Page 20 of Mine

I slowed as we approached my building. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was doing yet.

Salt seemed to pick up on that as I stopped in front of the doors, turning to face him. He loomed in front of me, his guitar case in one hand, his other tucked in his leather jacket. Dark eyes, dark hair, a face that belonged to a god, not a mortal man. Especially not a man who wanted me.

“What do you want?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never?—”

“Gone home with someone?”

“You’re too young,” I snapped, my thoughts racing.

I was panicking. I was going back and forth between logic and the desire that had overcome me. Maybe Jeff saying I wasn’t fun anymore was going to my head. Maybe I just needed to do something for myself.

I should send him home. That was the answer. Drive him away and forget about tonight. “You’re way too young for me. How old did you say you were?”

A smirk tugged at his lips. He cocked his head. “Twenty-five.”

God, this was crazy. What had gotten into me? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been with someone new in the bedroom.Years. I didn’t just go home with strangers, especially a stranger who was over a decade younger than me and a potential client for Rosethorn.

“Your brain has barely finished growing. What on earth could you possibly know about?—”

Salt pinned me against the wall, his knee spreading my thighs. My eyes widened, my body responding to him in a way that had my thoughts short-circuiting. Every complaint vanished as my gaze locked with his, the lust burning hot in his eyes.

He leaned in, lips almost touching mine. “Aren’t you tired?” he whispered. “Tired of fighting? You know you want me. Why are you fighting what you want? You’re a CEO, a woman who gets everything she wants all the time without so much as a blink. Are you worried about what people might think—someone who looks like you, walking home with someone who looks like me? Is it the tattoos, Pepper? The clothes I wear?”

My chest rose and fell with uneven breaths, my eyes never leaving his. Darkness emanated from him in waves, but it was the kind of darkness I wanted to get lost in. The kind of darkness that held the same wonder of lying in a field and staring up at a starry sky. Like a pot of ink, waiting to be spun into words.

It was the kind of darkness I couldn’t turn away from, because I had that darkness, too.

A depravity that yearned for something more.

Jeff had smothered it when we were married. It was wrong to be wanted like that, wasn’t it? All the years spent being raised in a small town by religious zealots told me it was wrong.

But every part of me screamed for more. Begged for it. Whatever this was, it made me act foolishly.

But really, was it wrong to be wanted?

Towantto be wanted?

“This is wrong,” I murmured.

A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t think it’s wrong at all.”

His presence leached my ability to turn away. I wanted him. His age didn’t matter. The fact that he could be a part of my business one day didn’t matter, even though it was breaking the rules.

I didn’t date our artists.

And hewouldbe ours.

He would be mine. After hearing his music tonight, I knew Tommy was right. He’d struck gold. He’d found someone who made the kind of music that led me to run away from the life my mother so eagerly wanted for me.

Salt had the voice of the devil.

And I really wanted to be a good little sinner.

For years, I’d been perfect. I had a reputation for being smart, steady, and calculated. I always made good choices. It was ingrained into me from the start.

But I wasn’t happy. That was what I’d come to terms with earlier this week. Jeff leaving me had only ripped the first bandaid off, and there were plenty more to go.

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