I swallow. Jesus, she’s like a work of art. I can’t wait to get my hands all over her, my mouth on every inch of her.

  With a shimmy and a push, she drops the dress to the floor, taking her shoes with it, leaving her shielded only by a pair of sheer pink, lace-trimmed panties that don’t quite cover the high, pert cheeks of her ass and do very little to make her look less naked.

  Holy fuck. I want that—want her—so badly I can barely breathe.

  I slide the red curtain of her hair over one shoulder, totally baring her back, before I wrap my fingers around her throat. I grip just hard enough to let her know the touch isn’t incidental. Her harsh breathing fills the silence, growing more audible as I feel my way down the velvety skin of her back, then trail my palm lower to caress her ass.

  The air turns electric. I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t get inside Sloan soon.

  “You’re beautiful,” I murmur.

  She braces her hands against the wall and lets her head fall back in surrender. “Touch me.”

  I am, but she wants more. She wants my hands not simply on her but all over her. I’m down for that.

  When I press my chest to her bare back, the heat between us makes me hiss in need. She groans, sending another spark straight to my cock.

  Then I skate my hand across her flat stomach and feel my way up her torso until I’m cupping her breasts in my hands. Like the rest of her, they feel hot to the touch. They’re heavy as they fall into my palms. And when I graze my thumbs over the tips, she melts back into me.

  “Do you like that, baby?” I strum her engorged buds again.

  “Yes.” Her breath catches.

  I nuzzle her neck, breathing on the sensitive flesh behind her ear, wringing a moan from her. But I don’t stop there, just continue on, dragging my lips down to the soft skin where her neck meets her shoulder, dragging my lips so gently she shudders and arches, panting ever harder.

  “I want you naked.”

  She answers by sliding her panties down her hips and kicking them free.

  I would have done that for her—happily—but I love her enthusiasm. “That was efficient.”

  “Why waste time when I know what I want? You could get naked, too, you know.”

  Does she think there’s any way I’m not going to? That this doesn’t end with her spending the night with me? “Believe me, I intend to.”

  “Maybe we could get to the bed?”

  Since we haven’t even made it past the foyer, the crisply made bed looks a million miles away. “We can try.”

  Later, when I’m deep inside her—if we make it—I’ll be glad for the effort.

  Turning Sloan to face me, I intend to lift her against my body, take possession of her mouth again, and—hopefully—reach the elusive mattress. Instead, her nakedness stuns me silent and still. Her curves in all the right places have me gaping. God, she’s fucking beautiful.

  “You’re staring,” she points out.

  “You might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Sloan chuckles. “You sound so convincingly sincere. I’m guessing that line works. If I were less naive, I’d fall for it.”

  Line? I take hold of her chin and force her gaze to mine. “It’s not a line, baby. You fascinated me from the moment we started talking, and I wanted you before I ever set eyes on you. But now…” I look her up and down again, lingering on the generous swell of her tits and the fiery dusting of hair between her legs. “You blow me away.”

  “Not yet, but the night isn’t over.” She winks.

  Normally, I’d love that answer. It’s fun and flirty—and sexy as fuck. But coming from Sloan, it bothers me. It’s flippant, almost dismissive. I told her something raw and honest, and she wants to be cute?

  “I’m not asking you to blow me. I’m asking you to be real with me.”

  Something I can’t decipher crosses her face. Confusion? Wariness? Then she sighs. “All right. You fascinated me from the moment we started talking, too. I told myself it wasn’t smart to think about you as anything more than a consultant. But I couldn’t stop. You’ve listened to me like few people in my life have. I don’t know how the hell you’re single or why you and Aria broke up…”

  But Sloan wants to know.

  “She got pregnant”—since I hate lying even more to Sloan, I refuse to finish that sentence with a truth that’s not my own—“by someone else.”

  Sloan looks stunned, but thankfully she doesn’t feel sorry for me. I couldn’t handle her wasting pity on a wound that isn’t mine. Guilt doesn’t belong on the dirty side of business, and feeling it now would be the death of me.

