Page 44 of Dangerous Men

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Alec assures me. There’s a smug, satisfied look on his face as he says it. “I’m glad you fell asleep. It means I did my job right.”

Andhow. My pussy aches from the attention he gave me, more sore than I’m used to feeling after fooling around. But God, it was so good.

I lean back against him, sighing and relaxing into his body.

But something’s off. I stiffen when I realize it and shift in my seat.

“Something wrong?” Alec asks.

“I, uh…” There’s no delicate way to phrase this. I open and close my mouth a few times before I summon the courage to say it. “I think whoever dressed me forgot my underwear.”

“What, these?” Ash asks. I turn my head toward him just as he takes them out of his suit pocket, running the fabric between his fingers. “No, these areminenow.” He raises them to his mouth, tongue sneaking out between his lips to lick where they’re still wet.

It shouldn’t be such a turn-on, but it is. My legs squeeze together as I watch him slide them back into his pocket.

“That’s to keep me satisfied until we do this again,” he tells me with a wink.

“Again?” I ask, voice a little weak.

The car rolls to a stop. We’re here, in front of the dark building that houses my store and my little apartment.

“Yes, sweetheart. Again,” Alec says, leaning over me to open the car door. “That is, if you’ll have us?”

His dark eyes are so intense as he says it. Hungry.

Oh, I’ll have them, I decide.

I’ll have them in every way I can.

But I just nod, and Ash steps out of the car, offering me his hand to help me exit.

“Until next time,” he says sweetly to me, pressing a kiss to my cheek. The stubble of his cheek smells faintly of whiskey, and a little of me, and the combination makes me feel dizzy.

It’s only much later, as I’m falling asleep, that it occurs to me I never told them where I lived.

19

ALEC

Earl keepsthe car idling by the curb until Sydney disappears into her apartment, safely home. Both Ashton and I watch, eyes locked on her door, until the car moves and we lose sight of it.

“Fuck,” Ashton groans. He takes Sydney’s panties back out of his pocket and presses them to his lips, chasing the taste of her. I don’t need to. I can still taste her on my lips.

But I want more.

“Let’s take her out tomorrow,” Ashton says, slipping her panties back into his pocket and grinning. “What do you think she likes? The carnival is coming to town soon, right? Think she’d enjoy that?”

He’s practically bouncing in his seat with excitement. I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face, imagining Sydney at a carnival. Sydney licking cotton candy from her fingertips. Sydney tasting like sugar and sin when I steal kisses from her in the shadows between the carnival booths.

Tonight went well. Better than planned. But she’s not ours, not yet.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I warn Ashton, leaning back to relax against the supple leather of the car’s interior. I take my phone out of my pocket, looking at it for the first time in hours. “We need to be careful. If we rush into this, we risk scaring her off.”

“Nah, fuck that.” Ashton laughs. But he pauses then, turning serious. “You’re going to have to tell her, you know. About?—”

The words die on his tongue when he notices I’m no longer listening.

3 missed calls.