Sinner

Chapter 1-2

Her eyes widen again, and I realize my words have surprised her, although God knows why, it seems like a normal enough question. And then there’s a flash of something unreadable in her eyes before she tamps it down.

“Neither,” she says, and I know I’m not imagining the guardedness in her voice.

Fuck. I don’t want to spook her—but then again, I don’t know that what I do want to do is that much better. She’s so young, too young to invite back to my place, too young to pull up into a hidden balcony so I can drop to my knees and find out how she tastes…

God, I should walk away. Stick to my usual buffet of socialites and strippers. But even though I straighten up to go, I can’t actually make my body move away from her.

Those copper-tinted eyes. That luscious mouth.

It wouldn’t hurt just to talk, right?

She squares her shoulders as I’m thinking about this, lifts her chin as if she’s come to a decision. “Which are you?” she asks. “Doctor or donor?”

“Donor,” I say with a smile. “Or rather, my firm is a donor.”

She nods, as if she already knew the answer, which I suppose she did. Most doctors have a decent tux in the closet, but let’s face it, they aren’t always known for their style. And I’m nothing tonight if not stylish. I reach up to adjust my bow tie, just so she can see the glint of my watch and cufflinks as I do.

To my surprise, she giggles.

I freeze, suddenly afraid I have food on my face again. “What?”

“Are you—” She’s giggling enough that it’s hard for her to squeeze out the words. “Are you…preening?”

“I am not preening,” I say with some indignation. “I’m Sean Bell, and Sean Bell does not preen.”

Her hand is up covering her mouth now, all long slender fingers and nails painted a shimmering gold. “You are preening,” she accuses through her fingers. Her smile is so big I can see it around her hand, and oh my God, I want lick my way down her stomach and look up to see that smile while I’m kissing between her legs.

“You know, women don’t usually laugh at me like this,” I say in a long-suffering voice, even though I’m smiling too. “Normally, they’re very impressed by my preening.”

“I’m very impressed,” she says with mock-earnestness, trying to school her face into an expression of fake awe, but she can’t do it and she just ends up laughing even harder. “So very impressed.”

“Impressed enough to let me bring you a drink?” I ask. It’s part of the script, a response that comes from years of habit, and so it’s only after I say it that I remember I don’t even know if she’s legal for alcohol. “Uh. Can you drink?”

Her smile slips a little and she drops her hand to her waist, where she runs abstracted lines along the silk. “I just turned twenty-one last week.”

What’s the rule again? Half my age, plus seven?

Shit, she is definitely way too young for me.

“So you can drink,” I say, “but I’m too old to be bringing you drinks, which is the real problem.”

She arches an eyebrow, her voice gently teasing. “Well, you are really old.”

“Hey!”

That smile again. Christ. I could watch that mouth move from a scrumptious little moue to a giant smile and back again for the rest of my life.

“Anything but wine,” she says, still smiling. “Please.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling back too. Grinning as if I’m a kid who’s just gotten asked to dance for the first time at a middle-school mixer. What is wrong with me? One pretty twenty-one-year-old and my victory lap has turned into a hike through eager newbie territory. And I’m anything but a newbie.

But still, my heart is pounding fast and my c**k is stirring against my pants as I go get this woman a drink. Even though she’s too young. Even though I don’t know her. Even though she laughed at me.

I kind of like that she laughed at me, actually. Usually I’m taken very, very seriously—in bed and out of it—and I’m surprised at how good it feels to have to work for this girl’s admiration.

That’s it, I decide. That’s what I want: to win her over the tiniest bit. Maybe it would be wrong to take her home, but if I can make her leave tonight wishing I would’ve taken her home, that will be enough for me. Enough to scratch the itch.

I get her a gin and tonic from the bar, asking the bartender to take it easy on the gin, and get myself another scotch, and then I return to the terrace, relieved to see her still there, staring pensively out at the skyline with her arms wrapped around her chest.

“Cold?” I ask, prepared to shrug out of my tuxedo jacket and hand it to her, but she waves me off.

“I’m okay.” She takes the gin from me, taking a careful sip, then making a face. “Is there any gin in this?”

“You’re young,” I say, a bit defensively. “Your tolerance is low.”

“Are you this protective of every woman you meet?” she asks. “Or am I special?”

“You’re definitely special.” I deliver the line with all the charm and panache I’ve collected over the years, throwing in the dimple for good measure, and then she laughs at me.

Again.

I sigh. “Is it just utterly hopeless?”

“Is what utterly hopeless?”

I take a sip of my scotch, giving her my best puppy eyes. “Getting you to like me.”

She takes a sip of her own drink to mask her smile. “I think I like you just fine. But you don’t have to do the charming guy thing with me.”

“Well then. What thing works for you?”

She thinks for a moment, and the breeze toys with the ends of her hair, making them sway and dance. That strange feeling pulls at my chest again, as if the play of her hair in the wind is some kind of spell, conjuring up memories of stained glass and whispered prayers.

“I like honesty,” she decides aloud. “Try the honest guy thing.”

“Hmm,” I muse, tapping my finger against my scotch glass. “Honest guy thing. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“It’s the only thing that works for me,” she warns, an impish grin playing across her features. “I need complete honesty.”

“I’ll tell you what—I’ll be honest with you if you’ll be honest with me.”

