Scandalize Me

by Caitlin Crews

  When she reached the second level, she shifted slightly to look over her shoulder, and he grinned at her.

  Hot and certain. Fallen angels and a thousand sins in that searing blue gaze, and she felt it like a blow. Like a lick of fire, trailing from her shoes up the length of her spine, burning her alive where she stood.

  “Keep going,” he said in that same low, growly way, that made her body clench and then flood with more of that exquisite heat.

  He was a few steps below, one hand on the rail and one hand braced against the stair above his head, and she had the dizzying notion that he was doing that deliberately—to keep his hands off her.

  For now.

  As if he wasn’t sure he could control himself if he didn’t.

  Zoe turned away from him and swallowed hard against her pounding pulse, her growing inability to breathe. Her limbs felt heavy, weighed down with that same fire, and she wanted nothing more than to simply let herself burn.

  Instead, she kept moving. She kicked off one ankle boot, then the next, smirking at the greedy sound he made when she did.

  “Everyone likes a Cinderella fantasy,” she murmured. “Even the most hated man in New York, it seems.”

  “Does that make me—?”

  “Prince Charming? Hardly.”

  “I’m remarkably charming. Nine out of ten tabloids agree.”

  “I’ve seen absolutely no evidence to support that.”

  “Would you like me to prove to you how charming I am?” His voice was smooth and closer than it should have been, his breath fanning against her ear, the exposed skin at her neck, and she had to fight to keep from shivering. From melting. From surrendering then and there. “All you have to do is reach behind you, and I’ll charm you all you like.”

  Zoe laughed, amazed it came out so throaty, so full. Sex and desire, right there in the sound, as naked as if she was helpless beneath him, spread open to his touch. As powerful as if she knew what she was doing with this, with him, with this pointed flirtation that could end only one way.

  It was almost as if she was doing this simply because she wanted to do it. As if she really did want him this much.

  The novelty of that crazy notion made her sway on her feet and, deeply off-balance, she went with it, holding on to the rail for support as she turned to look down at him again, now only a single step behind her. Big and hard and blocking her retreat.

  Weakness was bad, she told herself, no matter what kind. It shouldn’t feel so good, so deliciously feminine, as if this kind of breathlessness was a good thing. Hot. Encompassing. As if she might never breathe fully again, thank God.

  “There are better uses for you than shoe retrieval, I think.” She told herself she was trying to sound like that, sexy and alluring. That it wasn’t simply how she sounded when he was this close to her, making all her senses go haywire.

  He smiled, and it was edged with a dark intent she felt against her skin, sensual and stark, then deep inside, like a harder, deeper ache. The air around them—between them—felt thick. Sultry. Humid with this need, this pulsing desire, that made her feel real. Real. Flesh and blood, filled with yearning and capable of longing, like anyone else. That was what he did to her.

  That might be the death of her.

  Then again, that traitorous part of her whispered, dying might be a small price to pay. Hunter might be worth it.

  It didn’t matter what she felt, she reminded herself fiercely then, astonished at herself. It mattered what he felt, and she had to be prepared to manipulate that—and to handle it when he forgot her the moment he turned over and went to sleep. To use that.

  This was all part of the plan.

  “Unzip me,” she ordered him then, presenting him with the hidden zipper at her side by lifting one arm up over her head, very slowly, with a deliberately sinuous grace designed to make him as wild as she felt.

  She thought he froze for a second, but she must have imagined it, because when he reached for her, his hands were as steady as all those dark promises in his deep blue gaze. The feel of his hands against her was a torture, a gift. She forced herself not to react when his fingers brushed gently over the skin he exposed as he tugged her zipper down to her hip, though deep inside, she cracked and shattered.

  Soon there’d be nothing left of her but rubble.

  But she could hide that, she knew. She could hide anything.

  “Thank you,” she said with a deep calm she didn’t feel at all. “Remember when you promised to be my willing slave? Now’s your chance to prove it.”

  That smile of his went wolfish and her breath deserted her in a rush.

  “Keep walking,” he said, “and I’ll prove any number of things.”

  She believed him.

  Zoe turned away, panic mixing with that terrible excitement inside her.

  She started up the stairs again, but something had changed. Everything felt brittle, now. Taut. Fragile. Or she did. She ignored it all resolutely, gritting her teeth and peeling her dress down as she climbed. Inch by inch she took it off, slowly revealing herself to him as she took the last curve of the spiral that delivered her directly into the master bedroom that sprawled across the entire top level of the penthouse.

  Where she couldn’t help herself. She stopped dead.

  It was like a chapel. The room was three sides glass and a huge steeple of even more glass above, arching up high over the dark wood floors and the central altar at the heart of it: his bed. It sat on a black dais raised a farther three wide steps up from the floor, massive and commanding, sleek and somehow primitively masculine all at once.

  There was nothing else. There was only that carnal bed and the crisp winter night on all sides, just there on the other side of the glass, making her feel almost as if she had vertigo—as if she’d tipped over the side of the world and was free-falling straight out into the sky.

