away from me for a moment to see if he can keep his restraint intact.
When he looks back, the gold in his eyes burns with a desire he’s trying to deny and that I’m all for igniting. “And now I want to do this right.”
And if there was one thing he could have said to surprise me and knock the defiance to prove him wrong out of me, it was that.
“Right?” My heart constricts in my chest.
“Yes. Right.” He struggles with words, with the intensity of the conversation that I’m sure neither of us expected, but the tension in my hands to resist his grip eases. “I’ve messed a lot of things up, and I think you’ve had a lot of things messed up for you in your life. You, Vaughn Sanders, deserve to have something done right for you.”
“Oh.” It’s all I can say, because everything about this late-night, early-morning date has been unexpected, just like my feelings for him have been.
“So are you going to let me do this for you? Because I’ve gotta admit, it’s proving a hell of a lot harder to keep my hands off you than I thought it would be.”
Thud. My heart can’t fall many more times for him, or else it’s going to end up battered and bruised from being offered.
This man. What in the hell is he doing to me?
I look up at him through my lashes, a coy smile on my lips, because even though I’m not going to fight him, I sure as hell am not going to make this easy on him. “So what’s this called on our scale of right?”
“Our scale of right?”
“Yes. Is this considered our first date?” I lick my bottom lip and watch him take notice.
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Does that mean I’m going to get a first good night kiss?”
“I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that, now would I?” A shy smile lights up his face.
“But I’m in your bed. Most first good night kisses do not happen anywhere near your date’s bed.”
“You suck at pretending, Vaughn.” He laughs, but then before I can prepare myself, he has me lifted over his shoulder, ass stuck in the air.
“What are you doing? Stop! Put me down!”
But he doesn’t stop. He walks through his penthouse, and only when he opens the front door and shuts it at his back does he let me slowly slide down the front of him. When his face comes into view, one eyebrow is quirked up. “Is this front door good enough for you?”
“Yeah, but it’s kind of odd that it’s your front door when it should be mine—” My mock complaint is cut off when Ryker places his lips on mine to shut me up.
The kiss smothers our laughter, along with erasing any other thoughts of being difficult from my mind. It’s like a sweet seduction. It starts off soft and slow and then builds with an unfettered desire that’s almost palpable.
My hands roam up the firmness of his chest to thread through the hair at the base of his neck, while one of his cups my breast and the other presses against my lower back. There isn’t an inch of space between our bodies.
I can’t help the groan that emits from the back of my throat, but the minute he swallows its sound he steps back and breaks the kiss. I’m left breathless, my body on fire and desperate for more of his touch, as he stalks into his place without a word.
My smile is almost as automatic as my desperation for him. The man is struggling to keep his word. I have to admire him, but oh this is going to be so much fun.
“That sure was one incredible good night kiss,” I say as I enter the penthouse, shutting the door before following him down the hallway toward his bedroom. “I’d love to see what you do for an encore.”
His strained laugh is his only response as he walks into his closet, where I can see him brace his hands against the island in there. His head is hung forward, his smile disbelieving, and he shakes his head as if he’s trying to come to terms with the fact that he’s really doing this. That he’s really denying himself sex.
The minute he seems to rein it in, he shoves his jeans off and throws them somewhere I can’t see in the depths of the closet.
I slide the sweatshirt he loaned me off