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Coming Soon! Manhattan Billionaires: Book 6

Carrie and Cole's story...

I’D ONLY MEANT TO STOP IN, apologize, and then make a graceful exit to go back to Hailey’s wedding. Then I saw him sitting there in the bar’s dim lights, brooding and mysterious. It was like Cole had tied a rope around my waist to keep me sitting beside him, and if I were honest with myself, I’d probably admit that I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

 

The wedding was in full swing, and it was fun. But after one too many congratulations aimed at me instead of Hailey, my cheeks had begun to tire with the effort required to keep smiling. So here I was, nursing a mojito, talking to a man who seemed just a little bit dangerous.

 

His voice had a velvet quality, and I found myself entranced by the way he moved; he was sure of himself, but possessed a calmness that eased some of the tension that had plagued me all day. Maybe longer than a day. Maybe I’d carried hidden tension deep in the core of me for years.

 

So I didn’t thank him, get up, and go back to the wedding. I stayed right there beside him, and I found myself spilling my own secrets.

 

“My family and friends very enthusiastic about my breakup,” I told him, swirling my straw around the crushed mint and lime at the bottom of my glass. “If one more person comes up to me to tell me they never liked my ex, I think I might scream.”

 

Cole shrugged. “Sounds like they mean well.”

 

“Not you too.”

 

He laughed, and I watched the play of the light over his burnished skin. He had straight, white teeth and full lips, and I found my gaze drawn back to him every time I tried to look away to gather my thoughts. It wasn’t like me to feel out of sorts around a man, no matter how good-looking he was.

 

But as I sat there, regaling him with the tale of my unfortunate breakup and subsequent mania of packing and driving away from the home we’d shared, I realized that I was attracted to him in a way that felt unfamiliar. It was bigger than I’d felt before. More volatile. Like the air between us shimmered with gasoline fumes, and I’d just found an old packet of matches in my pocket.

 

On the surface, it wasn’t that shocking. He was tall, broad, and he’d saved me from a knife-wielding thief who had obviously been ingesting various illicit substances for quite some time. He’d carried me and been domineering, and now he was softer while still looking me over with those dark, dangerous eyes. Of course I’d be attracted to him. He was catnip for a woman on a rebound: just dangerous enough to get the heart pumping, and just soft and safe enough to make you want to give in to temptation.

 

But as my heart thumped at the sound of his laughter and my thighs clenched when his forearm brushed against mine, it struck me just how long it had been since I’d felt attracted to anybody. My body had been a wasteland of forgotten needs for so long that I hadn’t even realized what was missing.

 

I wanted sex. I wanted sex with him.

 

Forcing myself to turn forward, I focused on the dregs of my drink and shook my head when the bartender offered to make me another. One was enough, especially combined with the two glasses of champagne I’d had earlier. Anything more, and I’d get myself into trouble. Into more trouble.

 

“How about you?” I heard myself ask.

 

“How about me, what?”

 

“Are you married?” I kept my voice casual, but judging by the knowing look Cole shot my way, he saw right through me.

 

“No.”

 

“Huh,” I said. “Girlfriend?”

 

“No again.”

 

“I see.”

 

“Why do you ask?” he asked, turning toward me so his legs framed mine. “You interested?”

 

His voice was teasing, but his eyes were serious.

 

My pulse pounded through my body, in my thighs, my wrists, my neck. My core. I brought my drink to my lips and sipped a tiny bit of the melted ice through the straw, looking through my eyelashes as I met his gaze. “I’m just making conversation,” I told him with a tiny shrug.

 

The tips of his fingers brushed against my bare knee, and a shiver went through me. I put my drink down as my hands began to tremble.

 

Sleeping with him—sleeping with anyone—was a bad idea, no matter what my cousins said to tease me. I’d just broken up with my long-term boyfriend a day ago. I’d had my car broken into just hours ago. I was frazzled and unstable—and I was attending a wedding, of all things, which had obviously addled the last remnants of my rational mind. All that love and companionship and happiness had gotten to me, and now I was here. With him. Itching to lean in and taste the booze on his lips.

 

Cole would be the rebound of all rebounds, and this attraction was nothing more than me trying to cling to something to make me feel better.

