Page 73 of The Tallest Tower (Underbelly Enchanted)

“Well…” I bring the wine up and chug half in one go. “I said you couldn’t leave. I didn’t actuallyphysicallystop you.”

“You made this home a prison!”

“I told you it was a prison. But the doors were never locked.” My lips curl into a smile, though I don’t feel the mirth they imply. “I’m not my father. I will not rape you. I’m not even sure I could beg you to stay.”

Finally, I turn to her. To find her, to see her. I’m a weak man, and my heart longs to look into her eyes.

I startle when she stands a mere three feet from me, and not the thirty feet I was expecting.

“Jesus.” I blow out a heady breath and set the wine down. “I figured you’d be out the door already.”

“Why won’t you beg me to stay?” She’s a vixen, her golden gown glittering under the candlelight, and her seductive eyes, challenging mine, when so few others do. “A woman wants to be begged, Felix.”

“And I want to be wanted.” I take out a dining chair and sit with a huff.

I’m tired. Mentally, I’m exhausted. And I’ll be fucked if I give my soul to a woman who has to be tied down and forced to stay.

“You can leave now.” I flick my wrist toward the door and drop my legs open. I’ll be sitting here awhile. Finishing the bottle of merlot and drowning my sorrows when I’m forced to sleep alone tonight. “You’re welcome back anytime.” I tilt my head her way and look her delicious body up and down. “Come back,” I repeat. “Anytime.”

“I want to stay tonight.” She closes the gap between us and lowers onto my lap. Her firm ass resting on my thigh, and her sultry smile beckoning the devil to do an angel’s bidding.

Twisting, she forces me to support her miniscule weight, and bringsher hands up to cup my face. “What would you do with me, Malone, if we had only one night?”

“One night?” I study her flawless almond eyes. Her long lashes and pointed nose.

She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life. She’s perfect, and in any other world, one where I’m not the son of a don and she’s not the daughter of a man who has forever lambasted the Malones via print, she could be strong enough to stand by my side and rule the fucking world with me.

“Yes,” she exhales, her perfume in my lungs, and her breath, sweet but not deadly, on my lips. “What if I gave you twelve hours where we could be whoever we wanted to be? No strings attached. No heartache tomorrow. No family grudges or lingering feelings. Just. Twelve. Hours.”

I wrap my arms around her torso and drag her closer until her breath explodes from her lungs and her eyes drop to my lips. “I’d do whatever I needed to, to make twelve feel like an eternity.” I wrench her forward and close the gap between our lips, slamming mine over hers and taking what I’ve wanted from the moment this woman started talking shit about my family and smiling about it.

It’s like she’s always known secrets about me.

Things not even I know.

And now, for tonight only, she allows me the chance to be in on them.

“Fuck.” My cock roars to life. My body, wallowing in the longest period of abstinence it’s ever known.

I fist my hand in her hair and hold her captive on my lap. An irony, I know, considering the freedom I promised her. But she places her palm over the bulge in my pants, and closes her fist around my shaft.

I shove up from my seat, swallowing down her squeal of terror, and chuckle when she cinches her legs around my hips in fear. But all I do is turn and placeherass on the chair. I peel her limbs from my body and bend down to stay with her, so our lips aren’t forced to separate.

I feel her on my tongue. Her breath in my lungs. Her lips dueling with mine.

I want her. All of her.

And fuck, but I want her to want me, too.

“Open your legs, Darling.”

I don’t wait for her to comply. Instead, I push her thighs apart with rough hands. Her back arches, her chest heaving for oxygen and tempting me with a meal far more appetizing than whatever Mary laid out for us on this table.

I fist her long dress and draw it up to reveal deliciously long legs and silky skin, smoother than the thousand-dollar gown she selected from her closet.

“Oh god.” She throws her head back, folding her neck over the back of the chair and blindly staring up at the ceiling. “Felix.”

“Do you need it gentle?” I reach between her legs, fire burning in my blood when I find her wet for me and her thighs hot to the touch.

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