STRIPPED (The Slate Brothers 3)

“How did you know which room was hers?” I ask, frowning.

“I opened the doors to yours first. It smelled like your hair,” he answers without a hint of shame or hesitation. I swallow, wishing the tenor of his voice didn’t make my core heat up. It’s even huskier, even more disarming than I remembered.

“Okay, well I— thanks for helping her home,” I mumble, apparently having lost total control of my lips and the ability to enunciate words. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.

“Yes. I’m going to sleep. I’m not…” I inhale, feeling the sudden urge to stop and catch my breath. “I’m not going to just stand here in my bra talking to you.”

“You can take the bra off. Or I can take it off,” he says.

I lick my lips and take a step back, hoping he can’t see that his words have sent a streak of fire through my body. Remember, I tell myself, he suddenly ditched you when his bros showed up. Don’t fall for it.

“Anna?” Tyson says when I stay quiet for a little too long.

“I was…when we were under the deck at that party. You left me when your friends came over. I don’t want…I don’t want to be with…if you’re so ashamed of me, then I can’t let myself—“

“I’m not ashamed of you,” Tyson says, rising. His body looks oversized in our tiny apartment, especially when paired with serious words. He locks his eyes onto mine in a way that prevents me from glancing away. “I’m not at all ashamed of how I want you, Anna Milhomme. But there are plenty of people— even people on my own team— who like to gossip about me to the press. I don’t get the impression that publicity is something that interests you.”

He’s right. During the last game, the camera occasionally found girlfriends of players and pointed them out for the audience at home. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be the center of attention. I don’t want to be reduced to a girl that Tyson Slate made out with underneath a deck somewhere. But—

“You could have told me. Instead you just…left me.”

Tyson’s jaw tightens, and I can tell he’s fighting the urge to grimace. “Yes. But I’m here now. It’s why I bid on Trishelle— I knew she was your friend. I knew she’d lead me to you. You’re remarkably hard to find, Anna Milhomme.”

Tyson takes a step toward me, and I instinctively take one back. His lips curl into the smallest of smiles; he pauses, and makes no effort to hide it when he lets his eyes run up and down my body. My yoga-pant wearing, no-shirt-having body. I can feel myself turning red, and suspect that given the lack of top, he can see how when my cheeks redden, my chest does too.

“Go ahead and lower your arm,” he says, flicking lightly with his fingertips. His voice is so controlled, so certain. I freeze, my brain at war with my body— because in practically no time whatsoever, Tyson has reduced me to heat and lust and an overwhelming desire to give in to him. The fact that he bid on Trishelle in the auction just to find me, that he looked for me to begin with, that he’s here in the pre-dawn blackness, walking toward me, taking up my entire hallway with his broad shoulders…

He clears his throat impatiently.

I lower my arm. I can feel my nipples hardened at the cool air and my own arousal, and know they’re peeking through the lace bra. My heart pounds— even more so when Tyson makes a low, growling noise at the sight of my breasts. He takes another step forward.

“I shouldn’t have left you. I’ve thought about that ever since,” he says, lowering his voice. “All those girls tonight, and not one of them holds a candle to you.”

“That’s not true,” I whisper. “I saw Trishelle when she left. She’s—“

“Not the one I want,” Tyson says. “When I look at you, Anna Milhomme, I see…” He stops, only a foot or so from me, and then lifts a hand. He strokes the side of my head lightly, then leans in and kisses my forehead. He moves my hair to one side of my neck, then lowers his lips to my ear. “I see someone intelligent and sexy.” He drags his tongue along my neck, to my shoulder, and kisses me there. “And I see beauty.” He then leans forward and, while my heart races and my fingers begin to tremble, delicately tips one of breasts up, so my nipple reaches his mouth. I moan softly as he sucks my nipple, lace bra and all, into his mouth; I nearly fall backward at the sensation, but Tyson wraps an arm around me and keeps me upright. He releases my nipple, which feels cold and tender now in the air, and looks up at me. “And I see innocence. Someone that hasn’t burned through the world like a wildfire. Someone who has been too careful.”