 

I knew it. He probably knew it. But it didn’t change the fact that the air between us was electric. It snapped against my skin like static, and the gentle, barely-there touch of his fingertips against my knee made my whole body pulse with need.

 

Wanting to get back on solid ground, I asked, “So what was this big-shot meeting you were having? Or was that just an excuse to get away from me?”

 

His smile was lazy and darkly amused. “You think you had that much of an effect on me, Carrie?” His thumb stroked against the inside of my knee, and I nudged my legs a tiny bit wider.

 

My mind blared Danger!

 

My body ignored the warning.

 

I popped a brow. “I think you saw me and decided to play the hero. Then you manhandled me despite my protests. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume the rest of your story was made up to make you look like even more of a savior.”

 

“How so?”

 

“Well, you just happened by on the way to a business meeting when you saw a damsel in distress, and you had to act. Or maybe it’s your usual play. You hang around hotels waiting to see some poor, unsuspecting woman ripe of the picking. Maybe you and that thief are in cahoots.”

 

He hummed, his thumb still stroking my skin in the crease of my inner knee. His eyes sparkled as he watched me, sinful and dark and delicious. Being in his presence was making me a little breathless, but I was having too much fun to stop. Talking to Cole felt risky and safe all at once. I wanted to poke him and push him and see what he’d do. See what I’d do.

 

After all, I’d spent years of trying to be the perfect girlfriend; didn’t it feel amazing to be a little bit bad?

 

“You’ve got me all figured out,” Cole said, that lazy, dark grin still playing around the edges of his lips.

 

I couldn’t help my answering smile. “You mad about it?”

 

“No,” he replied. “Especially considering I really was here for a business meeting.” He laughed and added, “Don’t look so disappointed. I’ve been headhunted for a job.”

“Congrats,” I said. “What do you do?”

 

He shrugged. “Right now I work for an advertising agency. But this would be a step in another direction.”

 

We’d shared a bit about our pasts: His adoption and his conflict about reaching out to his birth family. My breakup, my own mother’s death, and all the little trinkets and memories I’d lost because an addict saw my car full of belongings and decided he could steal my junk and sell it to get high.

 

But this was different. Finding out about his job was now. The present. It was somehow more real than the scars of our past, and it felt like a taboo subject we weren’t supposed to touch. We existed in this hotel bar, suspended in time, and the real world was something distant and hazy that we weren’t supposed to talk about.

 

Still, I asked, “Sounds like you’re not sure you want to take the job.”

 

“I want the job,” he told me. “But I don’t want to hurt the people who have helped me get where I am.”

 

The sincerity in his voice, coupled with the way his eyes shuttered when he finished speaking, made me think he was telling the truth.

 

And just like that, the solid ground that I’d tried to find fell away beneath my feet. He wasn’t just a dark, brooding hero who’d come to my rescue. He wasn’t an overbearing jerk who thought he knew what was right for me despite my protests. He had a core of decency. Loyalty to the people who did right by him.

 

I liked that. My attraction to him mushroomed as I sat there, squirming on my bar stool, unable to come to grips with the fact that the worst thing I could do for my own mental health would be to sleep with the one man I really, really wanted.

 

“Well, things could be worse,” I pointed out.

 

His dark eyes lifted to meet mine, brows arching. “Oh?”

 

“Yeah. You could be single, homeless, and have a busted back window in your rust bucket of a car.”

 

His grin intoxicated me more than my mojito had. “True,” he said. His thumb made a long, slow sweep over my thigh, inching a tiny bit higher between my legs. “What’s your plan?”

 

“I have no plan,” I said, and it came out breathy.

 

“You going back to the wedding?” His eyes were on me, and there was an unspoken question in them. A question about tangled sheets and sweaty skin, and whether or not I was brave enough to step through the door he’d just cracked open a little bit wider. A door I’d knocked on when I’d slid onto the bar stool next to his.

 

So I gave him an unspoken answer: “Eventually,” I replied.

 

Time stood still. When Cole finally spoke, his voice was low. “Did all your stuff make it to your room okay?”

