Page 22 of Dial F for Finance

“Please don’t.”

He laughs, the sound low and warm, and bends to bite gently at the hinge of my jaw. My knees threaten mutiny. I fist his shirt and drag him back to my mouth, kissing him harder, like I can shut him up with tongue and teeth. He lets me—for a second—then pulls back just enough to speak against my lips.

“Still want this to be meaningless, or are you willing to admit you’re obsessed with me?”

“Still want you to shut up,” I counter, yanking at his shirt until a button pops. “This is sex, Cruz. Not a feelings meeting.”

He grins, unbothered, hands flattening at the small of my back as he walks me backward into the room like he owns the floor plan. “You keep saying that like you think I’ll start listening.”

I try to spin us, to get him against the wall instead, but he moves with me and then past me, reversing us so fast my spine hits plaster and his mouth is on mine again before I can complain. One of his hands catches both my wrists and pins them above my head. The other slides down my side, slow, deliberate.

“God, you feel good,” he says, voice rough.

I make a noise that definitely isn’t dignified, and shift my hips so his fingers slide lower, tracing the edge of my skirt. “You’re taking too long,” I hiss.

“Patience, Pemberton.”

Normally, being pinned like this would make me want to bite. Or at minimum, stage an escape so dramatic it would be legend by morning. Tonight I don’t want to escape. I only want to burn.

“Just fuck me, Dominic.”

“Jesus.” He lets go of my wrists only to catch my jaw, thumb rough over my cheek. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

“Ten years?” I gasp, and he grins.

“Nine and a half. But those last three, Jen. Fuck, those have been rough.”

When he brings his lips to mine again, I take the opening and catch his jaw in my palm, then rake my nails up into his hair. He groans against my mouth, and if there’s ever been a greater rush of power than making Dominic Cruz groan, I haven’t found it. I smile into the kiss, drunk on it.

“Don’t.” His hand catches my wrist.

I pull back maybe two inches. “What.”

He looks at me, eyes dark and steady.

“You’re not the one running this.”

The pulse in my throat does something humiliating.

“I run everything,” I say.

“I’m aware.”

“Dominic.”

“I’m aware, Pemberton.” His thumb strokes once, slowly, over the inside of my wrist where he’s holding it. “I have watched you run every room you’ve been in since we met. I love watching you run rooms. You can have all the rooms you want. You don’t get to run this one. I’ve waited too damn long.”

“Oh,” I say, with the dignity of a woman who has just discovered she has no skeletal structure.

“Come here.”

“I’m here.”

“Come here.”

He tugs my wrist. Rough. Without breaking eye contact. I let him pull me forward and down, and he turns us in one smooth motion that I am too distracted to clock the mechanics of, and when I land it’s on my back, on the bed, with him on his elbows over me and his thigh hooked between mine. He shifts and drags a hand up my side.

“You did that on purpose.”