New York Billionaires Series

“But what about work,” I breathe.

He smiles. “I’m trying my damndest to seduce you, and you think of the Globe. I love how your brain works.”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Not the paper,” I say. “But us… and my job. Our colleagues.”

“No one will know,” he says. “Your job won’t be affected.”

“We won’t tell anyone?”

His breath ghosts over mine. “What happens between us is nobody’s business.” Carter slips a hand under my chin and tilts my head up. Forces me to meet his eyes, and there’s a question in them. I give the tiniest nod and lean closer. My heart is racing like it’s trying to run away.

He closes the distance between us. The kiss is a soft brush of his lips against mine, once, twice, controlled and steady. I blink my eyes open to find him watching me with a half-smile. “What I should have done,” he says, “before I called you from that hotel room.”

I shake my head. My hands find the lapels of his suit, curling around the stiff fabric. “I don’t regret it.”

“Christ, me neither.”

I kiss him this time. Press my lips to his, my fingers sliding back to find the soft hair at the nape of his neck. Carter groans into my mouth and deepens the kiss, the hot tip of his tongue meeting mine. The brief touch feels like a shot of electricity through my body.

His hands slide down my sides, smoothing over my body through the fabric of my coat. He kisses me like he’s thought long and hard about it. Like it’s an extension of our banter, another match of wits. Deep and soft, quick and slow, he varies the pace.

I grip him tight and melt against the onslaught.

Just when I think I can’t take any more, he shifts his lips to my cheek and kisses a line down to my neck. “Audrey,” he says, voice so thick as to be almost unrecognizable. “This is a great fire escape.”

I laugh. It turns breathless when he finds that spot, right beneath my ear, and my hands tighten on his shoulders.

It’s a long few seconds before I can form words. “Mhm,” I say. “Redeeming feature.”

His mouth returns to mine. “No,” he says against my lips. “I told you, it’s the tenant.”

“You’re biased,” I tell him.

“And proud of it.”

We kiss for a long time, and with every delicious touch I feel myself sinking deeper into lust with him. My mind feels heady, almost drugged, joy flooding through me.

Skilled fingers find the waist tie to my coat and tug. He slides a hand inside, touching my waist through the thin fabric of my dress. A frisson of nerves run through me, just faint enough to heighten the anticipation. But the hand stays there.

“You know,” I murmur. “The fire escape is nice and all, but we can also go inside.”

He closes his eyes. Dark lashes fan out against his cheeks, flushed with color. “Dangerous idea,” he says. “I’m trying to behave.”

“You can’t behave inside?”

“It would be harder to. I’m not domesticated.”

I press my lips to his cheekbone. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“It’s our first date,” he says, “and I’m angling for a second.”

I climb onto his lap. He lets me, hands steadying my hips inside my coat. I settle a thigh on either side of him and grip the railing behind him. “What if I told you that a second date is already guaranteed?”

“Then I’m a lucky man indeed,” he says and draws me up for a kiss. I press my chest against his and when he groans, I feel it reverberating through his chest. We spend another eternity kissing.

Eventually he breaks away from my lips and leans his head back against the cold railing, closing his eyes. “Fuck,” he mutters.

I run my fingers inside the collar of his shirt, touching hot skin. “Did I break you?”

“Yes. I’ll reboot in a second.”

I shift in his lap and notice the long, hard length beneath my thighs. Once I’ve felt it, it’s all I can focus on. Red-hot nerves race through my body and leave me breathless.

I circle my hips once, tentatively.

His hands tighten on my hips. “Spitfire,” he warns.

“Let’s go inside.”

“I could kiss you forever,” he says. “Would be happy to.”

I lean back in his arms. “Don’t you want to?”

He chuckles darkly and looks down at me straddling him. “Clearly. But I remember what you told me the other day. About you and relationships.”

And my lack of them. I tighten my hands around his neck. “I’ve had sex before. Been intimate with men.”

“I know,” he says. “But not very often, I’m guessing.”

I shake my head. “Why are we talking about this?”

He smiles and kisses me, three urgent brushes of his lips. “Because I don’t want to rush you. At all. Ever. And because you have me wound so tightly that I’m not sure I can go as slow as I’d want to for our first time.”

“I don’t feel rushed.”

He grips my thighs and pulls me up against him, melding our bodies together. His erection is a rough, intractable object beneath me, making it hard to think. “When was the last time?” he asks me.

I bend my face to the warm skin of his neck. He smells like soap and man and the leather seats of his town car.

“Audrey?” he says.

The truth is embarrassing. “A little over a year and a half.” Even then, it had been a weekend thing with a guy I’d known in college. He’d been back in town and we’d met up. Before that… seven months, I think. At least.

Carter’s eyes are serious on mine. “A year and a half,” he repeats.

He doesn’t mock me for it, he doesn’t smile, he doesn’t laugh. He just kisses me again, and it’s softer this time. It sends butterflies careening through my stomach, colliding and multiplying. “Spitfire,” he murmurs, a hand sliding over my hair, “we’re not rushing this, then.”

I don’t know what comes over me. If it’s the clear need in his voice, the way his fingers grip me, but everything about him makes me feel wanted. Powerful. So I slide my hand down to where he’s hard and run my fingers over the length.