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Dash fills our glasses with his sister’s lemon drop creation. I reach for mine and lift it to my lips, sipping, but my nerves just won’t let go of me and I don’t know why. I want this. I want him. I deserve this. It’s about me for once, and I haven’t done anything for me in a very long time. I down the drink, vodka and sweetness burning and soothing my throat, while the rush to my head is instant.
“Considering I barely drink that was probably not smart.” I set my glass down and glance over at him. “No more. Not a good idea at all. I’m not a big drinker so I hope you don’t think—”
“I don’t,” he says, catching my leg just under my skirt and angling me toward him. “Why are you so nervous?”
“It’s that obvious?”
“Yes, cupcake, it’s obvious.”
“Cupcake,” I laugh. “It’s a silly nickname.”
“You don’t like it?”
“No. I mean, yes. I—I guess I somehow do.”
He strokes my hair behind my ear, tenderness in the touch I don’t expect, and the sensations that follow tingle through my entire body. That’s how affected I am by Dash, one touch and I’m alive, so very alive in a way I haven’t been in a long time.
“I’m glad you do,” he says, “because I want you to like everything, Allie. I don’t want you to be nervous.”
“It’s not you. It’s your fireplace. I think the window is going to crack.”
He laughs. “Is that right?”
“Yes. Okay, no. I’m sure your fancy architect knew what he was doing. It’s not the fireplace. It’s me.” I swallow hard and confess, “It’s been a while, Dash.”
“How long?”
I can’t bring myself to say just how long. A year. More. I might be frozen down there. “I just needed some me time,” I say. “I’m a little rusty, but I didn’t forget—”
“No,” he smiles. “No, I’m sure you didn’t forget, but don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
The emotions that statement stirs in me that reach beyond sex, open a Pandora’s box of baggage for me. I don’t need to be taken care of. I don’t want to be taken care of. And I don’t want to be in the headspace where he just took me. With the warm lethargy of vodka in my system and the courage that “no wanting” so many things just created, I lean into him. He doesn’t make me take it from there. His hand slides under my hair to my neck and his lips lower, lingering a hot breath from a touch.
“God, woman,” he murmurs, and then he’s kissing me, really kissing me, his tongue sliding against mine, seductive in every possible way, and I cannot contain a soft moan.
The next thing I know he’s pulled me onto his lap and I’m straddling him, unhooking my belt. By the time I’ve tossed it away, he’s dragging my mouth to his mouth, and when his fingers tangle roughly, erotically, in my hair, he demands the attention my nerves had moments before. I’m no longer consumed by it, but rather him. I pant into his mouth, aroused beyond belief. Something about this man, this night, and the way he touches me grants me the freedom to be what I want to be and take what I want to take. I sink into his kisses, drink him in, and now my fingers are diving into the soft strands of his light brown hair, and not gently. Give what I get, I think. That is something I’ve never really lived, but I am now. His teeth scrape my lips and then he catches the zipper at the front of my dress and drags it down. With this dress that’s all it takes to get me all but naked, only two small pieces of lace and my thigh highs between us.
He eases back and studies me, just looks at me, with dark, intense, unreadable eyes. He drags my dress down my arms, over my back, and then catches my hands with the material, holding my hands behind my back. His eyes meet mine, a challenge in their depths, a question in that challenge.
And just like that, I know I was right about his message in the elevator. His version of taking care of me is taking control. Plain and simple, he wants me to give him what I have given no one, at least not in bed. He wants complete control.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I’m there, on top of him, in the power position, but I don’t have the power at all, not with my hands behind my back. If anyone knew my past, they’d expect me to push back, to demand my freedom, but the interesting thing about me and Dash is that while I don’t own the control right now, I don’t feel out of control.
