Never Say Forever

“So you didn’t read the rules and regulations. The expectations.” His deep baritone vibrates under my hand. “Maybe you stopped at the sales pitch when you were sold a sexually liberated paradise?” The backs of his fingers trail down my face, his words low and seductive. “Exclusive and hedonistic. A utopia for fucking.”

“What about you?” My words sound even, despite how I feel, despite how I’m back to staring at his sternum. “Maybe I should ask what parts you paid particular attention to.”

“I wrote the rules, beautiful. The reason you’re wearing a white ribbon is because of me.”

“I.” Clap my mouth closed, then try again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Because he didn’t choose it for me, Beth did. Surely, he doesn’t mean he and Beth contrived to get me here. As my sluggish brain struggles to process all this, his fingers stroke the sensitive dip behind my ear. It doesn’t help my cognitive skills, and I find myself biting back a moan as his lips follow suit. A press of his lips, the touch of his tongue, and I’m melting against him, my fingers twisted in his lapels.

“They said you didn’t date.” His sultry whisper winds its way through me as his hands clasp my hips. “Maybe they don’t know you prefer to watch than participate.”

Something hot bursts inside my chest at his accusation, thick shame and need trickling down to my belly as my mind works over his words. The significance of a white ribbon; it all now makes sickening sense. People don’t pay to come to a night like this to watch; this isn’t a spectator sport.

Unless that’s your thing.

Unless that’s your kink.

I can’t even deny it because he saw me there, watched me as I watched. As I wondered what it would feel like to be her.

I blow out a tremulous breath. Mortified doesn’t quite cover how I feel, but it’s there, swimming in the morass as my skin burns under the weight of his fingertips and nuzzling lips. I’m pretty certain I no longer have cheekbones; embarrassment having scorched them clean away. There are other parts of me burning too, and not in an entirely unpleasant way.

I give a tiny shake of my head because, yes, I watched. How could I not? She looked so free. So in the moment. There wasn’t a thought for afterwards, for awkwardness and consequences. I wanted to be her, yet I ached for him. For Carson to be the one to take me. To make me forget everything but him.

You should be careful who you ache for.

“Please don’t,” I manage to murmur, stepping away from the heat of him, glad my mouth still belongs to me even if my tongue feels about three foot wide.

“You don’t want me to kiss you? To touch you?”

“I’m not here for the reasons you think.”

“Yet here you are. Still.” His deep baritone makes me wet when his assumption should make me incredulous. But when my gaze lifts to meet his, he steals any retort I might have with a kiss. No, not a kiss. An invasion. A thought-stealing, will-bending raid. His lips drive mine apart, his hands tangling in my hair as he feeds me his tongue as he would his cock. I am a willing captive but no spectator. I won’t come quietly. Not as my body moulds itself to the hard planes of his as though I could be absorbed by him.

I moan a protest as his fingers curl around my shoulders, pushing me back against a solid surface. The wall? No, a door. But I don’t complain as his body follows, his eyes raking over me like a feudal lord. I lift my arms, greedy for him when, lightning-quick, he presses them against the cool wood, circling my wrists with one of his hands.

“There’s no one here, angel. No one to watch you fall apart.” His gaze is positively electric as his thumb skims the shape of my breast, my nipple standing to attention under the thin fabric. “Not even the stars this time.” He pinches, and my body jerks, the door handle rattling uncomfortably at the small of my back.

“I don’t need an audience. I just need you.”

The door opens suddenly, and the only thing stopping me from stumbling backwards is his strong arm wrapping my waist. In a motion that seems almost choregraphed, he swipes up my clutch and takes my hand almost twirling me behind him. And then we’re moving again, down a darkened service hallway and out through a second door, this time to an outside space. A loggia, vaulted and a little gothic, it seems much too atmospheric for such a modern building. My heels click against the sandstone flagstones as we pass an outdoor fireplace, seating and green potted palms before another door swishes open, and we’re inside again.