  “That’s horrible,” she says finally.

  I’m sure it sucked for Jeremy and will leave a gaping wound in his family. “Yes, but none of this is about her, just how I feel when I’m with you.”

  My feelings go deeper than friendship, deeper than lust. I’m not sure how to categorize it, but it’s something I’ve never felt before. It ties me up and makes me anxious, mostly when I think about this weekend ending and letting Sloan go.

  Well, and telling her who I really am.

  Later. Now might be my only opportunity to convince her the feelings between us are real so that when I confess the truth, she won’t turn her back on me forever. That’s important…but so is winning enough of her trust to divulge how she knew about Stratus’s presentation to Wynam.

  I’m in a fucking tough position. It would be easy to blame Evan, but I blame myself. I don’t get emotional in business—ever.

  Sloan changed that.

  “Good to know. So are we going to make it to the bed?”

  Her impatience makes me smile, but her instincts are right. I should be in the moment. Thinking now only gives me—and her—too much time to second-guess everything.

  Because right or wrong, I can’t resist Sloan. I need her closer to me. I need to know what she feels like when she’s under me, around me, and crying out for me when she comes. And I need to give her a reason to still want me once the shit hits the fan.

  I nod. “Put your arms around me.”

  She grips my biceps, then strokes her palms over my shoulders. Her fingertips skate along the backs of my arms, making me shudder. She sways closer, brushing her body against mine as she lifts her lashes and looks straight into my eyes, like there’s nowhere in the world she’d rather be. Finally, she stands on her tiptoes to clasp her hands around my neck as she slants her lips over mine for another kiss.

  If I let her tempt me again, we won’t make it to the bed.

  Instead, I trail my lips across her jaw and up her neck. When I reach her ear, I cup her ass in my hands and lift her. “Wrap your legs around me.”

  Sloan does, but she isn’t merely along for the ride. Instead, she kisses the top of my shoulder, then nips at my neck. “I want this.”

  “I want this, too.”

  “Way more than I should.”

  What does she mean by that? But as we reach the bed and I yank down the duvet to lay her across the sheets, she opens her arms to me, her legs to me…and I lose the will to puzzle out whatever she’s trying to say.

  Especially when she reaches for me. “Please.”

  Normally, I love a woman begging me. But from her…it feels wrong. Sloan has had to scrape for acceptance and affection from most of the people in her life. I might be lying to her about a lot of things. I might have started flirting with her for the wrong reasons. But I’m not about to make her beg me for something I want to give her freely.

  “Anything you want, baby. You just tell me.”

  “I’m aching.” She arches and squirms, thighs parting even more for me.

  Sloan wants to come. God knows I’d love to make her.

  I don’t hesitate to climb onto the bed, onto her body, and take her mouth in a demanding kiss. She meets me halfway. With every press of our lips and each stroke of our tongues, she’s totally with me.

  When we’re both panting and rocking together, when she’s lifting her hips to my stiff cock and whimpering as I grind into her through my pants, it’s time to give her what we both crave. I’ll work my way inside her, spend all night doing my fucking best to addict her to being with me, and let the chips fall in the morning.

  Tearing my lips from hers, I drag my open mouth down her neck, fueled by her harsh breaths and mewls, until I reach her hard nipples and suck one between my lips. The other I manipulate—pinch, turn, scrape—over and over. Then I switch breasts, loving the way she smells of strawberries and woman, especially under the heavy weight of her breasts. I lave her gossamer-soft skin, tease her tips with my tongue, then suck them in until her tender buds scrape the roof of my mouth.

  She gasps. “Oh, my god.”

  I release her nipple from my mouth with a lingering suck. “I haven’t even gotten to the part where I make you feel really good. Yet.”

  Sloan closes her eyes with the softest groan. “Then hurry.”

