Chapter 2

The elevator doors closed behind us, sealing out the noise of the party below.

Drake stood with his back to the mirrored wall, watching me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. The space between us felt charged, electric, like the air before a thunderstorm. I pressed myself against the opposite wall, trying to put distance between us, but the elevator was small and he was everywhere. His scent. His heat. The weight of his gaze crawling over my body like a physical touch.

"You're shaking," he observed.

"I'm cold."

"You're lying."

Before I could argue, he pushed off from the wall and crossed the distance between us in one step. His hands braced against the mirrors on either side of my head, caging me in. His body didn't touch mine, not yet, but I could feel the warmth radiating from him, could feel the promise of what was coming.

"Tell me to stop," he said quietly. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll walk away. I'll have my driver take you home, and we'll pretend this never happened."

My lips parted. "What if I don't want to pretend?"

His eyes darkened. "Then don't."

The elevator chimed. The doors slid open onto a private hallway, and Drake grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the car and down the corridor. He moved with purpose, his fingers locked around mine, and I followed like I had no choice. Like I had never had a choice, not from the moment I first saw him across that crowded room.

The suite door barely closed behind us before he had me pressed against it.

His mouth found my neck, hot and hungry, and I gasped as his teeth grazed my pulse point. My hands fisted in the fabric of his jacket, torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer. He made the decision for me, his hips pressing into mine, and I felt exactly how much he wanted this.

"You have no idea," he murmured against my throat, "how long I've wanted to get you alone."

"You don't even know me."

"I know enough." His lips traveled down to my collarbone, sucking gently, and my head fell back against the door with a soft thud. "I know you taste like champagne and vanilla. I know you get goosebumps when I touch you here." His fingers traced the sensitive skin behind my ear, and I shivered. "I know you're already wet for me."

My face burned. "That's not—"

"Don't lie to me, Avery." He pulled back just enough to look at me, and his expression was devastating. Confident. Hungry. Certain. "I felt you tremble the moment I touched your back. I saw your pupils dilate every time I said your name. You want this. You want me. The only question is whether you're brave enough to admit it."

I stared at him, chest heaving, and something inside me snapped.

I grabbed his tie and pulled his mouth down to mine.

The kiss was brutal. Perfect. His tongue swept past my lips, and I moaned into him, a sound I didn't recognize as my own. His hands dropped to my waist, gripping hard, and he lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing. My legs wrapped around his hips automatically, and he carried me away from the door, across the suite, past the glittering chandelier and the floor to ceiling windows, until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the enormous bed.

He laid me down slowly, deliberately, like he was unwrapping a gift he had waited a lifetime to open.

Then he stepped back.

I propped myself up on my elbows, watching him through heavy lidded eyes. He stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at me with an expression that made my stomach clench. Hunger. Worship. Possession. All three warred across his features as he reached up and loosened his tie.

"Don't move," he said.

I should have been offended by the command. Instead, I trembled.

Drake pulled the tie from his collar and let it fall to the floor. Then his jacket. Then the buttons of his shirt, one by one, each reveal of skin making my mouth go dry. His chest was sculpted, hard, dusted with dark hair that trailed down his stomach and disappeared beneath the waistband of his trousers. He was beautiful in a way that felt almost unfair, like a statue carved specifically to ruin women like me.

His hands went to his belt.

"Do you want this, Avery?" His voice was rough, strained. "Tell me now."

"Yes." The word came out breathless. Desperate. "God, yes."

The belt came undone. The trousers followed. And when he stood before me in nothing but black boxer briefs, every inch of him hard and ready and utterly magnificent, I forgot how to breathe.

He crawled onto the bed, settling over me, and his mouth found mine again. Slower this time. Deeper. His tongue stroked against mine in a rhythm that made me ache, and his hips pressed down, grinding against the heat between my thighs. Even through the layers of our clothes, I could feel him. Thick. Demanding. Perfect.

"Take this off," he murmured against my lips, tugging at the strap of my dress.

I lifted my shoulders, and he pulled the emerald fabric down my body with agonizing slowness. The cool air hit my bare skin, and I shivered as his eyes traveled over me. My breasts. My stomach. The lace of my panties, already soaked through.

"Look at you," he breathed. "So fucking beautiful."

His mouth closed over my nipple, and I cried out.

He sucked gently at first, teasing, his tongue circling the sensitive peak until I was arching into him, begging wordlessly for more. Then his teeth grazed, just a little, just enough to send a bolt of pleasure straight down my spine. My fingers tangled in his dark hair, holding him there, and he hummed against my skin in approval.

"Drake," I moaned.

"Say it again."