She sticks out her hand. “Deal.”

I take her hand in mine to shake it, and it’s warm and soft. I let my fingertips graze against the pulse point on her wrist as I end the handshake, and I’m gratified to see a small shiver move through her.

“You have to go first though,” she says, pulling her hand back. She narrows her eyes at me. “And no cheating.”

“Cheating? Moi?” I put a hand to my heart as if staggered by her accusation, although I’m actually having more fun than I’ve had in ages. “I would never.”

“Good. Because this only works if you really do it. Don’t use it as an excuse to feed me some flirty line about how pretty I am and how you’d like to get to know me better.”

My hand still on my chest, I drop my head forward in mock defeat. “You’ve got me.” Because that’s exactly what I was planning on saying—which technically wouldn’t have been cheating. “Those things are also true though,” I add, lifting my eyes to hers.

She makes a circling gesture with her hand, yeah-yeah-yeah, and gives me another one of those arched eyebrows. “Say something you wouldn’t say to just any girl you wanted to get into bed.”

“Fine,” I say, and I set my glass down on the ledge next to us. “I think you’re more than pretty. I think you’re f*****g gorgeous, and you’re not impressed by me, which makes me want to work very, very hard to impress you. I want to impress you with my mouth…” I take a step toward her, my hands safely in my pockets, so she sees I’m not going to touch her. “…and impress you with my fingers…”

Another step forward, and she lifts her face up to see mine better, her mouth parted and her eyes wide and blinking. I can see the vulnerable place where her pulse thrums in her throat, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. The tight furls of her n*****s against the silk dress.

“…and with every other part of my body.”

We’re so close now that my shoes brush against the hem of her dress, and I keep the distance just as it is—no touching, no pressing, no grinding, just my words and the electricity sparking between us. “And I do want to get to know you better. I want to know if you scream or if you moan when you come, I want to know if you prefer my mouth or my hands, I want to know if you like it deep and slow or fast and hard.”

She swallows, her eyes searching mine in fast, dazed flicks.

“And right now I can see the V between your thighs under that dress, and all I want to do is press my c**k against it. I want to see if you’re sensitive enough that I can get you off through the silk, I want to see if I can lick you through the fabric.” I lower my voice. “I want to taste you. I want to taste you so badly that I’m hard just thinking about it. I want to see how your little p***y unfurls when I part it with my fingers, I want to know if your c**t gets hard and plump when I suck on it. I want you to feel the place my nose presses into you as I eat you out from the front…and from behind.”

Her eyes are huge now, copper-brown rings around massive pools of black. “You can…you can do that?”

I c**k my head a little, amused. “Do what?”

Her feet do a little shuffle as she looks down. “The, um. The eating. From behind.”

Jesus. She’s young, but surely not that young? Twenty-one is more than old enough to have found at least one boy who’s decent in bed. And oh God, what does it say about me that this sudden revelation of innocence is such a f*****g turn-on? That she doesn’t know…that I could be the first to show her…my c**k is pushing against the placket of my zipper like it’s ready to burst the seams, and my skin feels hot and achy and tight. And my tongue is desperate for the satin texture of her secret place, for the hidden taste of her, and I run it along my teeth, needing some kind of sensation to quiet the rioting storm inside me.

She watches my mouth, entranced. I watch her watching me.

“Yes,” I say huskily. “Yes, you can do that.”

“I, ah,” she says, and even in the indirect light, I can see a new rosy hue blossoming underneath the warm tones of her skin. “I didn’t know.”

I can show you, I want to say. Let me take you up to a deserted balcony. Let me show you how to brace your hands on the railing and present your ass to me. Let me show you exactly how a man uses his mouth on a woman from behind.

I don’t say that, though. Instead, I lower my head ever so slightly, just enough to make her lips part even more, and I murmur, “Your turn.”

The rosy hues are even more pronounced now, spreading across the sweet skin along her collarbone and up her neck. “My turn?” she asks breathlessly.

“To be honest. Remember?”

“Oh,” she exhales, blinking. “Right. Honest.”

“No cheating,” I remind her. “I was honest with you.”

“Yes,” she agrees, nodding, her eyes dropping to my mouth again. “You were honest with me.”

I give her a moment, even though all I want to do is crowd her against the cable and rub my aching erection against her silk-clad dress. Even though all I want to do is bury my face in her neck and suck at the sensitive skin there as I ruck up her skirt and cup her heat in my palm.

“Okay. Honesty.” She takes a deep breath and then peers up at me. “I want you to kiss me.”

“Right now?”

“Right now,” she confirms. There’s the tiniest bit of quaking bravado in her voice, and I don’t like it. I mean, I’m halfway to dropping to my knees and begging her to let me see her cunt, but the better part of me wants her to be completely ready and certain. I don’t want her to fake bravery in order to be kissed—I don’t want her to require bravery at all. I pluck her drink from her hands and set it next to my scotch on the ledge, then I hold out my hand for her to take.

She looks confused. “Are you not going to kiss me? I thought—after all you said—”

“I want to kiss you very much. But right now can be as long as we want to make it, right? Maybe it’s the next ten minutes, maybe it’s the next twenty. However long it is, I don’t want to rush it. What if this is the only kiss I get to have from you for the rest of my life? I want to take my time. Savor it.”