Whatever. She could look if she wanted. And she was making a show of looking at everything but him when he returned with a blood-orange cosmo for her and a whiskey sour for himself. Cassie pursed her lips and accepted the glass. He must have called Jack and asked Lilly to tell him what her favorite drink was.
Patrick resumed his seat and motioned at her sash. “I take it you’re celebrating something tonight.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “You know that.”
He replied with an amused sigh and a shake of his head. He leaned into her, his arm pressing against hers as his mustache and goatee brushed enticingly over her ear.
“Play along, Cassie.”
She shivered. The mild order combined with the soft bristles of his facial hair sent a tingle down her spine. Cassie sipped her drink to compose herself, then adjusted her sash.
“Yes. It’s my birthday.”
“Well, happy birthday. Do you have anything else planned to celebrate it? Party with family?”
“I don’t have any family here. They’re all in Miami.”
“Really?” Patrick looked genuinely surprised. “Is that where you’re from?”
“It is, but I moved here for college and never went back.”
“Couldn’t leave this dirty water, huh?”
She finished the song lyrics, smiling. “Boston, you’re my home.”
“Why’d you choose the Northeast?”
He was attentive, interested in a way most men weren’t. Part of the game, most likely, but he didn’t know her background, since they’d never had an actual conversation about themselves.
“Simple. It’s where most of the Ivy Leagues are.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And which fine institution of higher learning was graced by your presence?”
“Undergrad, or grad school?”
“I want to hear about both, of course.”
She nearly rolled her eyes again. Was this how he talked to women? “Brown. I got my JD at Boston University.” It wasn’t Harvard or Yale, but it had taken a ton of work to get there, and she was damn proud of it. Even if the mountain of debt she’d racked up in the process meant she’d had to kill herself working to pay it off.
“I’m an Ivy Leaguer as well.” He lifted his glass for her to clink hers against. “Do you miss home?”
A swift change of subject. She wanted to ask where he’d attended, but it didn’t matter. “I do when it’s cold. But sometimes I’m glad there’s a three-and-a-half-hour flight between me and my family.” She paused and leaned in to whisper, “How exactly is this you seducing me?”
He gave another shake of his head along with a playful smile. Putting his drink down, he inched closer.
“Seduction begins with connection,” he said, his voice husky and soft. “I’m starting a conversation with you. Looking for something we have in common, so I can get to know you better. Is that a good answer, Ms. Smartypants?”
His eyes twinkled. Fucking hell, whatever he was doing, it was working, and Cassie found herself fighting against his magnetism.
“It is. Thank you for clarifying.” Feigning disinterest, she took another sip of her drink and waved a hand at him in a move that said go on then. “You may continue.”
“Why, thank you. I’ve never been to Florida. Maybe you could show me around sometime.”
Like that was ever going to happen. “Maybe.”
She fingered the stem of her glass. Patrick kept looking at her face, his gaze never dropping from hers to the ample cleavage the dress afforded her.
“What about your family?” Cassie asked. “Are they local?”
A shadow crossed Patrick’s face, or maybe it was a trick of the eye from the lights shifting colors overhead. “My mother is.”
“Just her?”
“Yup. That’s all I’ve got.” The darkness in his eyes deepened. “You look absolutely stunning, by the way.”
Her stomach pitched from the heat in his eyes, a look so full of lust she could feel the punch of it. But did he mean it, or was it more of the game?
Whatever the answer, Cassie wasn’t sure she cared.
“It’s the dress. Makes things look better than they—”
“It’s not the dress.” He gave an emphatic shake of his head. “Those shoes, however…”
Cassie swung a leg out. These babies weren’t from the sale rack. The red satin Gianvito Rossi pumps had been bought full price during her lunchtime outing with Lilly and Sam to Saks Fifth Avenue.
Hashtag, It’s My Birthday Goddamn It.
“…would look better on my bedroom floor?” she finished for him.
Patrick laughed, but his eyes grew hooded as they followed the movement of her leg, sweeping upward and grazing along her collarbone until his gaze met hers in a hungry stare.
“In your bedroom, yes. But not on the floor.”
“No?”
“No. I think I’d definitely be making a request for you to leave them on.”
Cassie flooded with heat. Her sarcasm was her only defense, an attempt to throw him off, but she was quickly losing ground. The tension between them mounted, the attraction powerful and hypnotizing. She was painfully aware of his size, the broadness of his shoulders and chest beneath his shirt. She wanted to peel it from him, touch him. Taste his mouth. Hear the gritty edge his voice had taken on and feel the rush of being physically controlled again, even if he only did it for a minute.
She hadn’t wanted to want this, but now that he’d started, she didn’t want him to stop.
“A woman who wears shoes like that knows what she wants.” He shifted so his leg pressed against hers. Cassie’s body wound as tight as a coiled-up spring when Patrick made a purposeful slide of his knee along her thigh. “What do you want, Cassie?”
What did she want?
She wanted to make partner. To achieve job security and success, and find a way to change the world. To figure out if she was going to have a baby or not. She wanted a man who knew the right way to scare her and please her, who could make her fantasies a reality in a way that wouldn’t make her feel ashamed of them.