"Drake."

His hand slid down my stomach, fingers hooking into the waistband of my panties. He pulled them down my legs slowly, dragging the fabric over my thighs, my knees, my calves, until I lay completely bare beneath him. He sat back on his heels and looked at me. All of me. His gaze was so intense it felt like a brand.

"Spread your legs."

I hesitated for half a second. Then I obeyed.

His smile was slow and devastating. "Good girl."

He lowered himself between my thighs, and I felt his breath against my most sensitive place. My hips bucked involuntarily. He placed a hand flat on my stomach, pressing me down gently, holding me in place.

"Patience," he murmured.

Then his mouth was on me.

I lost the ability to form words.

His tongue moved in ways that should have been illegal. Slow strokes. Quick flicks. Circles that built and built until I was gasping, writhing, my hands fisted in the silk sheets beneath me. He licked and sucked and teased until I was sobbing his name, until my thighs trembled around his head, until I could feel the pressure coiling tighter and tighter in my core.

"You taste like heaven," he said against my flesh, and the vibration of his voice made me moan louder. "I could stay here all night."

"Please," I begged. "Please, I'm so close."

He added a finger. Then two. Curling them inside me as his tongue worked my clit, and the combination shattered me. My orgasm crashed over me like a wave, stealing my breath, stealing my thoughts, stealing everything except the feeling of him. I cried out, my back arching off the bed, and he stayed with me through every pulse, every tremor, every desperate sound that fell from my lips.

When I finally came down, trembling and boneless, he kissed his way back up my body. My stomach. My ribs. The hollow of my throat. He tasted like me, and the intimacy of it made my heart clench.

"One," he said softly.

"What?"

"One orgasm." He positioned himself above me, his arousal pressing against my entrance, hot and insistent. "I plan to give you several more before the night is over."

I whimpered. "Drake, please. I need you inside me."

"Say it again."

"Please. I need you."

He pushed inside me in one slow, devastating thrust.

The stretch was exquisite. He filled me completely, deeper than I thought possible, and the sound I made was half moan, half sob. He paused there, buried to the hilt, his forehead pressed against mine, both of us breathing hard.

"You feel like heaven," he gritted out. "So tight. So wet. All for me."

"Yes," I gasped. "All for you. Now move. Please move."

He pulled back slowly, almost all the way out, then pushed back in with a snap of his hips that drove a scream from my throat. He set a rhythm that was relentless. Deep thrusts that hit places I didn't know existed, each one sending sparks behind my eyes. His mouth found my neck, my shoulder, my breasts, leaving a trail of bites and kisses that would mark me for days.

"Look at me," he commanded.

I forced my eyes open. His face was flushed, his jaw tight, his dark hair falling across his forehead. He looked wild. Unhinged. Perfect.

"I want to watch you come apart on my cock," he said, his voice ragged. "I want to feel you squeeze me while you scream my name."

I was already close again. Too close. The pressure in my core was building faster than I could control, and he seemed to know it. His hand slid between our bodies, his thumb finding my clit, rubbing in tight circles that matched the rhythm of his hips.

"Come for me, Avery."

His thumb pressed harder. His thrusts grew deeper. And I shattered.

The orgasm ripped through me like a wildfire, consuming everything in its path. I screamed his name, my nails raking down his back, my inner walls clenching around him so hard that he groaned like he was in pain. He kept moving through it, chasing his own release, driving into me with desperate, uneven strokes.

"Avery," he groaned, and the sound of my name on his lips was my undoing all over again.

He buried himself deep and came with a raw, broken sound. I felt him pulse inside me, hot and endless, and he collapsed against me, his face buried in my neck, his body shuddering with the force of his release.

We lay there for a long time, tangled together, our breathing slowly returning to normal. His weight on top of me was heavy and warm, and I wrapped my arms around him, not wanting him to move. Not ever.

"That was," I started, then stopped. Words felt inadequate.

Drake lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes were softer now, the predatory edge replaced by something almost tender. He brushed a strand of sweat dampened hair from my face.

"That was just the beginning," he said.

I swallowed hard. "What do you mean?"

He rolled off me, pulling me against his side, his hand tracing lazy circles on my bare hip. "I mean we have all night. And I'm a man who keeps his promises."

"Which promise?"

He turned his head, pressing a kiss to my forehead. Then my nose. Then my lips.

"I told you I planned to give you several more," he murmured against my mouth. "I wasn't finished."

I laughed, breathless and giddy and utterly ruined for any other man. "You're going to kill me."

Drake Montenegro smiled, slow and dangerous and devastating.

"What a way to die," he said.

And then he proved that he had meant every single word.