“Because you’re the most beautiful woman here. Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”
“I call B.S.,” she said. “There are models here.”
“So? You were the one who caught my attention.”
“You’re a flirt.”
“That’s the thing—I’m not really. So if I’m doing a poor job of it, it’s only because I lack practice.” He put his hands in his pockets, a wicked half smile curling that sinful mouth.
“Again, I call bull.”
“Again, you’re wrong.”
“You’re drunk.”
“A little.”
“Honest,” she said. “But I have to get back.”
She started to walk past him and he took her arm, stopped her progress. Her breath left her lungs in a rush, his grip shockingly tight. She looked up and met cold, dark eyes. “To who?” he asked, his voice gentle, an opposing force to the hold he had on her.
Her heart was thundering hard. But it wasn’t with fear. There was something about his grip, so tight, so certain, that made her feel...
She blinked. Oh, no, she was not getting turned on by a strange man in the corridor of a party she was technically coordinating.
But there was something about that grip. Commanding. Hard. It spoke to every secret fantasy that lived in the dark shadows inside of her. The parts of her that didn’t want a sweet kiss at midnight from Prince Charming. The parts that had always craved things she’d never quite understood.
The parts of herself that had looked at every man she’d even tried to date and found them lacking.
But not him. He wouldn’t be lacking. Something shivered inside of her, a whisper.
He would know what you wanted.
“None of your business,” she growled.
“Jason Treffen?” he asked, a tinge of bitterness to his tone.
“Why?”
“I saw you speaking with him earlier.”
“Guilty,” she said. “Now will you let go of me?”
“Will you stay for a moment?”
“What if I say no?”
His gaze flickered over her. “I’m not sure.”
Part of her wanted to dare him. Wanted to say no. Wanted to see if the grip would tighten. If he would take the control. “I’ll stay for a moment.”
He released his hold on her. “Good. Then I’ll work on being more interesting than whatever’s in that party.”
“Oooh,” she said, affecting a regretful smile, “they have cocktail shrimp.”
“I’m losing out to shellfish?”
“It’s prime. I hear they brought all the seafood from Maine.”
“Well, I’m not from Maine, so I’m not sure I can compete.”
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Upstate.”
“Hmm. Vague.”
He lifted one shoulder. “Where are you from?”
“Originally? Somewhere in the Eastern Seaboard.”
“Also vague,” he said.
“Vague is okay. We’re just talking in the hall.”
“Are we?” he asked. He put his hand back on her arm, his fingertips hot against her skin.
She’d never really flirted much, either. Her last date had been long enough ago that she didn’t want to count. And her sex life? That was nonexistent. A younger brother and parents who were usually passed out somewhere made a sex life impossible. Plus, dating someone implied letting someone in. Bringing them into that hellhole she called a life.
Anyway, there was no man she found overly appealing in that deadbeat town. All she’d ever wanted to do was leave it behind.
And since she’d left, she’d been working. Tirelessly toward the moment she’d just had. Toward getting herself in a position where she could be in this social circle. Toward looking Jason Treffen in the eye. Gathering evidence against him.
Suddenly she felt exhausted. She felt every missed opportunity in her life, every emotion she’d dulled or ruthlessly cut from herself, every moment she’d sacrificed, including that moment of eye contact in the ballroom with this man, so that she could have this revenge.
So that she could see justice done.
And suddenly, she didn’t want to go back into the ballroom. She wanted to stay in the hall, with him. With the man who carried a matching darkness inside of him. A man who she knew, instinctively, would want what she did.
She felt like he was the one. The one to tear the lid off all those fantasies that she kept down deep. Like he was the first one to offer real, serious temptation.
“Maybe it’s more than that,” she said. “If we’re being honest, I’m not especially up on the flirting game, either.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“Why did you find it hard to believe I wasn’t?”
“Because you’re so forward.”
He shifted his weight, drew closer to her. “Oh, don’t mistake me. I might not be a flirt, but when I want something, I get it. When I want someone,” he said, lifting his hand and drawing it over her cheek, “I make sure I have her.”
She should hate this. She should shove him back. She should tell him to go to hell with all his proprietary male garbage. But she didn’t.
Because she didn’t hate it.
Because this wasn’t the game she’d been taught to loathe so much. This wasn’t the thing that Sarah had been caught up in. There was no artifice here. There was an edge of honesty to this man’s words. A rawness.
This was her fantasy. This was why no other man had ever tempted her. Why she’d never gone out of her way to pursue more than a kiss.
“And you want me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Damn. You are drunk.”
“I am,” he said, “but not so much that I don’t know what I want. Who I want.”
“We don’t know each other,” she said.
“I know. But in some ways, doesn’t that make it better?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never...” She started to say she’d never been with a man, one she knew or not, but she let it trail off. A twenty-six-year-old virgin was a bit of a joke and she wasn’t exactly in the mood to confess that.
Besides, it might scare him off. And she hadn’t decided if she wanted to do that or not.
One thing was for sure: she didn’t want him to think that because she’d never been with a man, she needed some sort of gentle, soothing seduction.
That was the last thing she wanted. She wanted those strong hands on her. Rough. In control.
“Me neither,” he said.
“You haven’t what?” she asked. Because he wasn’t a virgin. That was for sure.
“I don’t do this kind of thing. Pick up women I meet in corridors. I have relationships. I take a woman out to dinner at least three times before I make a move toward