Page 48 of Pure Seduction (Chamberlin Brothers 1)

“It’s beautiful,” Laurel said reverently as she walked ahead of me to get a closer look.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She chuckled. “Just never on my own like this, where I could really drink it all in. Usually I’m surrounded by guests and working. But tonight feels”—as I came up behind her, she glanced back at me—“different.”

“Different?” I brushed her hair aside and pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “Different as in good?”

The sound of her breathing increased as she tilted her head to the side, granting me further access.

“Different as in… I feel like we’re the only two people in the world right now.”

“Hmm.” I flicked my tongue over her earlobe. “Tonight, we can be. You wanted private—it doesn’t get much more private than this.”

Before I did something stupid, like give in to my baser urges, I moved beside her and gestured to the table, where two place settings had been made. “Where would you like to sit?”

The flush on her cheeks made me think she was on the same page I was, because the only place I wanted her was naked on my lap.

“Um, how about the head of the table.”

I swept my hand out toward the seat she’d indicated. “By all means.”

Laurel went to take her seat, but on her way to the end, she stopped and looked back at me. “Please tell me Pete and the waitstaff aren’t down here.”

I laughed at the sudden panic in her eyes and thought it a testament to how caught up she was in the moment that it hadn’t occurred to her until now to ask who had made the food we were about to eat.

“No one is down here but us.”

“Then how—”

“I asked Pete to prepare the food in advance. He finished and left not long ago. I have instructions for any reheating that’s needed.”

“Oh my God. He could’ve—”

“Uh uh, stop worrying.” I walked over to her and pressed a finger to her lips. “I told him I was trying to impress a potential new buyer from a couple towns over. He’s none the wiser.”

“But—”

“No one knows you’re here. Your secret is safe.” When she visibly relaxed, I continued, “I have to admit, though, I kind of like being your dirty little secret.”

When I removed my finger, Laurel licked at her lips, and it took everything I had not to dive in for a taste of my own.

“Who said anything about it being a dirty secret?”

I grinned and brushed by her. “I did. Now, why don’t you take a seat, and I’ll be back in a minute. Oh, and Laurel?”

“Yes?”

“I hope you brought your appetite. Because I’m starving.”

After a final look at her standing there, I disappeared into the kitchen.

24

Laurel

I NEED TO calm down.

My heart was racing a mile a minute as I sat in the most stunning dining hall I’d ever been in. The wine cellar caves at Chamberlin were an extravagant feat of both engineering and opulence.

We’d hosted every kind of event imaginable down here. From weddings, to corporate donor meetings, to elaborate dates that cost an arm and leg. But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined myself in any of those scenarios with the man who had just disappeared inside the kitchen.

When Noah had asked me to dinner tonight, I’d fully expected him to drive us a couple of towns over, where we could eat a nice meal and no one within a ten-mile radius would know us.

I’d never expected this, and it was making me anxious. This was the kind of date you took a woman on to show her how much you loved her, or even more alarming, to propose to her. Not to reunite with an old flame for one night, so the two of you could satisfy an ache that had resurfaced with his arrival back in town.

But as I sat at the end of the colossal table in such a breathtaking setting, the full magnitude of where I was and whom I was with hit me like a ton of bricks.

Stop it. You gave yourself one night, so take it. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, trying to calm myself. But all that managed to do was fill my senses with the delicious cologne that clung to the collar of Noah’s jacket.

Lifting my shoulder, I couldn’t help but rub my cheek against the expensive material, and when the fresh aquatic scent enveloped me and mixed with the woody and spicy undercurrents, it created a sinful heat low in my stomach that curled its way down and seemed to stoke something between my thighs.

My mind wandered back to the lobby where Noah had all but made me come, and I knew it wouldn’t take much to finish the job now. My body was strung tight—he’d made sure of that with every word, touch, and look he gave. He’d called this a game, and, in a way, he was right. We both knew where this was going, but we were each trying to make the other crack first.

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