To go with my high-class call girl look, I’d teased my blonde locks to give them extra body and made up my eyes in a smoky purplish gray. There was a fine line between sexy and whore, and I hoped I was teetering on the right side. When Carter knocked, I was suddenly nervous with butterflies.
“One minute!”
I gave myself a last onceover in the mirror and took a deep breath before strutting to the door in my stilettos.
Apparently, slutty was a look Carter really liked. His eyes bulged from their sockets and he cursed under his breath. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You’re trying to fucking kill me.”
I spun a slow circle to give him the full view. “You like it?”
“You have no bra or underwear on under that thing, do you?”
“There are no sides; you can’t wear any. Is it too much?”
He stayed in the doorway, holding on to both sides so tight that his knuckles turned white. The way he looked at me with such raw intensity made my skin prickle. “You look gorgeous, Kendall. It’s not too much. I just hate the thought of sharing you with anyone else in that outfit.”
“You said you wanted to see skin. So I wore it for you.”
“Thank you. It made my day. Fuck that, it made my year. Now grab your jacket and cover yourself up before I do something that you might not be okay with.”
My coat was on the bed. Slipping it on, I cinched it tight at the waist, and I was glad it fell all the way to my knees. No one could have imagined what little I had on underneath. Carter held the door as I passed, but I stopped to whisper. “I can’t think of anything you’d do that I wouldn’t be okay with.”
CLUB BOUDOIR WAS MORE glamorous than any club I’d ever been in. And that includes the annual girls’ trip I’d taken the last few years to New York City. There was a long roped off line to get in, but Carter surprised me by walking to the front. When he gave his name, we were escorted right inside. He’d reserved a table that came with an expensive bottle of champagne.
“This is beautiful.”
He pulled out my chair. “I’m glad you like it. Because I might not be able to afford dinner for the next few days after this.” He’d said it jokingly, but I knew it had to cost him a small fortune for a bottle of American Dom and no-wait entry. We shared a table full of appetizers and drank the full bottle of champagne while people-watching together. It was so effortless to spend time with Carter, whether I was sitting in our room at Maria Rosa’s or swaying to music in my chair at a swanky club in the middle of ritzy Dubai. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how weird the entire situation was.
“I can’t believe a few days ago a monkey peed on my shoulder at a boarding house and now I’m sitting in a club full of beautiful people drinking champagne with you.”
“Which do you like better?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t shown me your moves yet. Can you dance, Captain Clynes?”
He gulped back the last of the champagne in his glass. “Maybe.”
I stood and offered him my hand. “Show me what you got, hot stuff.”
One brow arched. “Hot stuff?”
The champagne had me feeling no pain. I wrapped my arms around Carter’s neck. “You’re gorgeous, confident, funny, and an airline pilot. The only thing that can make that package any better is if you have rhythm.”
Carter leaned in slowly, brushing his cheek against mine and whispered in my ear while his fingers slowly trailed down the side of my body. “Oh, I have rhythm. But that you’re going to see later in private. I promise.”
When he pulled his head back, my lips were parted and my breathing was labored. I wanted him so damn much, it physically hurt. “We could skip dancing?”
“No way. I’m grinding myself against you out on that dance floor. It’s going to be your foreplay. Because I’m not sure how much you’ll get when I rip this dress off of you later.”
CARTER MOANED INTO MY mouth when I slipped my hand into the back waistband of his pants. We were in a hallway by the bathroom, both of us soaked with sweat from hours of dancing. We’d laughed and danced, swayed to slow songs and grinded to American R&B. Lord, Carter Clynes could dance. The way he moved his hips, pushed his unrelenting erection into me, I could almost come from that alone.
The last ten minutes, though, things had changed. The kissing became more urgent, the need ratcheting up to a level that felt like if we didn’t both have our clothes off in the next few heartbeats, I’d pass out from sex deprivation.
A slow song had just come on again. I didn’t know the words, but Carter sang along at parts, our bodies swaying as we stayed pressed against each other in the privacy of the dark hallway.