and need and craving pounded through him, settling so deep in his bones he was afraid the ache would never leave.
Her right foot was on the bench angling her body away from him. Flipping him a look over her shoulder and from beneath her lashes, she watched him even as she rolled the stocking carefully down her leg.
Her body swayed gently, the lace at the bottom of her panties creeping higher to give him an alluring glimpse of more. The metal teeth of his zipper bit into the straining length of his erection. He was light-headed from all the blood rushing to his groin.
He couldn’t remember a single time when he’d wanted a woman so much. Beckett hadn’t touched her and didn’t even know her name, but that didn’t seem to matter. There was something about her that...drew him.
All he could think of was tasting her skin. Hearing the sound of her moans, her sharp inhale of breath when he finally pushed home, filling her up and bringing them both unbearable ecstasy.
His hands clenched around the railing, desperately needing an anchor to keep him from slipping entirely into the fantasy.
Devouring her with his eyes, Beckett watched as she straightened and moved back to the window. Her gaze burned as she studied him. Not just with lust, but something more. He felt the pressure of it licking through his blood. It was as if she could see beneath his skin. Recognized just how alone he was, even constantly surrounded by other people.
Because she was just as lonely.
He expected her to stop when she reached the window. Maybe drop her bra to the floor. Or crook her finger and silently tell him to come finish what they’d both started.
What he was too far gone to anticipate was for her to press her breasts right up against the window. The movement tugged at the already precarious edge of her bra giving him a peek at her nipples. Tiny buds hard and tight with the same desire running rampant through his own body. There was no denying she was just as turned on as he was.
He could read it in the desperate glow of her eyes, the flush of her skin and the languid, liquid way her body moved.
Her arms stretched wide out to her sides. She undulated, rolling her hips and ribs and spine in a way that begged him to touch.
And then the blind snapped down between them.
* * *
SAGGING AGAINST THE wall beside the window now covered by the wide slats of her plantation blinds, Alyssa Vaughn let her body slide down. The polished hardwood floor was cold on her rear when it hit, but she welcomed the shock. Maybe it would cool the sizzling tremble running rampant through her body.
She dropped her head to her knees and screwed her eyes shut.
What the hell had she been thinking?
She hadn’t. That was the problem.
The moment her eyelids closed, her overheated mind conjured up the image of him again. A beautiful man with dark, intense eyes that had scraped across her body with a blazing heat, leaving her breathless. Half of his face obscured by a brightly colored mask.
His body had been just as hidden beneath the dark lines of an expensive suit. But she’d known, instinctively, the fire and strength he harbored. Could see it in the flex of long, tapered fingers and bulge of thigh muscles against smooth fabric.
Dangerously elegant. Like the sleekest jungle cat, beautiful in its power, but deadly when provoked.
The man had stirred some force inside her. The way he’d watched her, gaze sharp and exquisitely intense, focused on every miniscule movement. As though there was nothing in the world for him right then except what she was showing. Nothing more important than what they were sharing.
Excitement and something much more dangerous flashed beneath her skin. A craving that went deeper than mere physical satisfaction. A need long buried. A hope long denied.
Sucking a hard breath through her teeth, Alyssa forced her arms to relax and drop away from their tight hold around her body. She raised her head and let it clunk against the wall. Staring up at the ceiling she’d painted a pale heather gray, she focused on breathing, slow and steady.
No harm done. She’d stopped before going too far. Before letting free that wild piece of herself she kept locked down tight. Always ignored.
A bra and boyshorts were no more revealing than most bathing suits. She hadn’t done anything wrong. So why was she struggling with a sickening mixture of guilt, exhilaration and dismay?
He had no idea who she was. It had been late, dark, with only a lamp on for light. He’d been wearing a mask and was ten feet away, lodged in the shadows. They could collide on the street and never know each other.
A moment of insanity. Mardi Gras madness. A release from the stress and pressure she’d been dealing with all day.
It was over. Or, at least, it would be once she dealt with the hum of residual sexual energy lodged squarely between her thighs.
And if, in the throes of passion when her defenses were weak, she imagined his heated gaze sweeping across her body, watching intently as she finished what he’d started, there was no way anyone else would ever know that—especially him.
2
THEY WERE DESPERATE. And that’s just how Beckett wanted them.
Unfortunately, so was he, although, even as he strode into their plush offices, he had no intention of letting V&D know that.
He needed their app. Would do anything to own it. It was the game changer. Something that would take his nightclubs from simply successful to infamous. Like Studio 54, he wanted Exposed to become a household name, the kind whispered with awe and envy.
He craved the notoriety, money and irrefutable proof that he was finally successful, his life stable. The familiar desperation tasted bitter in his mouth.
What a difference fourteen years could make. At eighteen he’d been kicked out of the massive mansion he’d called home, and the whiplash with which he’d lost everything had hurt. But not nearly as much as realizing his father didn’t give a damn about him.
Without a penny or any discernible skills, he’d floundered, imposing on friends, sleeping on couches, carrying what little his father had let him take in a garbage bag. But it had become clear that wasn’t a long-term solution.
He’d had no place to live. Had never held a job. It might not have sounded like a sob story to anyone else, but going a few days without anything to eat after having every meal provided on gold-rimmed plates had been a hell of a shock to the system.
The fake ID he’d used to get into clubs had been useful in convincing the owner of a seedy nightclub to give him a chance. He’d started out slinging drinks, but soon realized that wasn’t going to be enough.
Six months later he was managing the place, his natural charm and leadership skills taking over. Splitting the profits with a drunk who wasn’t coherent enough to realize what he was giving up hadn’t exactly been the stuff of lifelong dreams, but Beckett had socked away every penny until he’d had enough to open his own place.
It’d taken four
