Page 91 of Mile High Ruin

I raise a brow. “Is that what you want?”

“No,” she says quietly, “that’s not what I want.”

She studies my face so intently that I wonder what she’s looking for.

“And if I want you?” she asks. The question is quiet.

Something inside me tightens. “Then say it.”

Her gaze drops briefly to my mouth. “I want you.”

It takes considerable effort not to reach for her immediately.

I have spent most of my life obtaining things before anyone can use them against me. Businesses. Territory. Information. People, when necessary.

But not Sloane—this has to be her decision.

“Because you want me,” I say. “Not because I helped you on the plane. Not because you are alone here.”

Her eyes narrow. “Do you always interrogate women before you sleep with them?”

“No.”

“Then stop treating me like I don’t know my own mind.”

I move before she can say anything else. My hand closes around the back of her neck and I kiss her.

Sloane makes a soft sound and rises onto her toes, arms coming around my shoulders as if she has been waiting for exactly this. I kiss her slowly at first because I want to feel the moment she stops thinking, the moment all that control she carries like armor begins to loosen beneath my hands.

It doesn’t take long.

Her fingers slide into my hair, and I pull her against me. The uniform between us becomes intolerable almost immediately. It has to go. My hands move over her waist and hips before reaching the buttons of her blouse. I open them one at a time, deliberately, looking at her face while I do it.

She watches my hands.

Her breathing changes.

“Want me to stop?” I ask.

“No.”

“Good.”

I part the blouse. Her bra is pale beneath it, simple and practical, which somehow makes the sight of her breasts spilling against the cups more erotic than anything deliberately chosen for seduction.

I kiss the base of her throat. Sloane tilts her head back. My mouth travels lower, over the warm skin between her collarbones, then down to the upper curve of one breast.

She shivers as I push the blouse from her shoulders. It slides down her arms and lands somewhere behind her. My fingers find the clasp of her bra.

She looks down. “You’re very confident.”

“I have managed clasps before.”

“With all your supermodels?”

Jealousy. Small, but unmistakable.

I look up at her. “Are you asking?”