  I won’t rush this. I want to savor every inch of her, explore until I’ve mapped her body—where she’s soft, where she’s hot, where she likes to be touched, and where stimulation rockets her into pleasure. But her scent has my head spinning. The farther I roam down her body, the more the sweetness of strawberry gives way to the tang of her pussy. She’s undeniably aroused. Suspecting that was one thing, but knowing it torques me up.

  Fuck, I need to get closer. To feel her. To taste her.

  As I kiss my way down her stomach and nip at her navel, I wedge my shoulders between her legs, grab her firm, slender thighs, and position them over my shoulders.

  Her breath catches. “Jeremy…”

  I don’t want her to call me that, but I can’t tell her to stop. So I silence her by settling my mouth over her pussy and going straight for her hard clit.

  But the instant her flavor hits my taste buds, I lose my head.

  I mean to work her to a frenzy with my tongue, balance her on the razor’s edge of pleasure until she’s scratching and desperate, then finally let her orgasm. But no. Some switch flips in my head. Primal instinct takes over, and I get insatiable, prying her delicate folds apart with my thumbs to lap every inch of her sensitive flesh and drink her in.

  Beneath me, Sloan tenses and hisses, pressing her heels into the mattress like her body is in sensual distress. Like she doesn’t know how to stop needing me. She can’t hide the fact that I get to her, and it’s fucking awesome that I’m not the only one drowning in this fascination.

  I grip her hips, thinking vaguely that my fingertips may leave bruises on her tender skin, while I eat her ravenously. Sloan lifts, thrusting her pussy in my mouth with a desperation that feeds mine. She grips the sheet, her body thrashing. She tosses her head, breathing hard and fast like she can’t catch her breath.

  I know a woman’s body. I know when she’s close, and Sloan is on the precipice. My usual tactic of dangling her over the edge and proving who’s in charge? I don’t have that control or cool with her. And she proves she’s not about to let me when she grips a fistful of my hair and presses me closer to her flesh.

  “Oh, my god. Yes… Yes. Yes!” she screams as she falls into pleasure, wracking and bucking under me with a groaned wail that fills my ears—and my pride—before tapering into a soft, replete sigh.

  When I look up with a smile, she’s melting into the mattress. “What have you done to me?”

  “Made you feel good, I hope.”

  “More than I was ready for.”

  She had to brace for orgasm? “We’re just getting started.”

  “As great as that was, I’d rather feel good with you,” she whispers. “Finish undressing. I brought condoms. They’re in my purse.”

  I’m surprised. “You planned to have sex with me?”

  Sloan looks sheepish. “I hoped. But I wasn’t presuming too much after all.”

  “No.” I grin. “I bought condoms, too.”

  “Good. We’re prepared.” She sits up and bounces to the edge of the mattress.

  I lean in to kiss her. The view is so arousing, I can’t resist. But it’s not just that. There’s something about her. I feel compelled to touch her.

  But she turns her head and wags a finger at me. “None of that. Or we’ll never get you naked and gloved up.”

  Hell, she’s probably right.

  “Hurry.” I cup her luscious ass as she heads for her purse.

  Sloan tosses a grin over her shoulder, then bends for her big bag. Eagerly, I drop every stitch I’m wearing.

  “Lie back, okay?” She comes closer, clutching what I suppose is a box in her hand. “I love to be on top.”

  I have no objections. The view will be spectacular.

  “Anything to make you happy, baby.” I get supine and watch her sway closer.

  Without a hint of shyness, she straddles me, then takes my hands in hers, lacing our fingers together. Then she rubs herself along every inch of my hard cock until a guttural groan falls from my chest and I have to close my eyes against a detonation of tingles that leave me uncomfortably close to exploding.

  Holy fuck, this is going to be amazing.

  Suddenly, something snaps around my wrist. Frowning, I open my eyes in time to see her attach my now-cuffed hand to the pull of the nightstand drawer.

  “Sloan?” What the fuck is she doing? I don’t mind bondage, but I prefer to do the binding.

