of bubble gum hits me, I actually laugh out loud. The only way she could be more innocent is if she had a mouth full of braces, for chrissake.
That’s definitely not the case, though, I see, as she turns to me, a little startled. No, she’s nothing but pure perfection, with translucent skin and a full, almost puffy, mouth. Big, sky-blue eyes. She must drive boys out of their damn minds. Hell, she’s got me wrapped around her little finger and I’ve only spent a handful of minutes in her company.
“Were you really going to jump, sir? I need to know.” She faces me and leans back against the wall, tilting her chin up. Defiant and sweet, all at once. “I wouldn’t judge or anything, but I couldn’t spend another minute with you, either. It’s nothing personal, but if we have a conversation, it’ll hurt more when you’re gone.”
“I wasn’t going to jump.” I say it fast, because there’s a serious rebellion in my stomach at the idea of her leaving. “Although, a man ought to be able to jump off his own building without being interrupted. Technically you’re trespassing.”
Worrying her lip between two rows of white teeth, she gives me a once over, looking completely unimpressed that I own jack shit. “Are you going to take me prisoner?”
Unbelievable. She’s flirting with me. When was the last time I allowed a woman to flirt with me, instead of treating any physical situation like a business transaction? Maybe never. I have a feeling I would have loathed such behavior coming from anyone but this girl. Why? “I could call the police,” I say, propping my hand on the ledge behind her, getting another whiff of bubble gum. “A minor wouldn’t be judged too harshly.”
Her brave smile wavers. “I thought I looked older in this dress.” She runs a hand down the sparkly discount garment that isn’t worthy of her body. “They served me a glass of wine at the open bar inside.”
“Then they’re fired.”
She flinches at my hard tone, straightening a little against the wall. There we go. She has finally realized I’m not one of her schoolyard admirers. “I’m seventeen,” she whispers. “But that wasn’t my first glass of wine.”
Seventeen. Fuck. I thought I was prepared for the confirmation that I’m in all-out lust with a high school student, but I was wrong. Because I thought knowing her age might force me—through my conscience—to pat her on the head and walk away. Only, our faces are still mere inches apart and my dick is still hard. Hard. And I’m counting the ways I’d like to introduce myself to her angelic mouth.
“Not your first glass of wine,” I say, echoing her words. “How about a different kind of first?” Unable to stop myself, I lift a hand, settling it on her hip. Not exactly her hip, though. More like the area where her hip turns into her high, taut bottom. And her glossy, doll lips pop open, like she’s never been touched by someone who knows what they’re doing.
“I’ve…I’ve had my first kiss already,” she says, staring at my throat, then up at my eyes, then back to my throat.
There’s the jealousy again, bubbling up like boiled poison. “With a man or a boy?”
“Boy.”
I feel like a predator, here. I really fucking do. So if you’re judging me, we’re on the same page. But if you were in my position, standing in front of the only thing to make your blood move in what felt like a century—have I been a vampire all this time?—you would be throwing rules out with the fucking bath water, too. I’ve gone too long without someone saying no to me or telling me I can’t do or have something. I recognize that as part of the problem, even as I’m moving closer, getting ready to ruin her for the little boys she’s allowed into her orbit. I’m hungry and lonely and she’s got life radiating behind those eyes; from her ripe, too-young body and I want it for myself.
I will have her for myself.
When my lips touch down, she whimpers, like I’ve scared her, and that’s the last thing I want. I rule my company with fear and look where it’s gotten me. Alone. Disconnected. Resented. No, I want her to feel the same need I’m experiencing. I need her to fucking require me, and have that feeling not scare her, but make her feel secure, instead. I have no idea how to accomplish that, nor do I understand why this girl—this girl—is making me feel like this.
But I have no time to question it, because when I meet her gaze, I swear she heard everything I just told you. The blue of her eyes loses its fear, even if the nerves remain. And then she presses her tight curves against my body—testing, testing—and her breath teases my lips, and I’m fucked. Forever.
