Page 62 of Silver Fox's Christmas Scandal

The taste of whiskey lingering as his tongue swept over mine. His hands framed my face as though he meant to trap me in the choice he had already made.

“Lucian,” I managed when he gave me a breath. “You can’t just show up here?—”

“I can, and I did.” His forehead pressed to mine. “I can’t keep pretending distance fixes anything.”

“You told me we had to wait.” My fingers curled in the open lapels of his jacket, pulling without meaning to. “That we had to be careful.”

“I told myself that,” he said, his voice low, frayed at the edges. “Every day I stayed away, I hated it. Every night, I told myself I was doing the right thing, and every morning, I woke up thinking of you.”

He kissed me again, harder, and my back met the door with a muted thud. His hands slid down, gripping my hips through the fabric of my pajama pants.

“This isn’t fair,” I whispered, though I didn’t push him off.

“No, it isn’t,” he admitted against my throat, his lips tracing the line of my jaw. “But I don’t care anymore.”

His jacket fell open, brushing against my arms.

My sweater bunched at my ribs where his fingers had tugged it upward. I caught his wrist before he went further, my pulse thundering.

“Lucian, you don’t get to ruin me in meetings and then come here like this.”

He stilled. “You think I wanted to cut you off in front of Mercer? Do you know what it did to me to hear Daniel recite your analysis like it was his work?”

“Then why did you let him?”

His fingers dug harder into my hips, dragging me flush against him. His mouth brushed my ear, voice rough and unfiltered.

“Because when you talk shop, it makes my dick hard,” he said. “It’s all I can think about, and right now, I need you.”

Lucian’s mouth was demanding, whiskey still clinging to his tongue as it slid against mine.

His hands cradled my face like he could hold me still. The kiss was rough with need, and every shred of resistance I thought I’d built over the past month dissolved in his grip.

I gasped when his lips left mine only long enough to rasp, “I can’t keep this distance, Tessa."

I wanted to argue, to tell him how much it had hurt, but the words caught in my throat.

My body betrayed me, pulling him closer by his jacket lapels, my fingers curled tight in the fabric.

His mouth moved down the line of my throat, finding the place beneath my ear that made my breath catch. “Every time I shut you out in those meetings, I hated myself,” he murmured. “I wanted to hear your voice. I wanted to see you shine. And then I wanted you like this—where nobody else could take it from me.”

His hands slipped beneath the hem of my sweater, palms warm against my bare skin.

I trembled at the contact, torn between shoving him away and never letting him go. “Lucian?—”

“Don’t,” he cut in softly, lifting his head just enough to look at me. His gray eyes revealed exhaustion and hunger colliding. “Don’t ask me to stop.”

My sweater came off in his hands, dropped to the floor as his gaze traveled over me, lingering on the thin cotton tank clinging to my body.

He pulled it over my head, baring me to the cool air of the apartment, then lowered his mouth to my collarbone, trailing lower, lower.

His lips brushed over the swell of my breast before closing around me.

Heat shot straight through my stomach, and I arched against him, fingers digging into the back of his neck.

He made a low sound of approval, his hand sliding down my side until it hooked behind my knee and drew me closer.

I tipped my head back, breath catching as his tongue circled and teased until I couldn’t keep still.