  Her face turns hard as she pushes away from the bed and starts wriggling into her dress.

  “What the hell is going on?” I snarl.

  She steps into her shoes, picks up her purse, then flips on the overhead light, flooding the room with brightness and leaving me totally exposed. “Did you really think I was that stupid? That gullible?” Her silent laugh is cynical. “You thought you were going to fuck me. You know what, Sebastian Shaw? Fuck you.”

  My heart stops. Oh, shit. She knows who I am?

  I scramble for a convincing cover story or any plausible way to deny the truth. But her face warns me. She knows beyond a doubt. “When did you figure it out?”

  “Ironically enough on April Fool’s Day. Imagine my shock when I faxed some shit I found in Shane’s office to Jeremy to get your take on a document, and he called me immediately to ask who I was and what the hell the document was about.”

  I can picture that…and it’s not good. I fucked up by not keeping Jeremy in the loop. Sure, I wanted Sloan to know the truth, but not like this. “Baby…”

  “Oh, don’t ‘baby’ me. That ship sailed, asshole, the minute Jeremy fessed up. At first, I thought you were pranking me. But he didn’t sound like you. And he didn’t seem like you. I mean, he actually came across as a good guy.”

  Ouch. “Sloan, listen—”

  “No. You listen. You asked me a question; I’m answering with the truth—which is way more than you gave me,” she points out sharply.

  “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

  “Oh, please. You don’t give a shit about anyone except yourself and that doppelgänger of Satan you work for. If I needed any more proof of that, Jeremy gave it to me. When I threatened to expose the fact that he deceived his client and sold us to the enemy, he panicked and confessed. I blackmailed him into staying quiet so you and I could have this touching moment together.” Her gaze rakes me up and down.

  I’m hardly modest, but her glare has me reaching for the sheet to cover myself.

  “Until then, I believed you. You said all the right things.” She scoffs. “I really believed you cared what happened to Reservoir.”

  I won’t lie to her and say that I do. “No, but I care about you.”

  “Stop. That tripe won’t work on me anymore. What I want to know is how you convinced Jeremy to betray us. Did you coerce him, despite the fact you’re supposedly his friend? Or did you just pay him off?” She tosses me a disdainful glare. “You’re underhanded enough for either.”

  Oh, she’s pissed. And if I don’t do some damage control, she’s going to hate me. “He and Aria really did break up recently. She got pregnant by his older brother, and he found out. They were engaged at the time, and it crushed him. I caught him in a vulnerable moment.”

  “And you took advantage of him. That sounds like you.”

  I sit up and try to cross the room to her—but I’m stopped short by the cuff. I huff in frustration. “I’m not out to hurt anyone. I’m just doing my fucking job.”

  “To get dirty so that Evan Cook doesn’t have to?”

  Affirming that opinion won’t help my cause. “Let’s get to the bottom of this. You want me to be honest, fine. I’m not trying to fuck you out of anything but the Wynam deal. In every other way, I was sincerely trying to help you because you’re a skipper captaining a sinking ship. Bless you for trying. I admire your grit. I mean that. I don’t know many people with your backbone. But you dissected that annual report for yourself. You saw where the money is going and what that will lead to. You wouldn’t even have known if I hadn’t pointed that out.”

  “Don’t pat yourself on the back. I had been pushing to get that report for weeks. You called me to give me a supposed heads-up a day before I would have dived into it myself. I still would have seen what Shane’s doing and gotten to the bottom of it without you.”

  She has a point, but… “Shane is on to you and the VPs are all complicit. If you’re in danger—”

  “No. But apparently my high school drama skills aren’t as rusty as I feared.”

  It was all an act?

  I lunge for her—only to be stopped short again by the damn cuff tethering me. “You fucking lied to me?”

  Sloan huffs. “You can ask me that so righteously with a straight face? I lured you here so I could expose and humiliate you.” She looks me up and down, lingering on my cock, which isn’t standing quite so tall and proud anymore. “I’d say mission accomplished.”