The Sweetest Taboo

by Alison Kent

  How could eyes colored so soft a green, burn with that crystal-sharp edge?

  The building elevator’s ambience added to the atmosphere of rich expectation. The dark paneled walls, the thick red and gold carpeting, the reflective ceiling of light. Each seemed yet another lush assault on her senses. There was barely enough air for the two of them to breathe.

  When they’d stepped inside, not having said a word on the way to the elevators from the mailroom, Erin had let Sebastian take the initiative. Let him take, what a laugh. He’d done exactly as he’d damn well pleased, stepping into the small space behind her and automatically pressing the button to his floor.

  She would’ve loved to sink beneath his weight into her own plush bed, to pull her quilt over their bodies and learn his touch in the private sanctuary of her bedroom. She could imagine the scent of candles burning, the smell of his exotically spiced skin, of his musky warm arousal, the low burning light reflected in his eyes.

  Yet, even more than any of those dark desires, she was dying to see his loft, to learn what she could about him from his possessions, his surroundings, the way he lived. She’d wondered for months now about the way he lived. But not half as much as she’d wondered about the way he made love.

  The elevator began its slow upward climb and Sebastian took a step forward, and then another. One more brought him within inches of where she stood and she curled her fingers into her fists. Both of his hands moved to the wall above her shoulders, a trap from which she had no desire to escape.

  What she had, instead, was a longing for his kiss.

  She lifted her chin, parted her lips and his head came down—but only to rub his cheek to hers, bristly skin chafing soft, even as he moved one hand from the wall to her shoulder and squeezed.

  The elevator rose higher. Sebastian’s hand drifted down, lower, lower still, pressing the flesh above her collarbone before moving to cup her breast. She pulled in a sharp hitch of a breath.

  He measured the weight and the fullness, skated the flat of his palm over her pebbled nipple, teasing her with a touch that held incredible promise. She shuddered where she stood, wanting to return the favor, to learn the feel of his body beneath his clothes.

  But she stood unmoving. Waiting. Her heart beating. Waiting. His warm breath against her neck sent a sweep of sensation to play over her skin. Shivers raised gooseflesh along her arms, prickling at her nape and her nipples tightened further.

  He grinned. She felt the movement of his lips even as he moved forefinger and thumb to lightly pinch and tug. She couldn’t help it. Desire rolled up from her belly and she groaned, the sound a murmured hum against his jawline where her mouth rested.

  He nuzzled his cheek to her lips as his hand slid lower, measuring her waist. Lower still, to the flat of her belly. And even lower, where his finger found the seam of her pants that ran between her legs and pressed upward, directly against her clit.

  She panted and whimpered and barely stopped herself from begging him to get down on his knees. What he did instead caused a missed beat to the rhythm of her heart, even while her blood ran hot and heavy in her veins. He released the button at her waistline, pulled her zipper down, all the while holding her upper body against the wall with the weight of his.

  His hand moved into her pants, his skin smooth, his aim sure, as his fingers breached the elastic band of her bikini panties, slipped down to find the plump lips of her sex and her clitoris tight and hard and aching. She nipped at his neck and her fingers gouged into the muscles of his shoulders. She shuffled her feet, opened her legs, allowed him access, lifting upward and…

  Oh, yes. Right there. He’d found the one spot, ooh, yes, there. She hitched her hip to the side. Sebastian’s finger, one at first, then two, slipped deep, deeper, filling her, withdrawing almost on her next breath, entering again to tease the soft pillow where sensation centered.

  He repeated each motion, fingering her like the pleasure was his more than it had ever been hers to enjoy. That thought, that realization that he loved what he was doing hit her hard, a strike on her too-vulnerable female emotions when she’d sworn to keep this encounter emotion free.

  Too late, her mind screamed even as her body went over the edge. She shuddered, shook, trembled, shivered, clutching whatever part of him she could find to hold on to. Unbelievable. Oh, oh, she couldn’t…oh, his hand, his fingers, big and thick, and she never wanted him to stop. Don’t stop, don’t ever stop. And the spasms continued, rocking her through an orgasm that threatened to buckle her knees and take her to the floor.

  Oh…my, she thought, slowly coming back down from a high chemicals could never produce, regaining her physical balance but certain the rest of her equilibrium would never again be so steady. He’d just fingered her to orgasm and they were standing in a bloody elevator, the doors wide open—though when that had happened she hadn’t a clue.

  Slowly, Sebastian withdrew his hand, his touch still intimately insistent as he pulled away from her sex, lingering along her plump lips, spreading juices to her clitoris as he circled the tiny pearl, wanting her to know what she’d done, what he’d done, that they were nowhere close to being finished.

  If anything about him truly scared her—Erin mused, as she adjusted clothing and brushed hair back from her face—it was the way he’d so thoroughly breached any defenses she’d had that she couldn’t remember if they’d been there to begin with.

  When had another man, any of the men she’d thought herself in love with, ever drawn this physical reaction from her?