I go in with a groan that trails off into stunned nothing, because there’s no description of her taste. Not in the entire English language. To say that her mouth tasted like wine and bubble gum would never be sufficient, because there was an additional succulence there that I would do a disservice to by attempting to name. I actually have to open my eyes to make sure she’s not a wet dream, that I’m not thrusting against my mattress downtown, starved for something that isn’t real.
She’s real, though, and her tongue is like silk soaked in melted sugar, letting mine tangle with it, just as my hands are doing in the blonde strands of her hair. They drop down, desperate for her ass, and I heft her up against me, growling into her mouth so she knows I want her legs around my waist.
“Legs up, angel. Lock your ankles. Good. Good girl.” I let her feel my cock, the plumping, growing flesh, and she sucks in a breath, her eyelids fluttering. “How long do we have before your daddy comes looking?”
“I-I don’t know.” Her swallow is audible. “Not long. I said I was going to the bathroom.”
My hands slide up her thighs—they are so goddamn smooth, I almost come—and encounter her backside, which is bare. Totally bare. Not a thong or cotton panties to speak of. “We’ll be dealing with this lack of undergarment later, angel.” I squeeze her flesh and yank her close, grinding her on my cock. “Said you were going to the bathroom, but you came out here, instead. Why?”
Her head tips forward on a heaved breath. “I followed you, okay? I-I…you looked so miserable and alone watching everyone from the darkness…and you never came back to the party. So I followed, because I was worried. Which is crazy, because I don’t even know you.” After a small hesitation, her hands slide through my hair, screwing it up the way no one else would dare, little sobs breaking past her lips. All the while, I’m dying a slow death. She followed me. She saw me and gave a shit. “I didn’t know I would find you on the l-ledge, so I thought maybe if I danced, you would have a reason to laugh—”
My mouth throws a roadblock down in front of wherever she was going because I can’t take it. I can’t. I’m going to rip my skin off because she’s saying those words when I haven’t secured her as mine yet. I’m a businessman and logistics are discussed before promises are made or everything can get blown to hell. So I murder her mouth with mine and she molds herself to me like warm clay, rub
bing and rocking against me in all the right places.
“I’ve never kissed with my feet dangling in the air,” she murmurs haltingly, when we break for air.
I press our heads together, struggling to regain some control. “Get used to doing things you’ve never done before.”
She nods slowly, her breath catching when my finger slides just inside the valley of her bare backside.
“What is your name?”
“Alaveda Rose. Veda for short.” I pronounce the word in my head over and over. Vay-da. I have a sudden wish to see her name on the building, instead of mine. “What’s yours?” She asks, her fingers playing with the ends of my hair.
“You don’t know the name of your father’s boss?”
Veda sighs, as if already exasperated by my arrogance, and I fall a little deeper into the hole she has dug for me. “I know the name of his boss. And that boss’s boss.” Her ankles cinch tighter at my back and I groan, even though she clearly isn’t trying to be seductive, but simply hanging on. “I know he works for Beckett Limited, but I still don’t know your name.”
“Ramsey.” It seems so grandiose compared to the lightness of Veda. “Ramsey Beckett.”
She tilts her head to the side and looks right into my soul. “Why are you so sad, Ramsey Beckett of Beckett Limited?”
I open my mouth with no idea of what I’m going to say. Something I’ve never done in my life. I always have a strategy. Plan, execute, cut them off at the knees. Those lessons were ingrained in me. Looking at Veda, I’m beginning to wonder what kind of life exists outside of those harsh lessons…and if maybe it’s not too late for me to find out. But before I can spill whatever unknowns are lurking in my head, a voice joins us on the roof.
“V?”
Everything inside me rebels against the interruption, especially because she gasps, her legs unhooking and dropping, her hands pushing at my chest. It’s a battle not to yank her back close, tip up her chin and remind her we aren’t finished. The fact that it’s a man—her father or not—that has come looking for her is like a hot knife in my gut. I don’t have time to examine if that reaction is irrational, although, it probably isn’t. Nothing about me has been sane since she danced out onto the roof.