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Gods, it would be better for both of us if she has enough sense to say no. Because if she doesn’t…

“Why not?” she says lightly, and again, her features arrange themselves in some configuration I can’t decipher. “That’s all this is, right?”

16

Kenna

“That’s all this is, right?”

The words hang between us. A challenge, a gauntlet thrown.

Since we walked into this bar, since the moment I saw him on the other side of the street, some part of this has felt inevitable. Whatever ties already bind us have been straining, taut, pulled to a breaking point.

What’s he going to say? What do Iwanthim to say?

“Ember,” he says, low and graveled.

I can’t help it—the nickname sends a dark, tantalizing thrill through me.

Just a little ember, aren’t you? Ready to spark a flame and burn me to ash.

“Answer the question, Blair.”

Beneath the table, his hand finds my knee, squeezing gently. The touch sends another pulse of arousal shooting straight up between my legs in an urgent, warm heat that makes me squirm a little where I’m sitting.

“I want you, Kenna.”

It’s not an answer, not really. Not any more than him telling me he took me because he wanted to.

A stronger woman probably wouldn’t accept it. But here, now, with a dragon’s golden gaze pinning me in place, no part of me is tempted to do anything but agree.

Because that’s what Blair is. Temptation, pure and irresistible. Power and sex and some strange alchemy that’s drawn me in from the beginning. And even though I might be able to look down this road and see where it ends, right now I’m not strong enough to choose a different path.

“Then have me.”

The hand on my leg slides higher until he’s cupping me over the seam of my jeans. Whether he can feel the warmth of me, the damp heat that’s already building for him, I’m not sure. But when his eyes meet mine, they’re burning from the inside out.

“Come back to my place?” The offer slips out before I can think better of it.

Blair’s touch stills. “You’re sure about that, ember? That’s what you want?”

The deep timbre of his voice reaches in and strokes at the high walls I’m using to keep myself fortified against him.

A good fuck. Once. To get it out of my system.

Blair is the definition of unavailable. My boss’s boss’s boss. Completely unable or unwilling to acknowledge there’s anything between us but simmering lust. Closed off, guarded, a predator sharp and dangerous enough for me to know I should stay far, far away.

“It’s what I want.”

Blair’s eyes flare with heat, and he gives me a single decisive nod before setting his nearly full drink on the table, and fishing his wallet out of his back pocket. Dropping a hundred down between our drinks, he slides out of the booth, taking my hand and pulling me along with him.

“Hey!” I protest.

Blair looks down at me with a devilish smirk on his face. It’s so much more devastating than the brooding, mysterious tough guy thing he’s usually got going on, that whatever else I was about to say burns to ash in my mind.

“Problem?”

I stand, tugging at my shirt to straighten it, and Blair’s eyes drop immediately to the cleavage I very deliberately have on display tonight.