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He began to undo his belt. Her heart slammed hard against her breastbone. And when he freed himself her mouth went dry.

From that angle, he was imposing. And his naked body was beautiful.

She could not have imagined a more beautiful man. Not even if she had tried.

But the truth was, she never had. Because she had known that whatever her mind could conjure up would not be a fitting homage to Adonis. He was aptly named. Gloriously shaped.

Even here, this most masculine part of him was so beautiful that it made her heart beat quicken.

And then he gripped her hair, and drew her head forward, encouraging her to put her mouth on him. Desire exploded in her midsection as she parted her lips and took the head of him in deep, swallowing him down as best as possible, boldness coming from somewhere inside of her that she hadn’t quite known she possessed. Except, of course she did. She had come to the club in this dress, hadn’t she? And she had taken his dare, hadn’t she? This was just an extension of that. Of all of it.

And so she embraced that boldness. Congratulated herself on it. And on getting this thing that she had wanted, always.

She had been a girl with nothing for so long. She had become a woman with access to everything. Except Adonis. He had been the one thing that she still hadn’t been able to have, and now she did. She had him at her mercy, in her mouth.

That made her bold; she drew the tip of her tongue along the base of his shaft, all the way to the tip, and then swallowed him down again, and he growled, pulling her head away and drawing her up to her feet, the sting in her scalp pleasurable.

“Not like that.”

“Are you going to come?” she asked, the husky question on her lips sending a streak of desire straight down to the center of her thighs.

“You have a wicked mouth,” he said.

“You’ve always known that.”

He growled, deep and low again, so feral was this version of him. This was what other women had known for years. And what she could only guess at.

He pressed her down onto the couch, just as she had imagined he might when she had walked into the room. It was tilted just so. It wasn’t really a couch, she didn’t think. It was quite literally made for sex. Her legs fell open, her hips tilted upward, giving him a view of her most intimate places.

He looked at her with a kind of savage hunger that sent an arrow of need straight through her.

“You know how long I’ve wanted this?” he asked.

The question took her off guard. He wanted this?

“The way that you prance around the office in your cute dresses and skirts, completely inappropriate for an office.”

“We aren’t really a traditional office,” she said, sounding breathless. Undone. Fair enough, because she was.

“No. I suppose not. But still, seeing your legs like that, your ass, it drives me mad.”

“Me? I drive you mad?”

He leaned in then, his black eyes like cut obsidian. “You were the only thing that I couldn’t have, Esme.”

Her heart soared then. And something like hope ballooned inside of her.

“But you can have me.”

He could have her. They could have this. If he wanted her, the same way that she had always wanted him, then surely it could be more than one night. Surely it could be more than sex. Surely they could be more than all of these things.

She wanted him. Desperately. So very desperately.

And suddenly she found she wanted to give him everything. More than just her body.

Because he was Adonis, and she had actually been shattered that he was leaving. It was the thing that had sent her out the door tonight. Looking for something, anything to deal with the loss of him. To loosen the grip that he had on her. She had been flippant to Alex because she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. Because loss, abandonment, the pervasiveness of nothing was such a cornerstone part of her existence that she simply didn’t want to feel it. She didn’t want to feel it.

But now she let herself.