Page 52 of Gilt

“I had to know for sure, so I sought you out.”

“You stalked me,” I correct him.

“Fine, I stalked you, Duchess. You’re incredibly stalkable.”

I choose to take that as a compliment.

“Then, at some point, it stopped being about looking for answers, and it just became about spending time with you,” he confesses.

As hard as I try to hold on to my anger, I feel it slipping slowly away from me. It leaks from my blood until I feel nothing but exhaustion. Jameson waits, his eyebrows furrowed, as I stay silent.

“I get it,” I say finally.

“Because you were doing the same to me?” he asks.

“Maybe,” I hedge. What’s the fun of showing all my cards at once? Except I know he’s already seen them. He’s seen right through me. I won’t be getting any tricks past him. The good news is, he won’t be getting any past me, either.

“So, where do we go from here?”

“I don’t care,” he murmurs. This time I let him take my hand. “As long as we go there together.”

“I don’t think they make co-ed prison cells,” I say flatly.

“Touché, Duchess.”

“Please tell me you have a really, really good lawyer.” We can’t keep avoiding this or avoiding the practical discussions that need to happen. “Speaking of which, do I need a really, really good lawyer?”

“Believe me, Detective Mackey is not interested in you,” he says. “She had a few words with me for dragging you into this. I think she’s convinced I paid you to say we were together that night.”

Despite the conflicting emotions swirling inside of me, I take offense at this. Maneuvering myself in the seat, I straddle him and wrap my arms behind his neck. “Did she honestly suggest my boyfriend needs to pay someone off to spend the night with him?”

He smirks, allowing a glimpse of the arrogant boy I’d met that night in his father’s study. His hands circle my waist and press flat against the small of my back, drawing me closer to him.

My heart begins to pound along with a few other parts of me as our bodies press together, and without thinking I begin to rock against his groin seeking relief. “Maybe we should go inside, Duchess,” he suggests, sweeping his lips lightly over my own.

“Too far,” I whimper as I push the ache at my center against the rock-hard bulge between my legs. His hands slide under my tank top to trail down my bare back.

“Tell me what you want,” he groans as I continue to rub myself against him.

“You.”

“What about your checklist?”

“Fuck my checklist,” I whisper into his ear, nipping it with my teeth.

“You’re making it very hard to think clearly, Duchess.”

“Then don’t think,” I urge him. “I just want to be someone else tonight,” I say, recalling the words I spoke to him when we met.

“Carefree?” he offers, and I nod. “Believe me,” he mutters with a frustrated groan, “I want nothing more than to strip you down and give you exactly what you’re asking for, but I think that plan benefits from adding a bed to it.”

“But the bed is so far,” I moan, “and it’s raining.”

“And we’re parked outside one of the busiest resorts in Las Vegas,” he reminds me. But even as he speaks, his hands tangle in my hair, drawing my lips to his once more. His body begins to move in unison with mine, meeting each push and grind of my hips with a thrust of his own. The denim of my jeans rasps against the sensitive spot begging for attention, and I begin to whimper.

“That’s it, Duchess,” he coaxes, his hands guiding my hips to move faster. “This is only a taste.”

My muscles tense, and I dig my fingernails into the back of his neck just as a rap at the window startles us apart.