Page 82 of Merciless Heir
But tonight I have different plans.
I stand in front of Kingston’s door on his private landing. He’s not expecting me, but here I am, ready to see the bastard who makes my heart beat a little too hard and fast.
Footsteps clatter and grow louder inside and I ring the bell again.
“I told you, I’m not in the mood.” And the door swings open.
I forget how to breathe.
He doesn’t move. “You’re not my brother.”
Oh, Lord, I don’t know how, but this is somehow more naked than if he was naked.
Kingston’s been working out, and he’s wearing shorts that sit low on narrow hips, and sweat drips down from his hair and his pecs and I’m about to lose my mind.
All that man flesh, lean, the sheen and tiny rivulet of sweat is something I want to put my mouth against and lick off him. I’ve never had the inclination to lick sweat before, but with him?
Yes. Please.
My mouth is dry and words have vanished and my body throbs. Down deep between my thighs it thrums with the urge to have him touch, to slide his hands under my coat and throw me against the wall. I want him to slide fingers along my panties, I want them inside me. I want—
Fuck.
“Go shower and get dressed.”
“And here I thought you were having a good old visual feast there.” He steps aside, just a little, and I skitter in.
Kingston closes the door behind me and rests his hand against me, trapping me in. His body heat seeps down into me.
“You stink.” He doesn’t. The man smells faintly of that spice and musk of him, along with clean sweat, the kind that makes images of sex dance through my mind. As a way to get him to go away it’s pathetic. And he knows it.
“If I do, it turns you on,” he says, gaze on my mouth. He flicks open the buttons on my coat, pushing it open, though that’s all he does. He slides his gaze over me. “Going somewhere?”
“With you, yes. Although, I want to kill you.”
“See, that’s why you’re single, Sadie. You keep offing the men. Like a black widow spider.”
“And your special blend of insulting women along with your personality is why you’re single.”
He moves in close. “If I kissed you, you’d kiss me back.”
Before I can do a thing, he steps away and walks off. “Why are you here? Dressed to the nines?”
“We’re going to your brother’s fundraiser.”
Christ, the lean, muscular shape of him is scorching even from behind.
I trail him down the hall and into the huge kitchen in white and black stone. He grabs a tea towel and wipes his face, flings it over his shoulders, around his neck. He then pours some water, sliding a glass to me and then getting one of his own. “I already donated.”
“I don’t care.”
“Those things bore me.”
They bore me, too, but he’s going. We have a lot to talk about, like why he’s keeping shit from me when I’ve been an open book about work. Things like visiting my Yia-yia.
She’s no better, but Athena let it slip she’s seen him, wrapping the reveal in the kind of words I’d have to basically say I was interested in him to get her to tell me more. Because Yia-yia is good.
The woman knows how to veil words without saying they’d spoken outright. It pisses me off.