Page 72 of A Taste like Sin
Then silence and a slow descent back to reality.
“Damn,” he grates between panting breaths as my senses reassemble. “That’s not quite how I
imagined the second time we met like this would unfold, Ms. Thorne.”
My heart flutters, walking that dangerous line between dread and excitement. “What…what do you
mean?”
He laughs, and any doubts are shattered. “I’d thought for sure we’d at least make it to the goddamn
bed.”
“I SHOULD BE TAKEN OUT AND SHOT,” DAMIEN GROWLS AS HIS FINGERS DANCE ALONG THE FLAT OF MY
belly. As if supplying accompanying percussion, a series of garbled, protesting noises rumble from it.
“You’re starving.” He sighs against the back of my throat. “Perhaps I should have insisted on dinner
first after all?”
I echo his sigh and lean further into him, relishing the feel of his chest against the curves of my back.
Given the warm temperature of the greenhouse, his heat should be an unwelcome addition—but I shift
closer, aching to extend the burn of his flesh on mine. Even the floor, slightly damp from the humidity,
feels more comfortable than it has any right to.
“I don’t want to move,” I admit, cringing from the idea of putting my dress on and reentering the real
world. Or pretending that what just happened didn’t. “I want to lie here naked and never get up
again.”
“Never?” he wonders in a throaty chuckle. “May I propose a compromise?”
More like an ultimatum, it seems as he pulls away. I turn to watch him sit upright in a graceful
arrangement of limbs. Seemingly from nowhere, he withdraws a headset from the tangled mass of
clothing beside us.
“Julio,” he says into the device. Spanish deepens the distance between us as he dishes out what I
assume are a multitude of commands. Then he sets the headset aside and reaches toward our clothing
again. “You do not have to move,” he says, “But I would like you coveredpor favor.”
He feels through the fabric and retrieves not my crumpled dress but his tailored suit jacket. Sitting up,
I shudder as he drapes me in the fabric, easily maneuvering my arms into the sleeves.
He doesn’t extend the same modesty to himself, however, not even as Julio calls from the door
minutes later.
“Sir?”