  She’d certainly had her fair share of sex and probably more than her fair share of orgasms, she thought, accepting Sebastian’s hand at the small of her back as he stepped from the elevator and guided her down the hallway.

  She’d never been reticent to demand she get hers. And, yes. The drought had been ongoing for quite a long time, but that didn’t exactly explain what had just happened, the way she’d let go.

  Or why this man—this man with whom she wanted nothing but a physical relationship—had been the one to so boldly blow away any inhibitions she might’ve had and sweep her up into a wild affair.

  She was still working to collect her thoughts and her composure when they reached his front door. He pulled a remote entry key from his pocket, pressed the electronic combination and the lock clicked in response.

  Before he pushed the door open, however, he moved his hand from the small of her back, lifted his arm and hooked his elbow around her neck.

  He forced her head up, and the first shot of alarm skittered along her hairline, tiny pringles of uncertainty warning her to be on her guard. It wasn’t too late to back out. She’d run if she had to. She’d scream. She’d—

  “Erin.” He caught hold of her gaze, made certain he had her full attention before he said, “We can stop this. It’s not too late to stop this.”

  Wow. That certainly wasn’t what she’d expected. She almost didn’t know what to say in response, though she did feel an easing of her nerves. “I’m not too sure about that, Sebastian. Neither the mailroom nor the elevator will ever be the same.”

  He shook his head, his eyes sparkling beneath those dark-as-night lashes. “I’m not talking about the building. I’m talking about you. I don’t want you to regret…”

  “What we’ve done?” She wasn’t sure why he’d let the thought trail, but she needed him to know she was fine. And that she was fine with what they were doing. “I don’t regret a thing we’ve done.”

  He shook his head again and this time his hand moved to caress her neck, his finger traveling down her jugular to her neck and into the hollow of her throat. “I’m not talking about what we’ve done, but what we’re going to do.”

  The way he said it… The way he touched her… Erin couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t swallow. The look in his eyes wasn’t gentle. Neither was it kind, but demanding and predatory, fantastically hungry, wildly hot.

  What would happen, she wondered, if he were to lose control? If she told h
im she’d been waiting for weeks for what they were going to do? If she admitted she’d wondered what had taken him so long?

  But since she couldn’t find but the barest hint of a voice, she only managed to say,

  “Let’s go inside.”

  SEX OR NO SEX, bringing Erin Thatcher into his home was not the way to work the woman out of his system. He should’ve known that. After their kiss in the mailroom—the kiss a mistake he wouldn’t make again—he should’ve had the common sense to see her to her own front door and say good-night.

  But he hadn’t.

  Instead, after her explosive reaction to his touch in the elevator, he’d brought her straight to his front door. A door no one ever entered. And now he stood back and watched as she stepped over his well-guarded threshold and into Ryder Falco’s private domain.

  Sebastian wondered how long he would manage to keep his identity a secret. Or how long it would take him to lose the rest of his mind. Insanity was his only defense for allowing her to walk through his door and into his life.

  Insanity, and his dick that felt as if it would snap in half if he took another step. Then there were his balls that, by now, had to be an unholy shade of blue.

  He leaned back against the closed front door and watched as she studied his living space. He didn’t have a lot for her to see. A long, black leather sofa. A sound-systemintensive entertainment center. That was about it.

  The rest of the main room’s walls were lined with shelves that held hundreds, maybe thousands, of hardback volumes. He’d never been a paperback kind of guy. Especially not when he could afford to buy what he wanted whether he needed it or not. Bestsellers,

  classics,

  research books, his entire Ryder Falco backlist. The rolling library ladder currently sat parked beneath a section devoted to paranormal occurrences. Now he wondered if he might’ve done better studying up on how, when so many before her had tried and failed, one woman had managed to work her way into the core of his psyche. He really was a sick bastard, letting it happen.

  She moved into the room slowly, hesitantly, obviously unsure what she’d encounter. After all, she didn’t know a thing about him, other than the fact that he knew his way around the female body. He assumed that was the reason she was here. For the sex. He wasn’t going to fool himself into thinking she was here for him.

  No one had ever been here for him.

  “You don’t have a television.”

  Strange that that would be her first observation. “Nope. Not a set in the place.”

  “I don’t have one either. Well, there is one in Paddington’s office. I read.” She gestured around the room at his never-ending bookshelves. “Obviously not as much as you do,” she added with a laugh. “I belong to a reading group online. I love seeing how a handful of readers can hold so many opposing views on a book.”

  She was nervous. Funny. She hadn’t been the least bit jumpy in either the mailroom or the elevator. But now that they were here, now that he’d let her put what space she needed between them, she was nervous.

  “Yeah. I like books.” It was about all he could think of to say.

  The corner of her mouth quirked upward. “I noticed.”

