Entry-Level Mistress - By Sabrina Darby Page 0,30

throat drove me wild.

“Is it always like this? Fly in from Paris, have a soiree for a friend?”

“Hardly, but then there are those days when it is.” His lips traced a hot path across my skin. “You’re staying the night you know,” he murmured between kisses.

“I was hoping,” I returned.

“I’d undress you right now but—”

“You have guests coming and I took time to look nice.”

“But I like seeing you with your hair messy and knowing I’ve just been inside you.”

It was good he was holding me. Between his words, and then his mouth on mine again, I was drunk and dizzy with passion.

I broke away. “Why don’t you show me around?”

He didn’t let me go, his lips tracing the line of my jaw. I sucked my breath in sharply at the exquisite sensation. Too much.

He pressed me closer to him and I could feel him hard and hot against me. Then abruptly, he stepped back, his lips quirked up at the corner.

He gestured to an open doorway, which led to a bedroom. A suggestion or continuing the tour?

He reached for me again, his hand just brushing my hip, but the touch was electric.

“I can’t think when you do that,” I protested.

He stopped laughing, but his eyes were dark and amused. “I don’t want you to think.”

“Your friends will find me unintelligent and insipid.”

“Or they’ll wisely leave and let us have the place to ourselves.” I melted under the heat of his gaze. I needed a shower. Or sex and a shower.

I looked around the room. “So, it’s sort of a loft in name only,” I observed, struggling for clarity. “This is more like a humongous one-bedroom.”

“I do hope you’ll let Julian know that,” Daniel said. He laughed as if there were a larger story behind his words. “This was his one residential project and he was disgustingly proud of himself for it.”

“Julian?”

“He’s coming tonight. But yes, I think loft was used rather creatively,” Daniel agreed. “However, it makes a good entertaining space. Great views.”

“I can see that.” The bedroom was on a corner where two floor-to-ceiling windows joined. When I stepped to the edge, to that space where I had a one hundred and eighty degree view, I wondered why he chose the Charles Street place over this one.

“Don’t you find this inspiring? Limitless almost?”

He came up behind me, pulled me against him. It didn’t matter that we were fully dressed, that other than the press of his body against mine, he made no overtures; heat pooled between my thighs and I nestled against him.

“It’s just another box,” he said, and with those simple words I began to understand. The idea of that, of a house constricting, blossomed in my head. “And a box for others at that. The townhouse, it’s … ”

“Homey?” I suggested, turning in his arms and lifting my gaze to meet his. “Womblike?”

He laughed and I admired the way his face looked alight with humor. I studied the crinkles at the corner of his eyes.

“I suppose, but that’s rather too Freudian for my tastes,” he said, tightening his arms around me. I melted into his embrace. Giving into the desire, all the questions I wanted to ask fell away at the touch of his lips on mine.

• • •

The first guest arrived at eight-thirty. The architect, Julian Vane, whom Daniel called one of his oldest friends, was in every way Daniel’s opposite, bright to Daniel’s dark, blonde to his brown. He made me uncomfortable at first with his all-too-careful perusal, as if he were making certain with those piercing blue eyes that I was someone with whom Daniel should be seen.

“Emily takes offense at you calling these condominiums lofts,” Daniel said as he handed his friend a drink.

Julian made a face. “Please don’t tell me you’re a purist,” he demanded with a disgusted drawl. “Daniel did say you were newly escaped from the murky depths of self-importance school. However, I was prepared to cut you some slack.” I wasn’t sure how to take his words, until he grinned, relieving all the uncertainty I felt.

“It’s a stunning building,” I returned, flashing my actress smile, with a slightly ironic twist. “I’m sure it will soon be added to Boston’s list of architectural wonders.”

Julian laughed. “I’ll admit that here the term loft is more to describe the seventeen-foot ceilings.”

“And now you’re friends,” Daniel interrupted, stepping away from them to greet an elderly couple who had just walked in.

Julian gave me one of those “well, here we are” smiles, which