that I can’t have a dog. So I try to support as many homeless pets as possible.”
She gave him a melting look, as if touched or surprised by something he considered as natural as breathing. Maybe it seemed a little strange, but Rand wasn’t ashamed to admit he was a softie when it came to anything involving kids or animals
“You did a good thing by coming here.”
Yeah. He intended to do a lot more good things, too. This trip up to his room was taking far too long for his liking.
Funny that they could make small talk as they hurried across the lobby, as if they weren’t both desperate and dizzy with excitement to be alone together. He hoped seven years of waiting wouldn’t make him so anxious that he shot off like an inexperienced kid.
They crossed paths with a few more people as they worked their way toward the opposite tower, which housed the only elevator that accessed the penthouse. He managed to smile and nod when he had to, but didn’t let anybody slow them down or impede their progress. Maybe he was being rude, but, frankly, he’d been waiting seven years and he couldn’t stand to wait another seven minutes.
Passing the front desk, Emily paused to speak to the night manager, the one who’d called him masturbation-bait—and God, hadn’t that been awkward to walk up on—to tell her she was going off duty. The woman gave them both a broad smile, and Emily a not-so-surreptitious thumbs-up.
Finally, though, they reached the elevators.
“I probably should go to my office and...”
“No. You should get up to that penthouse with me. Now.”
She grinned. “You really are impatient, aren’t you?”
Considering that he was ready to howl with frustration because the elevator was taking too long, he’d cop to that.
“You’re lucky I worked the three-to-eleven shift.”
“Even if you had to work until morning, I’d have stalked you through the hotel until I found a closet to drag you into.”
He smiled as he felt a slow shiver roll through her slight body, realizing that she was every bit as excited and eager as he was. Standing beside her, his fingers on the small of her back, stroking the tiny protrusion of her spine, breathing in her sweetly spicy scent, the tension within him ratcheted up even higher. He had no idea how he was going to keep his hands off her once they were alone in the elevator. Heaven help him if anybody else boarded it with them.
The doors opened and he didn’t even wait to see if anyone came out. He simply put an arm around Emily’s waist and ushered her in. Fortunately, it was empty. Equally as fortunately, no one else called for them to wait.
The second the doors closed with a whoosh, Rand eased her into the corner, wrapped her in his arms and hauled her up against his body. He caught her mouth in a hot, wet kiss that held nothing back, loving the slide of her small, sweet tongue and the heat of every breath she exhaled into his mouth.
They tilted their heads, angling deeper, and he groaned as she wrapped one slim leg around his and arched into him. He was unable to resist his body’s demand to thrust and claim, and rocked into the apex of her thighs.
“Oh, yes, Rand, you feel so good,” she groaned, straining against his rock-hard erection.
He buried his face in her throat. “I hate that there are cameras in here.”
“They’re only for show,” she said, her tone wickedly sultry. “The system has some glitches because the hotel’s so new. The cameras don’t work yet.”
Possibilities filled his head as he tried to remember just how long it took the elevator to reach the penthouse. Not long enough for what he most wanted to do. But long enough to tide them over.
He reached for her skirt, lifting it up to reveal the tops of those crazy-sexy stockings. “I have been fantasizing about these things all day.”
“About taking them off me?”
“Oh, hell, no.”
“I see.”
“You will be leaving them on.” Not a request. A demand.
“Bossy,” she said.
She didn’t say anything more, her voice failing her when he slid his hand between her warm thighs and cupped her mound. Her panties were damp, even more than they’d been earlier, and his blood coursed harder through his veins. She might have handcuffed him and walked out the door with a firm proclamation that she wasn’t interested. But her body had told him seven years ago that she most definitely was, and things hadn’t changed one bit.
“Have you been wet for me all evening?”
She dropped her hand to cup his cock. “Have you been hard for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I guess we’re even.”
He imagined they were.
“I’ve gotta taste you, Em.”
He glanced at the control panel, noting the floors ticking by. They could stop at any moment. But frankly, he couldn’t wait. The smell of her, the softness of her, the sound of her little gasps of pleasure all urged him to do what he’d been dying to do since she’d locked him up and stormed out earlier.
He dropped to his knees. Flipping her skirt up, he held it out of the way, gripping her hips, and pulled her toward his hungry mouth. That hot, musky, feminine fragrance of her desire inflamed him and he buried his face in that sweet spot. He breathed her in, inhaling her, driving himself a little more crazy with need.
“Rand, you shouldn’t...oh, God, that’s amazing,” she said, twining her hands in his hair.
He ignored her, aware she wasn’t sure herself whether she wanted to order him to stop or beg him to lick her until time—and the elevator—stopped.
He had only a few seconds. Just enough to lap at her, scraping his flat tongue against those pretty blue panties.
She whimpered, dropping a hand to his shoulder and digging her fingers into his muscles. He lapped again, feeling her legs quiver and almost buckle, until only his hands on her hips and the wall were holding her up.
He had to let go of one hip so he could pull the fabric of her panties away and reveal the pretty, plump lips of her sex. She draped her leg over his shoulder, exposing herself fully, confident and sensual and utterly alluring.
“That’s beautiful,” he said with a groan as he flicked his tongue over her pearly clit. She cried out, her pleasure urging him on. It wouldn’t take much to bring her over the top, and he was dying to taste her climax on his tongue.
The bell dinged.
The door swished open.
If they had stopped on any other floor, they would have been caught with his head buried in her pussy and her leg wrapped around his neck.
But they were, instead, standing directly in front of
