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“Samuel—”
“Don’t. We’re done talking. I’ll have a driver waiting for you at the front door.” And then he was walking away without so much as a single backward glance.
I fought back my disappointment. What had I really expected? I was a child to Samuel—he’d said as much when I ran into him downstairs. He wasn’t interested in kissing me, and I’d probably imagined that he was looking at me with any kind of attraction. He couldn’t have felt what I did.
Samuel knew Nacio. In his mind, he was probably doing my brother a favor by making sure I didn’t get into any trouble while I had my night of rebellion.
Entertaining fantasies about him was as productive as dreaming about being swept off my feet by Harry Styles or Liam Hemsworth.
I slumped back against the wall. Samuel was right about one thing. If my family discovered I was gone without telling anyone where I was going, they would worry. Even the search party idea wasn’t that far-fetched.
I made my way to the elevator and pushed the button for the first floor. The lobby was beautiful, decorated with shades of dark red and black. There were roses and petals scattered around the decorative table in the middle of the room under a blown glass chandelier. All the lights were soft, giving the whole place a dark feel. It was different from most of the places I’d been to in Boston. Samuel had called this place a club. But that couldn’t have been the whole building. I wondered what else went on inside these walls.
None of the staff batted an eye at me or my attire as I headed for the doors that led outside.
I wasn’t ready to go home, but I was out of time. The night air felt colder than it had on the roof with Samuel’s hands on me. I shivered as the wind blew. I really should have brought a sweatshirt with me. My spaghetti strap top wasn’t warm enough this late at night even in August.
A quick scan of the street didn’t reveal any cars that looked like they were waiting for me. Did Samuel expect me to wait? Should I just walk back to Boston Common and call my driver to come pick me up? The idea of wandering around alone appealed far less than it had before I ran into Freddie.
I hugged my arms around myself.
“Are you cold?”
I spun at the sound of Samuel’s voice. He was several feet away, but he was walking toward me, shrugging out of his suit jacket as he came.
“Here.” He tucked the jacket around my shoulders. “I should have done that earlier.”
The jacket smelled amazing, like citrus and roses, and it was warm with Samuel’s body heat.
“Thank you,” I said, looking up at him. “Not just for the jacket. Thank you for saving me from Freddie.”
“Don’t thank me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t deserve it. I’m not one of the good guys, Piper. I’d love nothing more than to ruin you.”
That didn’t sound good, and yet I couldn’t make myself feel afraid of him in any way, shape, or form. “I thought you said we were done talking. What are you doing here?”
“Something incredibly stupid.”
And then his lips were on mine. His hands grasped my waist, holding me to him while his mouth moved against mine with purpose. A low growl rumbled from his throat and set my whole body tingling. There was nothing gentle about the way Samuel kissed. He owned my mouth, claiming me in a way I hadn’t even known I could be claimed. And I never wanted it to end.
Samuel jerked back. “Fuck,” he muttered. He was breathing hard, exactly the way hehadn’tbeen when we ran up a ridiculous number of stairs earlier. “I’m—”
“Don’t.” I couldn’t deal with him saying he was sorry or that he shouldn’t have done that.
He nodded, moving to open the door to the car I hadn’t noticed pulling up to the curb. “Goodbye, Piper.” There was a gravity to his tone, and I was afraid of what it meant.
I started to pull his jacket back off, but he shook his head.
“Keep it.”
He held on to the doorframe as I climbed into the back seat of the car and gave the driver my address.
I looked back at him. “How should I return the jacket?”
“You don’t. Forget that tonight ever happened and don’t ever seek me out again, little sorceress.” He didn’t wait for me to respond before shutting the door between us and tapping the roof of the car in a signal for the driver to go.
