Page 28 of Dial F for Finance

After a while, she shifts in my arms, twisting to face me. “You alive?”

I grin. “Never better. You?”

“I think I died a little,” she says. I chuckle as she stretches like a cat, arms up, then wraps them around my neck and tugs me down for a slow, filthy kiss.

It’s less an encore than a victory lap, but I let her set the pace and just taste her, feeling every muscle in my body melt against hers.

She breaks away first, arms still draped over me. “You should probably go back to your suite.”

I laugh. “I can’t even fucking move, Pemberton.”

“OK.” She sighs, content. “You can stay. But if you fall asleep and snore, I’m using your own pillow to suffocate you.”

“Noted.” I roll us again so I’m behind her, spooning her with my chest pressed to her bare back. She’s still warm, skin slick and so soft I almost weep from the joy of finally getting to have her. After a minute, her hand catches mine, drawing it to cup her breast. I keep it there, not moving, just anchoring. For once, I’m not the man with a room to win or a deal to close. I’m just somewhere warm, holding the woman I’ve wanted for too damn long.

“Don’t make a big deal about this in the morning, OK?”

I lean down and brush my mouth over her shoulder. “I’m going to be making a big deal about this for the rest of my life.”

CHAPTER 6

Jenna

Iwake up with a start at 4:13 a.m., partly because my body clock is on Chicago time and thinks it’s two in the afternoon, and partly because of the grinding certainty that I’ve fucked things up irreparably. It’s a familiar feeling, like the chemical taste in your mouth after a night of too-sweet cocktails—physically nauseating and a little bit deserved.

I prop myself up, squinting at the sliver of city light snaking around the blackout curtains. My body is a parade float of aches, my hair is one massive, sentient knot, and I can feel Dominic asleep at my back—heavy, warm, an entire continent of man radiating inconvenient comfort. I want to move without waking him. I can’t.

Instead, I stare at the walls and try to remember every choice I made in the last twenty-four hours. There’s the obvious mistake of inviting the man I’ve been strategically evading for years into my suite, my bed, and almost every part of my anatomy.

Then there are the less obvious mistakes.

The sounds I made. The things I let him say. The fact that I didn’t once stop him from touching me like he had a right to all the soft, secret places I normally defend with sarcasm and tailoring. The hand I put over his after I told him not to make a big deal. The smile I forgot to hide when he said he’d be making a big deal for the rest of his life.

That one might be the worst.

Smiling at Dominic Cruz in a post-orgasmic haze is not a legally binding contract, but it feels uncomfortably close to an implied agreement.

And underneath it all, quiet as a meter running, the oldest system I own reopens the file. He saw everything I’ve spent twenty years dressing around—lights on, his rules—and the laughter never came. Which should close the account. It doesn’t. Because attention this expensive doesn’t skip the bill. It defers it. And deferred things accrue interest.

I blink at the ceiling.

Beside me, Dominic exhales in his sleep, warm against the back of my shoulder. His arm is slung over my waist now, heavy and familiar in a way that should require at least three more years of paperwork. His palm rests flat on my stomach, fingers spread wide over skin I’ve spent most of my adult life pretending not to think about.

I stare down at it.

His hand looks obscene there.

Not in the sexual sense. We crossed obscene several hours ago. This is worse. His hand looks domestic. Possessive, yes, but not in the performative, chest-beating way I can dismiss. It looks like a hand that found a place and stayed.

That is unacceptable.

Carefully, I lift his wrist.

He doesn’t wake.

Good.

Excellent.