Seven orgasms would definitely qualify as fantasy sex. But her deepest fantasies didn’t involve sex. They’d always involved three little words.
Unfortunately, she’d always been a realist. In sex and in everything else. And she knew those three little words would never—could never—be said between her and Owen.
“Deal. As soon as we get up to your flat, we’ll check the time. And two hours from then, you’ll have come seven times.”
“Only if you win the wager. You’re probably going to lose, you know.”
He gave her bottom a possessive squeeze, despite the fact that they were still standing on a public sidewalk. “I’ve never lost a wager in my life.”
“Well, there’s always a first.”
He gave her that grin that always took her breath away. “And a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh.”
One
“Pompous asshole,” Amy murmured, not quite under her breath. The insult was purely a reflex. She had to do something to distract herself from how rapidly her heart was pounding and how hot she suddenly felt at the wager they’d just made.
Owen arched his eyebrows. “I should cry foul for trying to distract me by starting a fight. Beginning to lose your confidence?”
“Of course not. But, you’re right. I’ll try to avoid the name-calling. You have a lot to try to accomplish in only two hours. You can’t afford to lose any time. We better get upstairs before you get too scared.”
He chuckled—such a fond expression on his face that she momentarily lost her breath—and started to walk inside.
They got onto the elevator but, instead of standing in the normal way, side by side with their backs to the wall, Owen maneuvered her into a corner.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as the doors slid closed. Quite without conscious volition, her hands lifted to hang onto his shirt.
“What do you mean?” His voice was low and thick, and his body was hard and hot as it pressed her into the corner. Very hard. Very hot.
Amy’s already pulsing blood pulsed even more. “The two hours haven’t started yet, so don’t try to cheat by getting a head start.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Are you having an orgasm at the moment?”
Torn between laughter and arousal, Amy said, “Well, no. Not just at the moment, but thanks for asking.”
“Then there’s no cheating. I’m just standing in the lift, minding my own business. The rules don’t apply.”
“The rules never seem to apply to you.”
He gave her that same intimate smile. “If rules get in my way, then I work around them. You should try it some time. You wouldn’t always work yourself into knots trying to control the entire world.”
She gazed up at him with a sudden swell of emotion. Owen wasn’t just handsome, charming, and sexy as hell. He was so clever and so dryly funny and so completely attuned to who she really was. And he had a sweetness to his soul that none of his surface qualities—as remarkable as they were—could possibly hide.
The affection was so at the surface of her heart that, when he leaned down to kiss her, her response was hungrier, needier, than it would have been otherwise.
Owen must have recognized the feeling in her and responded to it instinctively. His mouth seemed to devour hers as he pressed her back against the corner, the edges of the support bars poking into her ass. The kiss was deep—with more than just physical arousal—and Amy’s head was spinning when their lips broke apart.
He leaned his forehead against hers and murmured, “Amy.”
Before either of them could say anything else, the elevator stopped. On the tenth floor, rather than the eighteenth.
By the time the doors opened and one of Amy’s neighbors stepped on—obviously coming back from working out in the fully equipped gym on this floor—Owen had rearranged them in a less intimate position. He was now in the corner and Amy was positioned in front of him, her back pressed against his front.
His arm rested lightly around her waist.
Amy smiled a greeting at her neighbor, hoping she didn’t look like she’d just been making out on the elevator. Her cheeks were flushed, but hopefully she looked otherwise normal.
“Did you hear all the racket the other night from 1808?” her neighbor asked as the elevator started back up to their floor.
“No. Were they having a party or something?”
“It sounded more like an orgy. I mean, really. How long can a sex marathon last?”
Amy laughed, a little nervously, as Owen eased his groin into her back. He was hard, and the motion was an obvious taunt, a reminder of their wager, what they would do as soon as they got to her apartment. “Oh, no. I don’t share a wall with that unit. I didn’t hear anything. Maybe it was a one-time thing.”