Page 17 of After Hours

Romily seemed more than worth a few broken rules.

The taste of her alone was going to keep him going for a long, long time.

But they weren’t finished.

“Do you understand?” he asked her, in a steady voice, as if he wasn’t torturing himself already with all the things he wanted to do to her lovely little body.

She swallowed, her eyes big. “I keep thinking that I should object to this, but I’m already naked and I already…” Her eyes skated down to the front of his jeans, where he was even harder now. And where the fabric was damp from the way she had mouthed him through the denim. “And I was staring at you through the window. So I guess —”

“Romily.”

Her name was a command and her eyes immediately went wide. And stopped talking. She was that responsive.

She was perfect—but only if she wanted to be here.

“You want to go? Go.” He said it gently enough, but he meant it. “The only thing that I want holding you here is how badly youwant to know what it’s like to feel me so deep inside you that you can’t breathe. So badly that you’ll obey my rules, not because I’m a power-hungry douche but because they’ll make what we do that much better. If you don’t want that, you don’t have to stay. I’ll make sure you get home safe, no harm and no foul.”

Zachery saw the hint of ghosts in her eyes then, and he hated that. But he knew his way around ghosts. Better yet, he knew exactly how to exorcise them. So he waited, as her body quivered and he watched her battle her own instincts.

Her own fears.

Like the brave little thing he already knew she was.

“I want to stay,” she said, quietly. After a long while. And when he lifted a brow, her breath feathered out of her lips. She made a sound that was almost like a gasp, but she soldiered on. “I mean, I want you to fuck me. I want to come when and if you tell me. I want to obey.” Her eyes went shy, but she didn’t hide them. “I want all those things, Zachary.”

His name in her mouth, giving him that consent, was better than whole orgasms with other women. But he wasn’t going to think about that just then. Not if he wanted this to last, and he did.

He wanted to make this epic for her.

Maybe not only for her.

“Good girl,” he rumbled at her instead, keeping his voice dark, so he could watch the way she reacted to him.

Keeping her on edge.

He pushed away from the door at his back and he shifted her around with him, guiding her over to stand in the center of that big, wide window.

She was already trembling, and he knew it was need. He could smell it.

“I want you to look down at your life,” he told her as he held her there before the window. “When I’m inside of you, fuckingyou silly, I want you to think about the fact that nothing is ever going to be the same.”

He watched her take that in, watched her amber eyes widen and her throat move.

“Do you want it to be the same?” he asked.

She was already shaking her head. “No.”

Satisfied, he moved across the darkness of his living room and fished out a condom from the stash he kept in the side table. Because a wise man was always prepared to entertain, and sometimes he liked to use condoms with women he knew were clean like him, and protected besides, just to keep them guessing and unsure.

Games were games.

Zachary came back and stood in front of her so he was blocking the view, but he didn’t touch her. Not yet. He held her gaze as he reached down and shoved his jeans over his hips.

Then he took his cock in his fist, and rolled the condom down for a snug fit that he knew was going to help him get them where he wanted them to go. Because he had a feeling Romily was going to feel so good clenched tight around him that he’d want to empty himself inside her immediately this first time.

He really had wanted her for much too long.

“Once I fuck you,” he gritted out, “that’s the end of it. You got that, right?”

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