 

My heart thumped. I wondered if he could see the pulse pounding in my neck, if he could feel it beneath the press of his palm on my leg. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I haven’t been up there yet. I was thinking, maybe…” I licked my lips. “Maybe I should go check.”

 

“Yeah?” His fingers pressed against the outside of my thigh, and his hand slid another fraction of an inch higher. I shifted—hardly enough to even be perceptible, but I knew he noticed the movement. His hand clenched ever so slightly against my leg, like he was holding himself back from reaching higher up the open slit of my dress.

 

I wished he would. I was so far gone that I didn’t even care that we were sitting in public, at a bar, with people all around. I wanted his hand between my legs so he could feel how wet he made me.

 

I was so attuned to him that I sensed when his breathing changed and deepened. His cologne smelled like heaven, and I wanted it embedded on my skin. “I might need help,” I said, hearing my own voice as if from a distance as I explained, “with the boxes.”

 

It was a brazen invitation. Completely out of character for me. I hadn’t had sex in months, and I hadn’t wanted sex in even longer. But it felt as if some other being had inhabited my brain, because all I could think about was Cole’s hand on my leg and the dampness of my underwear between my legs. Desire lashed me like a whip, urging me to be reckless. To take what I wanted and damn the consequences.

 

It didn’t have to mean anything. It didn’t have to go any farther than this hotel. This evening. This one time.

 

Cole’s eyes flicked between mine, and nothing else needed to be said. He turned his head and nodded to the bartender, who had our bill printed and ready for us within seconds. Cole barely glanced at it before slapping some cash down and flicking the leather bill holder closed.

 

On shaking legs, I stood and grabbed my clutch. Vague embarrassment burned my cheeks at the thought of the staff seeing us leave together, but I was so far gone that the feeling only served to stoke my desire. I liked feeling like I was doing something wrong and that everyone could tell. Gone was the woman who’d made herself smaller for the sake of a man who didn’t deserve her. I was someone different now.

 

Cole pressed his hand to my lower back, over the crisscrossing straps that held the dress up, and gently guided me out of the lounge bar and toward the elevators. His fingertips dipped below the straps and eased down my spine, sending warmth flooding through my middle.

 

I glanced toward the thumping music of the wedding, and breathed a sigh of relief when I didn’t see anyone I knew.

 

“How’s your foot?” Cole asked, drawing my gaze back to him.

 

“It’s fine,” I answered. “Ankle’s a bit sore, but it’s been okay to walk on.”

 

“Good,” he said, and the elevator doors slid open. His palm was warm against my back as he guided me inside, and he didn’t move away as I fumbled with my purse to find my key card. I swiped it on the reader and mashed the button for the sixth floor, where my room was located, and stood utterly still while the mirrored doors slid closed in front of us.

 

The music cut off, along with the ringing phones of the reception desk and the clinking of glass and cutlery from the bar and restaurant.

 

I sucked in a hard breath as Cole slid his free hand over my jaw, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. Circling my face with a look, he arched a brow. “We don’t have to do this,” he said.

 

“I know,” I replied, and I licked my lips. “But I want to.”

 

He let out a puff of breath, like my words slapped him with relief. Then his hand slid around my back and beneath the silky side of my dress so his palm was pressed against my ribs. He pulled me tight to his chest as his thumb stroked my cheek. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea,” he admitted.

 

I knew what he meant. There was something between us, but indulging in this chemistry could blow up in our faces. It was more than probable, judging by my recent string of bad luck.

 

But I was dizzy with need. The gusset of my underwear clung to me, chafing against all the areas I wanted him to touch. His eyes were dark as they drew me in, and his grip on me was strong and sure. I wanted to melt against him, wanted to give myself up to him.

 

I didn’t want to care about the fallout.

 

“It’s a terrible idea,” I rasped, sliding my hands up his chest to toy with one of the buttons of his shirt. I bit my lip—and flicked the button open.

 

That’s all it took. One little ivory button sliding against the wrapped threads of the buttonhole. That’s all that had been keeping us sane—because the moment it came free, I found myself lifted and pressed up against the side of the elevator, pinned by the bulk of Cole’s body with no choice but to wrap my legs around his waist. Then he kissed me like the world was ending.

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