“It’s simple. I want to dance.” Cassie put her glass down, pulled her sash off and stood, tucking her coatroom ticket in his shirt pocket. “You coming?”
Her dodge hadn’t fazed him, nor had the movement of her fingers. “Oh, I’m coming all right.”
Cassie walked out onto the floor. The DJ had started playing a popular song with a Latin beat, one that reminded her of home and nights when everyone would spin around on the lawn until well after the sun went down. But she also needed to get up. To move. Do something to get her head on straight. Because after the way Patrick had gotten into her head, she needed to reclaim her footing, literally and figuratively.
They found space on the dance floor, and Cassie was thrown once again when Patrick drew her into a quick merengue. He clasped her hands, lifting their arms and spinning her around.
Goddamn it, he moved like a Cuban.
“When did you learn to dance like this?” she asked.
His expression went flat for a second before he shrugged. “Just something I picked up.”
He switched seamlessly to a salsa, and for a second it was as if she’d never known the man in front of her. The feeling that he was a bit of a stranger, one who was surprisingly well-built and commanding, made her tingle with excitement and a touch of fear. Taking her hands and placing them on his shoulders, he effortlessly shifted her weight, encouraging her to move where he wanted her. Was this what submission felt like? She had to wonder, because she’d never felt so alive and yet controlled, so contained and so free at the same time.
She didn’t want submission, though. She wanted something much darker. Something anonymous and dangerous and forbidden.
Firmly wrapping one arm around her back, Patrick tipped her backward, then lifted her knee up until her inner thigh grazed his hip. They were nose to nose, their bodies pressed together and surrounded by pounding bass, lights and
heat. The look on his face was so intense it took her breath away. It didn’t make sense. Patrick didn’t do repeat performances, so why was he trying so hard?
“What is it that you want, Patrick?”
Another split-second pause before he grinned and twirled her around. “I thought it was obvious. You.”
Cassie’s heart stopped for a beat or two. “Why?”
“Other than the fact that you’re the most beautiful woman here tonight? Or that I’ve been thinking about you all week?”
Had he? “Yes. Other than that.”
“You challenge me, Cassie. You test my mettle. And you piss me off, but I like it. I think you like it too.”
“What makes you think that?”
His eyes narrowed, his smirk explicit and mocking as his fingertips splayed out along her back, pulling her snugly against him. She could feel every inch of him.
Every. Single. Inch.
“I can read your little tells of attraction. The way your mouth just opened a little, and how your body is pushing back against mine. I could tell you all the other ways it’s obvious you want me, but that would ruin the fun. So tell me—am I right?”
Jesus. What was he doing to her? She swallowed. “Yes.”
“I thought so. So, it’s simple for me too. I want to crack your code. Figure out your secrets. And be what you want tonight.”
The word tonight made her stomach plummet, but his thighs, powerful and hard as they slid between hers, provided the distraction she needed. “We agreed it was a one-time thing. And we don’t even like each other.”
“We don’t need to like each other to fuck again.”
Her face got hot. It almost felt like sex now, like foreplay with words, are her limbs went suddenly molten, as if liquefied by his heat. The song ended, and he led her to the edge of the dance floor.
“What about your ‘never being with the same woman twice’ rule?” she asked. Were they really talking about this like it was a business proposal?
“I’ve been known to make exceptions. It’s rare, but it happens.”
The reminder of how often he did this had Cassie on the defensive again. “Our one-time thing aside, I’d rather not let a man who’s sticking his dick in the rest of Boston ‘crack my code.’”
“If it makes any difference, I haven’t been.”
“Haven’t been what?”
“Sticking my dick in the rest of Boston. Not as much as I used to, anyway. It’s been a while since I’ve been like that.”
“How long is a while?”
His gaze centered on her. Green. Sharp. Piercing. “January.”
Her heart stopped, then went into overdrive. January was when they met. And there it was again, like that night months ago. A moment without his mask on, when he felt open and honest. Real. But she had to be wary. If there was anything she’d learned in her years as an attorney, it was how to know when someone was manipulating you.
“What about last week? Weren’t you hitting on someone else less than an hour before you were in my bed?”
“I wasn’t interested. Which happens more often than you think.” His smile turned sheepish. “Sometimes I’ve picked up women around you for show.”
“Why is that?”
“To get under your skin.”
“You got lucky to annoy me? Thank you. I’m flattered.” Cassie scowled, which only prompted his amusement. His laugh was loud and wonderful, and it dismantled some of her walls. It was weird and a compliment all at once, knowing he’d been doing that to get a rise out of her.
“You’re welcome. But I’ve been getting tired of luring in new women. It’s hard work. I’m probably due a break from it.”
“I’d be a vacation from your rigorous schedule of bed-hopping?”
That moment of sincerity was gone, disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. It should’ve mattered—she should’ve made it matter—but then Patrick moved in close and stroked two fingers along her arm.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I’d be happy to focus my talents on you for a while.” His eyes met hers. “Very happy.”
