Page 32 of How to Bang a Billionaire

He tasted of heat and coffee. I hadn’t liked nicotine, but if I had maybe it would have been like this. A smoky velvet kiss drawing me softly into danger, into addiction.

He was breathing hard after. A little flushed. A lock of hair had fallen like a wayward comma across one eye. If he hadn’t had me so deliciously trapped, I’d have pushed it back for him. “Arden—”

I gave him a look.

He closed his eyes briefly, a frown line crinkling at the top of his nose. Something else I would have loved to touch. Smooth away. “I have to tell you, I don’t do relationships.”

“Oh, that’s fine.” I hooked a leg across his hip. “Let’s just have sex.”

He let me go so abruptly I nearly toppled over. Saving myself only by slithering sideways over the glass like a smooshed insect. “I don’t do that either.”

My mouth fell open. “You don’t have sex?” The words bounced crazily off the walls and the polished floor. I’d accidentally used my interrobang voice.

But he only smiled his distant smile. “I don’t have casual sex.”

“Why not?”

“Because it sometimes leads me to forget myself.”

“Well, we don’t have to have casual sex.” I rubbed my wrist, my thumb lingering on the spot where his own had pressed. “We can have…smart-casual sex. Or formal sex.”

“I thought you didn’t like formal.”

Oh God. His teasing undid me almost as thoroughly as his savagery. Or perhaps it was knowing he was capable of both.

He’d retreated to his desk. If you could call that curve of edgeless glass a desk. Bare, of course, except for an equally sleek laptop, a phone, and a lamp. And a frighteningly futuristic-looking ergonomic chair: this del Toro monster of steel and black leather. I could imagine him sitting there against the darkening sky. His own little world, his own circle of light, as stark as the rest of his office.

“I would do formal for you,” I said.

He glanced away. “I would never want to make you do anything you didn’t want.”

“You never have.” I probably sounded pathetic, but since I’d just chased him to London, interrupted his meeting, and then burst into tears, it was a bit late in the day to be worrying about my dignity. “I don’t think you could. I think”—my mouth had gone dry—“if you wanted something, I’d want it too.”

“We can’t do this.” He braced his hips against the desk, hands on either side. It was a nonchalant pose, except for the tight grip of his fingers.

Even I could tell it was slightly mortifying how quickly I jumped on the fact that he went for “can’t do this” over “don’t want to do this.” I wasn’t quite enough of a dickhead to call him on it though. “Why not?”

“I’ve already explained.”

“But there’s an entire spectrum of behavior between relationship and casual sex.”

“I’m sure, but I’m quite a busy man, Arden, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to embark upon something both complicated and inevitably unsuccessful.”

And again with the half-empty glass. “How can you say that without even trying?”

He sighed, a finger stroking the crease between his eyes, as though it pained him slightly. “Because I know myself. I know what I’m capable of and I know what my life permits.”

“But what’s the point of”—I made a not-very-eloquent gesture—“any of this if you can’t…uh…have your wicked way with a cute boy you met at Oxford?”

He stepped away from the desk and crossed the room toward me. His shadow engulfed me but I wasn’t threatened by it. Up close, like this, with nothing sexual between us, the difference in our heights seemed more than usually ludicrous. He put his hands on my shoulders. I didn’t exactly feel infantilized by it—just physically small, which I didn’t mind. But I also had a sense he was trying to be fraternal, which I, well, did. People who fucked your mouth didn’t have the right to pretend they hadn’t.

“I think,” he murmured, “you underestimate my wickedness.”

And, just like that, my irritation was gone. I grinned up at him. “Oh I really hope I don’t.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Then let me.”

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