Rule's Seduction (The House of Rule 4)

Yeah. He wanted to make her feel like that. He wanted to make that flow of warmth slide through her system. She was so damn confident—she drank her liquor like she appreciated the taste, almost like a man would. He cut off a rough laugh when he realized abruptly that that was where the comparison to a man stopped. Erin Rule might appreciate her liquor, but she drank it like a girl . . . through a straw.

Even now, he realized that she was perfectly aware that he still watched her as she slid the straw from her drink and dangled it between her fingers before putting it between her lips in a show of exaggerated taunting unlike any he’d ever come up against. Oh, fuck yeah, she knew he was watching her. Was he creaming her panties the way she was hardening his cock?

The question made his lips quirk and brought his feet to the floor, even though his brain was telling him it was too soon to make the move. Ignoring the banging in his head that was reminding him that he had a role to play, a script to follow, he turned and strode the seven steps that brought him to her table, where he stood across from her, looking down into her beautiful, bold features. Features that made him want to unilaterally forget his itinerary for revenge and focus solely on the blueness she was producing in his balls. He’d take both—revenge and relief.

She lifted her face and shot him a perturbed look before arching that single, cocky eyebrow once again, focusing on him and dismissing him with a roll of her eyes. Dark pink lips opened as she released the straw slowly from between even, perfectly white teeth and then she drawled in a low, husky cadence that had his cock screaming for attention, “Go. Away.”

Yeah, he either needed to blister her ass or sink inside her wet heat. Soon. Instead, he lifted his brow before throwing out his own challenge. “Not happening, pretty. Your bill’s been settled.” Without wasting another second, he crossed the last few inches that brought him within her personal space and stood next to her chair. “Let’s get out of here. You know you want to.”

At his admittedly over-the-top challenge, a trickle of disbelieving laughter left her throat as she shook her head, making her hair flow around her shoulders like a sheet of dark silk, tantalizing him almost beyond control. “I don’t think so.”

“I paid your bill,” he reiterated, loving the challenge she represented.

She continued to look at him dismissively, a look that was making it physically difficult for him to keep his hands to himself.

He crossed his arms over his chest, already enjoying the game more than he was comfortable with, under the circumstances. “You don’t think I paid your bill?”

With eyes that sparkled, she looked him up and down before slowly enunciating, “I imagine you did. That doesn’t mean I’m leaving with you.”

He’d known she wouldn’t walk out of the restaurant with him readily, but he’d felt the need to shock her anyway. But by all evidence, she didn’t shock so easily—and damn if that didn’t please him. Not waiting for permission, he pulled out the chair next to hers and lowered his body into it, motioning for the waiter as he asked her, “You meeting someone?”

Her long hair swung out in another wave of dark silk as she looked to the entrance and then back again. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Somebody had the sheer stupidity to stand you up?”

Her eyes came back to his, snapping a heated fire. “Now why would you think I’ve been stood up?” she asked in an exaggerated Midwest drawl that inflamed his erection.

He shrugged a shoulder and reached out, snagged her straw and stuck it between his teeth. He made the move overtly, grasping the same end with his teeth that had just been between her lips. Her eyes flared at his action, sending a rush of gratification through him. “Maker’s?” he asked, rolling the straw between his lips with his tongue, holding her eyes with his.

She glanced at the straw for a few seconds, almost as if she was suddenly dazed, and a vicious hit of satisfaction heated his blood as he looked down the feminine curves of her body. She was going to be tight—he knew it already and could hardly fucking wait. Slowly, her gaze left the straw he still held between his teeth as her eyes flashed wickedly. “Yeah, Maker’s—you can’t possibly know your bourbon that well,” she challenged. “You either watched him make my drink,” she tipped her head to the bartender, “or you asked him.”

Although her taste in bourbon was information he’d been privy to before he’d arrived in Las Vegas, he inclined his head and said, “I watched him. And it tastes good.” He focused on her lips before spearing her eyes once again. “Better than I remember.”