  She slowly walked toward the closest shelves, scanning the titles, mouthing the words she read, frowning, smiling, enjoying her discoveries which drew the ball in his gut even tighter. Appreciating her silent enthusiasm came a little too close to getting into her mind. And it wasn’t her mind into which he wanted to find himself buried an hour from now.

  When she reached for a book to pull from the shelf, he pushed away from the door and made his way to her side. To her back, actually, hovering in a way he figured she’d respond to as threatening. His portrait on the back of his book jackets was shadowed and dim, but he didn’t want to take a chance on her pulling the copy of The Demon Takes a Lover from its slot on the next shelf above.

  For a moment she hesitated. Then she slid the book she’d removed back into its place. After that, she waited, her eyes drifting closed as she blew out a long breath that Sebastian took to mean she was ready. He lifted the strap of her backpack from her shoulder and set the heavy canvas tote on the floor. Then he settled his hands on her shoulders, replacing the weight of her backpack with the weight of his touch.

  She smiled, a gentle expression he felt in places he wasn’t supposed to feel a thing. And her eyes were still closed when she raised her hands to cover his there where they rested. “Are you going to show me the rest of your place?” she asked, turning in his arms as she did.

  He took a step away. Instinct told him she’d been but a moment from rising up for his kiss. The kiss in the mailroom had been calculated and of purpose. To gauge her intent and reaction, her willingness of body, her state of mind.

  But he’d succeeded on one or two of the levels because he’d been the one caught off guard. So, no more kisses for now. Not until he had a better handle on where she was coming from. “There’s not much left to see. Nothing more than the kitchen, the bedroom and the bath. And the cat,” he added, as Redrum skulked passed.

  Erin’s gaze followed the black cat until the arrogant fur ball disappeared into the kitchen. The she looked his direction again, a tiny smile tilting at the corner of her mouth.

  “I know this is going to sound strange, but I would kill for a hot shower before we, uh, do what you’ve promised we’re going to do.” She gave a small shrug. “It’s the bar. The smoke. And, yes. I sweat while I’m working.”

  He’d tasted her sweat there on her neck and caught the scent of smoke in hair that smelled of rich herbs. Both had been noticeable, but neither overpowering, appealing to his enjoyment of Erin as a woman.

  But the thought of seeing her naked under his shower appealed even more. She could never know how much.

  “That’s not a problem,” he said, gesturing toward the back of the loft. “And not even any killing involved.”

  “Well, my bark is really much worse than my bite,” she said and fell into step beside him.

  They avoided his dump of a kitchen and she didn’t say a word as she took in the state of his bedroom, the way he’d tossed his comforter up over his bottom sheet and called it making his bed. The pile of worn clothing he hadn’t yet taken to the laundry. The notebooks and papers and research texts scattered across his workstation that took up more room than the bed.

  A quick glance reassured him nothing she could see would reveal his identity. No, she remained silent, pensive, at least until she got her first look at his bathroom.

  Then her jaw totally dropped.

  It took her at least a full minute of looking around to find her voice, or to decide what it was she wanted to say. Sebastian understood her awe. He’d felt much the same speechless amazement when he’d finally seen the finished design of his dream the first time.

  She covered her mouth with both hands, shaking her head as she looked around the room of chrome and etched glass and black-flecked gray marble. The sleek, onyx floor had her toeing off her work shoes to indulge in the coolly sleek surface.

  “And I thought my bathroom decadent.” She shook her head. “This is amazing. No, hedonistic. I may never want to leave.” She ran the tip of one finger over the deep curve of a chrome faucet. “I have a thing about bathrooms, you know.”

  No. He didn’t know. He only knew that he did.

  She moved into the shower space and he shut the door behind him. The click of the latch echoed as always in the cavernous room, a sound he associated with solitude and safety. Never before had he chosen to share the ritual of his shower. And he had to push away the sharp clutch of awareness of that fact demanding explanation, why this woman, why here and now.

  An easy answer. Sex.

  Nothing less than sex. Certainly nothing more than exploring this rabid obsession.

  He moved away from the door, through the dressing room and past the vanity counters and into the shower’s main space. A sunken hot tub sat unused in one corner. For Sebast
ian, this room was all about pulsing jets of hot spray beating down from all sides.

  And now it was about Erin Thatcher, to see how far he could take her, to see how far she would go. And, once shed of clothes and inhibitions, to see if they could fuck themselves free of the connection they shared—a hot, biting arc of shocking awareness getting in the way of his life.

  ERIN TOOK A DEEP BREATH and, hands clenched, turned to face him. She watched while he pulled off boots and socks, tossing the lot halfway across the room. She watched while he reached for the hem of his navy blue Henley pullover and tugged it off. She watched while he freed the button fly of his jeans and skinned the denim down his legs.

  Finally, he stood wearing boxer briefs, black, with a pouch that cupped the soft sac of his balls yet barely held the swollen length of his cock.

  She wondered how hard a human heart could actually beat in response to arousal. How fast blood could rush to the parts of her body responding to the gorgeous vision of this near naked man standing not four feet away.