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She snorted. “Well, you’ve just proved you’re not the right candidate. So what the hell are you doing here?”
A hard smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “You think now that I’ve found you, I’m going to stand with my dick in my hand and watch you come on to someone else? You panickedbecause I saw a little deeper than you wanted me to. But that doesn’t change anything. Whether you want to admit it or not, you saw me and you chose me. You can pretend otherwise and walk away. But if you stay, I get to fuck you. Exclusively. And if I think that digging a little deeper into who you are will make the fucking all the better, then I’m sure as hell going to dig.”
“You can dig all you want. You’ll get nothing more from me than you already have.”
He tilted his head slightly, that infuriatingly sexy smile playing over his delicious mouth once again. “Are you sure you want to issue that challenge?”
“I’m pretty sure I want you to take your hands off me and leave me the hell alone.”
Cobalt blue eyes lit up with sizzling fire. His hand dropped from her arm, and he pushed the door open before taking hold of her again.
“Do you really want me to go?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words emerged. His eyes gleamed.
“Invite me in, Leia,” he murmured softly against her lips.
It took all her willpower, but she overcame the screaming need to say yes. “No.”
“You want a mindless fuck. I’ll give you one. But it’ll be nowhere near as satisfactory as it can be if you let me in a little.” He leaned in closer, making her feel the hard evidence of the gift he could offer her. A gift she could accept at a cost she couldn’t afford to pay.
“Do you take the time to get to know every woman you sleep with? That redhead who was eyeing you at the bar. Would you have taken the time to get to know her before you… you…”
“She ceased to matter the moment I saw you. And she mattered way lessbeforeI saw you. Trust me, baby, what I havein mind is dirty, filthy fucking that will make you scream your throat hoarse. But to get it you need to invite me in.”
Evocative images bombarded her senses, but she shook her head. “I’m not inviting you in, Noah.”
Her stomach churned at the calculating gleam that narrowed his eyes. His hands smoothed up and down her arms, waking tiny shivers that made him smile with pure male satisfaction.
He dropped his head until their lips were a whisper apart.
“I’m not fucking you out here in the hallway, baby. Your clothes stay on in public. That’s non-negotiable. Another non-negotiable fact is that you’re not fucking anyone else on this trip. Everything else I’m willing to negotiate.”
“Negotiate your hands off me. Right now. Before my knee negotiates itself between your legs.”
Something in her voice must have finally gotten through to him. Eyes narrowing further, he dropped his hands and took a step back.
“Do I frighten you, Leia?” he asked, a tension seizing him that made a twinge of shame suffuse her.
He overwhelmed her. He made her stomach cave in on itself with a hunger that defied reason. He made her clit throb and her pussy clench with desperate greed. But he didn’t induce fear in her.
She should know. She knew what real fear looked and felt like.
Compelled to be truthful, she shook her head. “No.”
He exhaled, his shoulders relaxing a touch. But the tension didn’t completely leave his face or his body. He stared down at her for another handful of seconds before he speared a hand through his hair.
“We seem to be tripping over the right way to do this. What can I say to convince you that I want what you want?” Frustration bit through his voice.
“We can agree to keep this… light.”
He stared at her another several minutes. Then his eyes dropped to the pulse beating in her neck, then lower to the agitated rise and fall of her breasts. Even lower still, until even her soles tingled with the look in his eyes.
By the time he raised his gaze to hers, she was ready to abandon all reason and throw herself at him.
“I don’t do light, baby. Not when it comes to kissing and not when it comes to sex. It’s the deep end or not at all. But I don’t want to walk away, so I’ll make you a promise.”
“Wh-what?”