  Zoe thought wildly of cavemen and their pallets, wolves and their dens, as if Hunter really had dragged her off by her hair to this place, where the only color at all was on that bed, a pile of rich browns and deep reds that made her think of furs. Of sex and unwavering, irrevocable possession. Of the kind of brands that didn’t mark the skin, but left scars all the same. Of a thousand things she shouldn’t—didn’t—want.

  Of course she didn’t.

  But deep inside her, she felt shivery and too hot, a trembling and a liquid kind of weakness. The urge—the need—to simply spread herself out before him like a sacrifice to whatever ancient, unknowable deity it was who commanded this stark room, who understood the things that moved in her. That yearning to surrender and the longing to let go, to submit to whatever he might do to her however he might do it because she’d like it, too. That unprecedented desire to give in, at last, as if that meant safety instead of unbearable risk.

  She wasn’t afraid of him, she realized in a blinding flash of painful, shocking insight. She was afraid of herself. She was terrified of the things she wanted, that she’d never known she could want until right now.

  But this wasn’t about want. It was about revenge.

  “Your groupies must love this room,” she said, to remind herself of reality. Who he was, what this was.

  He laughed, a low rumble of sound that she felt like a caress. “The groupies don’t make it past the first floor. I have some standards.”

  Zoe let her dress fall to her feet before she could think better of it—and because she didn’t want to think about the implications of what he’d said. She kicked the dress aside, moving briskly toward that huge, staggeringly male bed, pretending with all her might that it didn’t get to her. That it was simply a bed.

  That he was only a man.

  This is only one night, she reminded herself. A handful of hours, at most, even if Hunter hadn’t kissed her in that bar like a man who would rush t
hrough this, or anything else. Anyone could handle one night.

  She knew that better than most.

  “I suppose this will do,” she said then, her voice clipped. Strained with all her false courage. She tried to wrench back the control she’d claimed she wanted so badly, thinking that might at least contain some of the damage. “Let me tell you how this works. I think I’ll have you start on your knees again, facing the—”

  “Zoe.”

  She didn’t want to stop, but she did. She didn’t want to turn to face him, but she did that, too. She had to do it. She had to prove he wasn’t getting to her. She had to make sure he knew exactly how little this was affecting her—

  But when she looked at him, it was like a blow. Hard and swift. Ruthless. She swayed on her feet again and for a terrifying moment thought she might actually topple over—but she caught herself.

  Hunter looked like a stranger. Or more like himself, perhaps, than he’d been in all the time she’d known him, which made that terrifying longing creep through her again, then spread out, taking root deep inside. He was so powerful, so male. Strong and sure and focused on her with that brilliant, consuming heat. The city on the other side of that expanse of glass, the lights and bridges stretching out in all directions, swirled away and became part of that fire in his gaze, stamped hard on his face.

  It occurred to her that she was as good as naked—worse than naked, really. She knew exactly what she looked like, standing there in nothing at all but two strips of provocative black lace. The strapless bra above and a pair of saucy boy shorts below that, despite their name, were entirely and decidedly feminine.

  He’d been right when he’d accused her of using her body as a weapon. She’d honed hers to lethal perfection deliberately. She knew exactly how to package it, how to aim it, to get what she wanted.

  If only he wasn’t looking at her as if he held all the ammunition.

  “I want—” she began, but everything was too hot. Behind her eyes, in that uncontrollable shaking in her knees, in that fever that had taken over her belly, her sex, shooting sensation into her fingers until they clenched on the need to touch him.

  Hunter prowled toward her, sleekly male and not entirely tame and possibly the most glorious creature she’d ever beheld. He never took his eyes from hers. He never broke.

  And Zoe had never felt more like prey in all her life.

  Or more beautiful.

  “Hunter...” she whispered.

  His mouth looked hard and demanding as it crooked to one side. And his name sounded in the too-hot air between them like an invocation to that terrible god of his that would, she knew, destroy whatever was left of her.

  She knew she should care about that. That it should make her run the way she had in her office that day. But she didn’t move.

  He closed the distance between them, then took her upper arms in his tough hands, hauling her to him. He wasn’t gentle, and despite herself, despite that desperate part of her that knew better than to let this happen, it thrilled her.

  Her breasts pressed against the planes of his impressive chest. At last. Her belly was soft against the unmistakable jut of his arousal. Finally. And he was built so big, so strong, all those heavy muscles and smooth, hard planes, like a fantasy of a man made real. He surrounded her.

  He’s seducing you, that treacherous voice whispered.

  Zoe tipped her head back and reminded herself that she couldn’t let this happen. Not like this, not all on his terms. That the price she’d have to pay wasn’t worth whatever brief moments of fire and awe she might—

  “I have an idea,” he said, in that guttural way of his that felt like another punch, directly into the center of her need. Shock waves vibrated out, teasing her aching nipples, making her breasts feel heavier. Making her skin prickle, too hot and too tight. “How about you stop playing these stupid games?”

  “I’m not playing!” None of this felt even a little bit like playing.