Up and down his fingers moved, slow and dizzying. “Would you now?”
“Mmhmm. All you have to do is admit your fantasy.”
Cassie quirked an eyebrow at him. “Only one of them?”
He chuckled. “All right. Fantasies. Plural.”
Fantasies she’d repressed for a lifetime raced through her mind, with Patrick taking the lead role. She pictured him holding her down, providing the illusion of captivity. Shoving her against a wall like he had in her apartment, but harder, with more force. His hand on her throat, restricting her ability to breathe. Teasing her, touching her while he did it, torturing her until she begged for relief. She imagined him forcing his way into her with that gloriously thick cock, making her endure pleasure, bringing her to orgasm whether she wanted to or not.
Cassie’s body reacted in that familiar confusing mix—skin rising with gooseflesh with the conflicting sensations of terror and intoxication.
“And what do you get out of it?” she asked.
He zeroed in on the sensitive spot by the inside of her elbow. Tiny, swirling motions that would’ve felt so much better on another area of her body. “I get to fulfill them.”
“That might take more than one night.”
“Do you see me complaining?”
Cassie swayed on her feet. His invitation was enticing, but it was a bad idea to agree to something so perilously open-ended.
She could agree to one more night though. After all, this was nothing serious. It was a game. Nothing more than Patrick seeing if he could seduce her again.
“I’ll consider your offer. But like any good attorney, I’ll need a retainer first. You’ll need to prove yourself before I accept anything.” And before she made him privy to any of her more taboo fantasies.
“How do I do that?”
She put her hand over his, stopping the movement of his fingers. “I’ve never been able to come without my clit rubbed before. Think you can make that happen?”
He grinned. And holy fuck, the gleam in his eyes. “I think so.”
“All right then,” she said. “My place, or yours?”
11
Patrick’s apartment was as swanky as Cassie remembered. Perched on the top floor of a luxurious door-manned building in East Cambridge, it was all open-concept, with hardwood floors, windows everywhere and one wall entirely made of stacked stone. A double-sided fireplace separated the living area from a kitchen gleaming with stainless steel. The last time she’d been here, she felt vastly inferior—just a mixed-race girl from a working-class family, her six-figure salary a joke in comparison to Patrick’s wealth. But she didn’t care about that now, not with him moving in behind her.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” he said.
Was this still part of the game? It was hard to keep a healthy sense of mistrust in place with his body so close, his breath heated as he kissed her neck.
“Since last week?” she asked.
“Yes.” He kissed her again, grazing the back of her neck before moving to the other side. Cassie shuddered at the feel of his warm skin and beard. “No.”
“You want to clarify that?”
“Longer. Since the night we met. You had on a white blouse with a black jacket and a matching skirt, and I wanted to rip it all off you.”
“You remember what I was wearing?”
“Yes.”
It shouldn’t have made her so happy to hear that, but fuck it. If she were being honest with herself, she’d wanted him that long too.
She reached back to touch him, one hand on his cheek, the other gripping his pants, tugging him closer. “I don’t remember what you wore, but I do know you were off in a corner, flirting with some chick I thought was your girlfriend.”
“I was being Jack’s wingman. Trying to get him out there again.”
“You left with her.”
“Sem
antics.” He bit down on the tender skin of her neck. Cassie inhaled sharply.
“I didn’t like you,” she said.
“I know.” He went for the back of her dress, leisurely drawing the zipper down. “You were so mad. So obnoxious once you decided what kind of man I was.”
Cassie’s pulse raced as the dress slipped to the floor. “I think I made some kind of comment about you running out of options at your age.”
“You did. See? You piss me off.”
“And you enjoyed that?”
“Fuck yeah. It gave me a reason to piss you off right back.”
He helped her step out of the dress and urged her forward, fingers wrapped around her waist as he turned her around, then shoved her backward until her hips hit the wall. Cassie’s breath caught at the forbidden thrill.
He smiled. “You like that, don’t you.”
Cassie nodded. She did. More than she knew how to say.
She hoped he’d trap her there, that she’d get to feel that implacable grip even more tightly, but he moved in and kissed her roughly instead. When he bit down on her lower lip and sucked it into his mouth, Cassie hissed and gazed up at him. His eyes were open too, and he was smiling around his bite, mirth in his eyes as he let go and pulled back.
“I think you like that too.”
“What?”
“Biting.”
Roughness. Aggression. That was what she liked. “I might.”
“I picked that up last time.” There was meanness to his expression, a taunting, sinister flash in his eyes. “I wish you’d told me beforehand, but I guess that’s going to be part of the fun with us, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Finding the right button to push.” Shifting to her side, Patrick palmed her belly. His hand dipped down until his fingers teased the edge of her panties. “Then pushing it harder.”
Cassie tipped her pelvis toward him, feeling hungry, depraved and empty. She grappled with his arm in an attempt to push his touch toward where she was throbbing, and was rewarded with the feeling of him snatching her by the wrist and pinning her hand behind her.
Her Claim: Legally Bound Book 2 Page 10
