Page 23 of Hush Money

He blinks and clears his throat. “Ah, yeah. Sure.”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Tamsyn.” There’s a new resonance in his voice. Almost a hum of pleasure. “You can do and have anything you want.”

The steady warmth of his gaze triggers the familiar sparkling sensation deep inside me and makes my cheeks hot. “You seem more relaxed. That drink is doing you good.”

“It’s not the drink. It’s your smile.” Self-deprecating laugh. “I’m living for it. I have been since I met you. More so now.”

I give myself a silent but stern reminder that he’s a married man in a messy situation. That the two of us are cooling it while he extricates himself from his wife. That I’m not the kind of woman who could live with herself if she had sex with a married man. But when he looks at me like that, there’s only one possible response. And that’s what comes out when I open my mouth.

“Same.”

He drops his feet and sits up straight, setting his drink down and reaching for me. I reach for him, my breath hitching as our palms slide across each other. As our fingers lace and unlace, the heat builds between us.

“You think it’s easy, Ms. Scott? Keeping my hands to myself?”

As always, all that blazing intensity does a number on me. “You’re not very good at it, are you?” I say with a pointed glance at our hands.

“No. So why are you forcing me to do it?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do for now?”

“Fuck that.”

Have you ever been attacked by the sexiest man alive before? Ever had him make a growling sound as he swoops in on you with relentless hands, glittering eyes and a face that’s set with determination? Ever had him lick his way so deep into your welcoming mouth that you lose track of where you end and he begins? That you don’t care?

I have.

It’s the experience of a lifetime.

I’m ashamed of how much I want him and how little I care about his wife in that overheated moment. I want to tell him no, but in what world would that happen? It’s so much easier to have a strong moral compass when his touch isn’t making my equilibrium spin.

We grapple for each other as he eases me back a little. I palm his face. He palms my breasts. I reach for his hard shoulders to pull him closer. He reaches for the hem of my skirt and breaks the kiss so he can watch me melt down as he runs his hand up my inner thigh.

“Are you going to lie and tell me you want me to stop?” he says, his skilled fingers inching under my panties and grazing my pussy as he nips my lower lip. “Huh?”

“We should stop,” I say, struggling to get the words out around my rising moans.

“You fucking hypocrite,” he says as he strokes my slick cleft before sucking his wet fingers into his mouth. “That’s not what I asked you, is it?”

“No,” I say, gasping as he reaches down again and zeroes in on my clit.

“Did you forget that I own this hot little pussy? Did you think I forgot?”

I’d laugh at the absurdity of the questions if only he’d let me breathe. Just for one second. But there’s no room for breath. Not with all the spiraling sensations high up between my thighs and this overwhelming pleasure streaking toward me on greased rails. “No.”

“Nothing changes between us. No matter what. Nothing.”

He punctuates that final nothing by pressing his fingers down hard against my sweet spot and keeping them there. The orgasm zigzags through me, making my hips pump and my toes curl as my body arches for him.

There’s a soft but triumphant laugh. At least, I think there is. Hard to know for sure with my world fading to black as I ride it out. He presses a kiss to my forehead then slips away, leaving me to wallow in the ecstasy and shame as I hastily sit up and adjust my clothes. My eyes open and refocus just in time to see him shoot me a pointed and don’t forget it look over his shoulder as he helps himself to some hand sanitizer on the bar. He’s got an enormous erection tenting the front of his pants.

I focus on smoothing my skirt, cheeks burning?—

The muffled sound of a buzzing phone makes everything worse. But the timing is perfect because I need this reminder of the outside world, and not a moment too soon. “Oh my God. I don’t know what I’m doing. This is so wrong.”

He stiffens and runs his hands over the top of his head as his phone buzzes again, frustration radiating off him in waves. “Tamsyn…”

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