  “I appreciate the noble sacrifice of your lush little body to my savage needs,” he said, and though his voice was still low, she heard that dark amusement in it that, even now, sparked in her. “But I want you needy, too. I want it real.” His fingers flexed against her shoulders. It showered her in dancing flames and lightning bolts, and she trembled. He nodded. “I want this.”

  “No, you don’t.” Her voice was bitter then. Hardly hers at all. Pouring straight out of her past, and she couldn’t seem to do a single thing to stop it.

  He took one hand to her face, cradling her cheek in a manner she might have called tender, had that been possible. As it wasn’t, she concentrated instead on the heat of it. The singe, the burn. Hunter.

  “I insist on it,” he said softly.

  “Men prefer fantasy. No matter what. No matter what contortions of reality are required to make it work.” She felt outside herself, then. Harsh and out of control. “It’s the only thing you know how to do.”

  “Zoe.”

  She could have handled another command. But not her name, not like that, breathed out like a prayer. As if he’d heard that roughness behind her words, sensed the prick of tears behind her eyes. As if he knew the dark and terrible things in her she’d never share, not with anyone.

  If anything should have made her bolt for the door, it was that. And yet she only stood, his hand cupping her cheek, his spectacular body pressed to hers, staring up at him as if this was something more than a means to an end.

  “Let’s get naked,” he suggested, that gleam in his blue gaze turning molten, setting her ablaze, and she couldn’t bring herself to fight how deep it went, how dangerous it was, how she thought it might be breaking her apart in ways she didn’t know how to fix. “And see what happens.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer; he simply picked her up. He settled her legs around his waist and took her mouth with his, one hand at the back of her head, the other hard on her bottom.

  He was demanding. Untamed.

  And that shock of electricity and a kind of primitive recognition she didn’t want to acknowledge resonated inside her, catapulting her out of her head and the past at last—and directly into the fire.

  His fire.

  And Zoe let herself burn.

  * * *

  Yes, Hunter thought, and took her.

  Her mouth, hot and sweet, clever and sharp and his, like the finest wine he’d ever tasted. His hands in her hair, tumbling the black silken mess of it down from the elegant twist that hid it away. That wild spice of her desire against his tongue, her tight curves wrapped around his body, incandescent and addictive—

  Yes.

  He felt as if he’d wanted her forever. As if he’d never wanted anything but this and never would. Zoe, her wicked mouth meeting his, daring him, challenging him even now.

  And he couldn’t get enough. He couldn’t taste her enough, he couldn’t get close enough. Finally, he wasn’t frozen. He wasn’t numb. He felt everything and he wanted more. He wanted.

  Again and again, until they were both sated.

  Yes.

  She laughed then, a husky, inflamed sound, and he realized he’d spoken out loud.

  But it penetrated that tight fist of need that held him in a vise. Hunter set her down on her feet, then smiled, and he could feel the edge in it. He saw her dark gray eyes widen slightly, heard her breath come harder.

  Perhaps a better man wouldn’t revel in that. But he did.

  He moved toward her, backing her up, herding her toward the absurd monstrosity of a bed that dominated the room. Zoe swallowed convulsively, audibly, but she went. Slowly. Never taking her eyes from his.

  He liked that, too.

  Hunter pulled his shirt off with one hand, impatient with the split second he lost sight of her beneath the fabric. He reached down and unbuttoned his trousers,
then forgot about them, because they’d reached the first step that led to his bed.

  “Don’t trip,” he said, and his voice sounded like a stranger’s in the thick silence. Rough and hot.

  “Don’t let me fall,” she retorted, a flash of her usual fire moving over those flushed cheeks of hers, and Hunter grinned.

  She was his. All of her. At last.

  No masks. Only Zoe.

  He didn’t think he’d ever let her go.

  “I’ll pick you right back up again,” he told her, and it should have alarmed him, how deeply he meant that. How far it went. But her eyes were like the sea after a long winter’s rain, and he wanted her. “I promise.”

  He reached over and wrapped his hands around her hips, easily picking her up and setting her against the edge of the high mattress. He didn’t join her on the dais. He leaned forward instead, kneeling down and pulling her long, smooth legs over his shoulders as he wedged himself between them.

  “Remind me,” he said then. “How did you want me to kneel? Like this?”

  She muttered something that sounded like a prayer, or maybe it was his name.

  “I’m not going to stop,” he warned her, and felt her shudder against him. “I’m going to drown in you, and then I’m going to do it again. And again. Until I’ve had my fill.”

  She said something else, fervent and low and unintelligible. She was like a sensual banquet before him, her black hair a tangle around her head, her creamy skin flushed with desire, two scraps of erotic black lace framing that perfect body of hers, and all of it his.

  “And I’m warning you, Zoe. That might take a while. I’m a greedy bastard.”

  She made a sound that was more like a sob. Hunter laughed.

  He smoothed his hands up her silken thighs, drinking in each shiver, each tensing motion she made against him, around him. The black lace she wore was killing him, so sexy against her trim curves, her sweet skin. He could smell lavender again, and it made him even harder than he already was, bordering on desperate. She moved against him, against the bed, still making those noises that weren’t quite words. Needy and mindless, and he was just getting started.