me,” he said, tearing off his clothes, then tackling her skirt. She lifted her hips to help him and soon she was down to white panties, through which he could see her soft hair. When he tugged off the thin fabric, she gasped, then smiled, wiggling against him.
What next? He wanted to kiss and lick and stroke her everywhere at once. First, he had to make sure they were protected, so he reached beyond her to the nightstand, praying what condoms remained hadn’t passed their use-by date.
Grasping a loose foil square, he checked. Score. He waved it at her.
“I’m on the Pill,” she said. “And healthy. If you are, too, maybe we don’t need that.”
“Sounds good.” He tossed the condom onto the nightstand and smiled down at her. They’d slipped into an easy familiarity that made sex seem the natural next step.
She ran her hands down his arms, and he slid his hands across her ribs, along the curve of her hip to her thigh, enjoying her warmth, the shakiness of her breath, her smooth skin. Then he reached his target. Watching her face, he gently brushed the unbelievably swollen softness of her folds.
She gasped and cried out, lunging at him, lifting her hips, asking for more. Blood pounded in his cock. “You’re so wet,” he breathed, letting his fingers slide in and out with silky ease.
“I know. I can hardly believe this is happening,” she said, her eyes shining with a trust he wanted to be worthy of. She took little gasping sips of air, swept away on sensation.
“Me, either,” he said. He prided himself on being rational, self-sufficient and in control, but all that was out the window at the moment.
She stroked his cock with diabolical fingers, arousing him nearly blind. Everything he did made her moan and writhe, as though she hadn’t been touched in a long time. As though she didn’t expect to be touched again for even longer. They were like hungry animals together.
“We’ve got all the time we need,” he breathed in her ear, thinking they should slow down before something snapped, but Chloe was having none of that.
“Did you forget who the birthday girl is?” She shot him a look full of fire and determination and gripped his cock with both hands like she expected to steer him somewhere.
Anywhere you want, babe, he thought, while she straddled him on her knees, then lowered herself, sending him deep into her tight, wet heat. Damn, that felt good.
“Oh. My.” She blinked, startled, it seemed, to find herself in this position.
“You feel good,” he said to reassure her, squeezing her butt cheeks with both hands, lifting and lowering her slowly.
“Mmm, I do. I do feel good.”
He brushed her clit with a thumb and she shivered and began to wriggle in a slow circle. “Slow is nice, too,” she said, smiling in soft surprise.
“Slow is great.” Slow gave him time to memorize how she looked above him, her breasts swaying, lips swollen and parted, eyes dazed with arousal, time to enjoy being buried to the hilt in her warmth.
She swiveled her hips, making him want to pump into her, catch the wave of release, but he resisted, forced himself to stay slow and easy, to let it build.
He stroked her clit, enjoying her cries and moans, the way she threw her head back in pleasure, the way her body responded to him. She sped up and so did he. She was close…closer.
She made a little sound and her eyes flew open as she stiffened, then shuddered into a climax. He held her hips, steadying her, then released himself, flying free of everything but her body. They shook for long seconds, moving, making sounds, shivering and bucking. When she was finished, she fell onto his chest. “That was great,” she panted. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” he said as he had when she first kissed him, chuckling as he wrapped his arms around her. He was Mr. Lucky, all right. Lucky he’d gone to Enzo’s for dinner. Lucky he’d left his phone. Lucky Chloe had her eye on him.
It was no doubt a bad idea to sleep with a hostess at the Chicago mobster’s restaurant. Supposedly, Enzo had retired from his vending-machine business when he moved to sunny Arizona with his second wife and kids, but wiseguys always kept their beak in, Riley knew.
He himself had been part of busts with other Sylvestris—fraud with a charitable trust, drug smuggling at a strip joint and a knitting shop, of all places.
Surely the sweet woman in his arms knew nothing of her boss’s evil deeds, despite the fact that the man had been smack-dab in the middle of her birthday dinner. Just this once, Riley would hope for the best.
2
WHEN CHLOE OPENED HER EYES, she found herself looking between Riley’s fingers like they were the bars of a cell where she’d been locked away by the slut police.
She’d just slept with a man she knew nothing about except that he preferred booths to tables and was great in bed.
She’d been wild, too, carrying on like a porn star, except none of her moans had been fake. Remembering, she got a queasy stomach and a pounding head she couldn’t blame on champagne.
She’d made that birthday promise, right? Except it was to ask him out, not to screw his brains out. She’d gone too far. Having more fun and being free did not equal mindless sex with a near stranger.
How mortifying. She gently lifted Riley’s hand from her face to check the old-fashioned alarm clock ticking noisily on his nightstand—3:00 a.m. She had to get home.
She hoped her father hadn’t waited up for her. He’d only made a cameo at her party, since she’d insisted he go to his favorite AA meeting. He went to bed early, so hopefully he hadn’t noticed she hadn’t returned. She should have called. It had been the champagne, the birthday candles. And the man.
Oh, the man.
There he lay beside her, naked, tan and muscular, half-covered by white sheets that smelled of laundry soap and the spicy cologne he wore. She sighed. If she had to go wild and throw herself at a guy, at least she’d snagged a good one.
He’d made her slow down and enjoy what they were doing. Are you sure? he’d asked her more than once. He’d even offered her coffee to clear her head. Surely he hadn’t thought she was drunk. There had been no stopping her. The new Chloe had broken free, seized her sexual power, gone for it.
The old Chloe woke up mortified by her actions, worrying about her father, wondering what Riley thought of her. Did he think she was a slut? He wouldn’t say so, but she might read it in his eyes and she couldn’t bear that. How could she face him at Enzo’s again? She had to escape before he awoke.
The new Chloe would have teased him awake with a blow job. The old Chloe had to get out fast.
She slid out of bed with great care. The still-sleeping Riley reached for her, so she pushed a pillow over and he settled into a cuddle. For a sec, she wanted to crawl back into bed with him, but what was the point? She’d had her new Chloe moment. Enough for now. She grabbed her scattered clothes, then got on her knees to hunt a missing shoe.
She’d kicked it across the
