Page 88 of Ruthless Edge

"For you," I say, "I'm the husband type. But we can start with boyfriend."

The look on her face is almost worth the three years.

She stares at me for a long moment, and I hold steady and let her, and eventually something in her expression settles.

"Okay," she says.

I bring her back in. I keep her there.

Dinner is announced and we find our table and I eat something I couldn't describe to you if my life depended on it, because I'm mostly looking at Emma. People come over through the meal, donors who want to shake her hand, faculty who keep saying this is the best event the program has seen in years, and collected the most donations by far. Emma handles all of it beautifully, redirecting credit to the team, asking follow-up questions that make people feel like the most interesting person in the room.

“I love watching you work.”

She glances at me in surprise. “I’m not really doing anything.”

“You are. Wherever you lead, people follow. There’s just something about you.”

She smiles into her glass, and I watch her do it, and I think about all the things I want to show her. All the places I want to take her. All the versions of this smile I haven't seen yet.

Rory and Jace are two tables over, sitting close together smiling at each other. Sienna and Ethan are sitting as close together as possible, which for them is basically sitting on each other. Paige is on the dance floor with someone I don't recognize, laughing at something he said. She catches my eye from across the room and grins like she knows something, which she does, which is that I'm sitting next to Emma Lawson and none of the rest of this room exists to me.

I top off Emma's glass from the pitcher on the table, and she lets me, and we talk, and we keep talking, and time passes. Too fast and exactly right.

As the night settles, we're back on the dance floor, and I'm aware that almost everyone else has moved toward the tables or the doors, and I don't stop. I have one hand at her waist, one holding hers, and she's close enough that I can feel her breath when she tips her chin up to say something. The chandeliers have dimmed toward the end-of-evening setting. The band is winding through the last song slowly.

I've pulled her incrementally closer through every dance of the night. I don't think she's consciously tracked it, but she hasn't stepped back, and she's here now, entirely here, with no space between us that isn't warmth. When the last note fades and the band takes their bow and the remaining guests applaud, Emma stays exactly where she is.

I look down at her.

She looks up at me.

"Can I walk you up?" I say.

She holds my gaze for a moment, all of it visible, no wall left between us.

"Yes," she says.

I feel it from my feet to the back of my skull.

The ballroom lights come up and the staff begin clearing the last tables and I take Emma's hand and lead her toward the stairs. I think about the time I spent watching that door. I think about Blake Connelly appearing out of nowhere to tell me she'd come. I think about Emma on the stairs in that dress, walking down toward me like something I'd been waiting for without knowing what I was waiting for.

I am the luckiest person in this building, in this town, on this stretch of coastline, possibly on the continent, and I'm going to spend a long time making sure she knows it.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Emma

The elevator doors close and we look at each other. That's all it takes.

Knox's mouth is on mine before either of us has decided anything, and I'm kissing him back with three years of wanting underneath it. His hands are in my hair, on my waist, everywhere at once as the elevator is moving and I don't care. Then it's not moving. I register the sound of a button being pressed then the lurch of a stop, and Knox walks me backward until my shoulders meet the mirrored wall, the cold of it hits my bare back through the fabric, and his mouth never leaves mine.

His hands move over me, and I feel every place he touches like a current running underneath my skin. He finds the slit in my dress and his fingers slide up my thigh, and I gasp into his mouth. He lifts me without preamble and my legs wrap around him, and I feel his hard cock against me through his pants. I moan, and he makes a low answering sound against my throat that does me in entirely. His hips roll into mine, once, deliberate, and my head goes back against the mirror. I grip his shoulders and he does it again, and we're both breathing harder than the situation technically requires. I am losing my mind in a hotel elevator, and I can’t think of a single reason to stop.

The elevator lurches back to life.

We separate. Knox takes one step back, runs a hand through his hair, straightens his jacket. I do something with my dress. The doors open on my floor and a security guard is stationed in the corridor. He very clearly clocked the stopped elevator and has drawn his own conclusions, which are accurate. He looks at us. Knox looks at me. I look at the ceiling.

"Evening," Knox says pleasantly, and takes my hand. We walk past the guard with as much dignity as two people who just stopped a hotel elevator can manage, which is not very much.