Page 11 of Stealing Cinder

Calluses skim over my bare skin and the friction sends waves of need racing straight to my thighs.

“And you, my princess?”

"Cinder," I offer, and the vulnerability of it hits a second later. But I hold back my last name. I can give him the girl behind the grief, but not the real me. That has to be earned.

"Cinder," he repeats, as if he's tasting each syllable. His fingers trace the curve of my spine where the dress dips low, and my body arches toward him on impulse.

Then the grief crashes back without warning.

I buried my father this morning. I’ve washed, but when I look at my hands I can still see the handful of dirt I tossed on his coffin. I'm standing in an elevator with a stranger's hands on my bare skin, and for one ugly second the shame crawls up from the base of my spine and wraps around my throat.

I shouldn’t be here.

What kind of woman buries her father and gives herself to a killer before the flowers on the casket wilt?

The answer comes quick and fierce. The kind who refuses to drown.

I shove the shame into the same black box I locked my tears in this morning. I am allowed to want this. I am allowed to choose what happens to my body when every other piece of my life has been stolen from me.

Samuel skewers me with a hard look. I have a feeling not much passes him by. “What were you just thinking?”

His thumb traces my bottom lip. Dark eyes narrow, reading my face with a patience that borders on unsettling.

I don't give him the truth. I give him a redirect and mean every word. Tonight did not go as planned, but I can make something sweet from bitter ruins. I can give my virginity on my terms. Tomorrow I can contact Lavender, crash at her place, start digging for information on who my stepmother hired to kill my father. The last thing I need is Bianca and Gianna showing up at my apartment to kick me out since the place belonged to my dad and now them.

Fuckers.

But that's tomorrow's war. Tonight I want oblivion.

Dark eyes consider me.

"Never mind that. I want to forget my problems for a night." I slide my hand up his chest, over the hard ridge of his collarbone, and twine my fingers into the loose hair at the base of his skull. "Can you make that happen, daddy?"

A growl rolls through him. Deep and low, vibrating through his chest into mine. Every red blood cell in my body warms.

"Daddy, huh?"

"There's definitely a gap in our ages." I glide my fingertips through the silver threading his temples, then lower to stroke along the trim of his dark beard. The coarse hair prickles against my skin and I lean in, close enough to catch his scent. Cedar. Black pepper. And underneath both, something warm and raw and purely male.

"Does that bother you, Cinder?"

Mmm. “I like the way you say my name,” I husk, barely recognizing this inner vixen coming to the surface.

I take his hand from my waist and press his palm flat over the peak of my nipple. The heat of his skin burns through the thin fabric of my dress and a sharp jolt of pleasure races straight between my thighs. His eyes darken. The lines of his jaw go hard, shadows carving the angles of his face into something predatory.

"Does it feel like it bothers me?"

His fingers close over my breast and I bite back a moan. He rolls the stiff peak between his thumb and forefinger, slow and deliberate, watching my face while he does it. No need to play coy. He commands the very atmosphere in this elevator. The danger rippling off him is real, and in this moment, it is the biggest turn-on of my life.

His free hand gathers the hem of my dress and drags the fabric up my thigh. Cool air hits bare skin. His knuckles graze the soft inside of my leg and my hips tilt toward him on instinct.

The elevator doors open.

Snow falls past floor-to-ceiling windows in thick, lazy flakes. Chicago spreads below, a scatter of lights blurred by altitude and weather. A fireplace burns low across the penthouse suite, flames licking over dark stone and casting amber shadows across cream-colored sheets and polished furniture.

Samuel walks me backward through the door, his mouth on mine before I register the room around us. This kiss is the real one. The brush in the elevator was a preview. This is a fiery claiming.

His mouth moves over mine with a controlled hunger that pulls the breath from my lungs. He tastes like whiskey, smoky and warm with a faint sweetness that coats my tongue and makes me press up on my toes for more. His hand cups the back of my head, angling me exactly where he wants it, and I open for him. His tongue slides against mine, slow and thorough, and a sound leaves my throat that I’ve never made for another man. Then again, I’ve never been kissed so deeply before that even my toes curl.