Page 104 of The Woman By the Lake

I moved around the bar, got close, and when he turned his head and looked down at me, all that had happened with him, all he’d done for me, all he was becoming to me, and just how beautiful he was, washed over me.

I rocked up to my toes, pressed into him…and kissed him.

His mouth was hard, and soft, and very closed.

And he didn’t move.

Oh shit.

I popped back, letting his hand go, and saying fast, “God, I’m sorry. That was wrong. I shouldn’t have violated your person like that. I read the situation…I was thinking…” I shook my head. “That was just all wrong. You’re in no state, I didn’t mean to take advantage. We’re friends and?—”

“Nadia.”

My name in his mouth whipped at me like a lash.

My body jolted at his tone, my stomach sank, my heart pulsed, and I whispered, “What?”

“It’s time to go to bed.”

I nodded frantically. “Right, right, you’re right.”

“I’m gonna follow you up the stairs…”

I went still.

“…and it’s your decision which way you turn at the top of them.”

I quit breathing.

“But so you go in knowing what you’re getting into, you turn left, honey, it’s on.”

“It’s…on?” I pushed out.

“That’s all you’re gonna get, princess. You spin the wheel with me, you let it ride.”

I feared hyperventilation.

“Go to bed,” he ordered.

I felt my pussy contract.

“Now, honey,” he demanded.

I hustled around the counter.

I swallowed back a scream when the kitchen light went out, and I was plunged into darkness in the stairwell.

I put my hand to the wall and slowly wound my way up, the grooves in the wood paneling ebbing and flowing under my hand, a caress I felt through my fingers slink over my whole body, like Riggs, through his house, was touching me.

I knew when he entered the stairs, and I knew he was climbing when I got to the top.

But I stopped.

He stopped behind me, one step down. I couldn’t feel him, but I could feel his heat.

It felt amazing.

And his breath on my neck.

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