Versed in Desire Read Free Page B

did. I wanted my back flat to any unmoving surface, his body hard and unrelenting against mine. In mine.
    Tonight.
    He spoke to the model. Whatever he said wiped the smile off her face, but she recovered her poise and strutted off. My heart leapt as he pushed away from the piano and wound his way through the crowd. Fear and exhilaration warred inside me as he approached and I turned my back to him, hiding my anticipation, my need from the people gathered in Tony’s living room.
    Luke stopped behind me, so close I could feel the heat of his body through leather and velvet, and spoke to my reflection in the glass. “I’m surprised you’re here.”
    â€œI can leave,” I said, but the teasing note fell flat.
    He threaded his fingers through the soft waves of hair at my temple, then slid it over my shoulder. The better to see my face, I suppose. I’d left my hair loose in part because I hoped he’d get his hands in it, in part because it helped hide the longing in my eyes. That he touched it, left his hand on my shoulder, within a minute of approaching me, shocked me. It shouldn’t have.
    â€œWith me?” he asked.
    I looked down, away from the dark resolve in his eyes. The butterfly wings beating under my skin were ridiculous. I was no virgin and we’d been circling around this for months.
    But choosing wasn’t easy. Choosing guaranteed action, not results. Certainly not security.
    Endlessly patient, Luke waited until I turned and met his eyes before he said, “I’ll get us a cab.”
    The discordant noise of the party faded into a thrumming space where words, simple single-syllable words, met emotion and became meaning. In that moment, meaning was enough.
    â€œGive me a few minutes,” I said, my voice as low as his.
    He said his goodbyes and left. I waited exactly five minutes, then found Tony and pleaded a headache. There wasn’t a hint of curiosity or risqué assumption in my boss’s parting words, only genuine concern. Sometimes, in my more feverish moments, I felt as if the attraction vibrating between me and Luke was a figment of my active imagination.
    I walked out of the lobby to find him leaning against a cab at the corner of Hudson and Jay. The streetlights cast shadows across his face, hiding his eyes, but his expression was intense, his mouth set. It was one in the morning in TriBeCa. No one was on the street filled only with Manhattan’s eternal hum, the city’s radiant energy I absorbed through my pores. He said something, but the soft husky murmur blended into the city’s chatter.
    I kept walking, my heels clicking against the sidewalk, stopping only when I was an inch from his body. I could have buried my nose in the hollow of his throat, seeking that familiar scent of lust rising from his open collar. I didn’t, though. I tilted my head up, my lips parting as I did. His hands were deep in his pockets, his mouth not quite within reach so I went up on tiptoe and brushed my lips over his. They were firm and tantalizingly warm, the dry skin sliding easily against mine. Sparks popped and my breath halted in my throat.
    We stayed like that for an eternal moment, our mouths pressed together, slightly open. I could taste the whiskey he’d drunk at the party, the slightest bite on his breath, even before I slipped my tongue between his lips to gently touch his.
    Then one hand scudded up my velvet jacket, under the long fall of my hair as he slanted his head and kissed me. His fingers tangled in my hair, the tug sending tiny pinpricks of pain zipping along my nerves, but the heat of his wrist against my bare nape was what made me shudder.
    His breath eased out with a shaky sigh when he came up for air. He opened the cab’s door. “Get in.”
    I slid across the torn vinyl back seat, Luke right beside me. He gave his cross streets to the driver, but I leaned into the opening in the plastic window. “No,” I said.