Page 111 of Inflame

“Quit holding back.”

“I’m not going to make our first time be in a freaking cramped car.” We aren’t teenagers, for fuck’s sake.

“Well, you better figure something out, because I’m horny.”

A growl escapes my lips, as I frantically try to get my brain to do more than mentally undress her. “I’m driving you back to my place.”

“I’m not going to stop you.”

I snap on my belt, shift to drive, and pull out of the parking spot, heading toward my place as Claire’s words replay in my head. I should take her anywhere else, but yet I don’t have it in me to let her go tonight. I want her warmth in my sheets. I want her smell to be on every inch of my space. The fantasy of losing myself inside her body has been a craving that I can’t shake.

I help her out of her side of the car and use my key fob to open the main door of my building and then the fob again to get through the second security entrance. Claire is fidgeting at my side, as I wave to the front desk attendant. I can hear her sighs and quickened breaths. She is nervous, yet excited.

The elevator takes us up to the top where my apartment takes up the entire floor. It is much smaller than Graham’s place but still the biggest unit in the building. I unlock the door and help her inside my entryway. We both toe off our damp shoes, leaving them in a pile near the closet.

Claire looks good in my space. It feels different inviting her back here. No woman has ever been here before, since I moved back to Portland. I have made it my mission to only have relations at hourly rate hotels or the woman’s place. That way I don’t have to ask them to leave. I just walk myself out when I feel like it. It’s cleaner that way.

I have served my needs well, but seeing Claire dripping wet on the tiled floor, with her red dress stuck to every crevice of her body, makes me want for more. I am worried that if I have her once, it won’t be enough. That I am essentially submitting myself to a mind fuck that the only way out of is to make her mine.

But I know I’m not capable of being the man she deserves. Women like Claire want the clichéd life and the happily ever after. And with me, it is always thenever after.

That has been my motto. And my choices always reflect that guarantee of not mucking up the waters. Yet, there isn’t a single force outside of death that will keep me from her right now.

I couldn’t walk away even if I tried.

Claire examines every inch she can see of my home, and her opinion suddenly matters to me on what she thinks of my place.

“Understated and functional. But yet still very classy. I like it.”

“Glad you approve. My floors will look amazing with your clothes on them.”

She turns around and huffs out a laugh. “Oh yeah, the whole purpose for me being here,” she says, sauntering over to me.

“This is one hundred percent your idea,” I remind. “So you’re not allowed to hate me.”

Claire is hard to read when it comes to sex. What I saw of her in the hotel at the Bellagio was not a good representation for what she can offer. She was with a douchebag, and he was doing everything in his power to degrade her. No woman ever deserves how she was treated, and my role in that whole shitstorm is something I have to live with forever.

“Come,” I say, leading her inside farther. The owner before me was the artist type and added several features to the rooms that were modern. When I bought it from her, I left a lot and paid for some of the abstract wall art and custom furnishings to stay.

Claire stops in front of an imaginative painting of Portland. I can tell she is deep in thought as she takes in the colors. My hands wrap around her, and I kiss her neck softly. She is trembling in her wet clothes, and I scold myself inwardly for not setting the thermostat higher to compensate.

“You are freezing,” I say, just as a shiver runs through her.

She turns in my arms. “Then warm me up. I am starting to think you are all talk.”

My hands move down to her ass cheeks, and I squeeze them so tight that she yelps from the shock of it. She is baiting me. She wants me to lose my control. Problem is, she doesn’t know yet how scary that can be if I do.

I’m demanding and value the release sex gives. I push my partners to the brink and teeter them on the edge of too much, just to test their limits. But I always—always—leave them satisfied.

“Once I start,” I say looking down at her, “I’m going to push you to your limits. I want you to be sure this is the path you want to continue on. You still have time to back out.”Before the big bad wolf gets you.

Her eyes heat and she nods her approval. “I’m sure.”

“Good.”

I hoist her up in my arms and her body molds to mine. I carry her down the hall, into my massive master bedroom. I walk toward the fireplace and hit the remote to start the flames. I then carry her back over to the area rug, set her on her feet, and strip her down to nothing. Every article is peeled off her skin and discarded.

Her dress.

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