Chapter 2

The doorbell chimed a third time—urgent, shrill. The hotel manager's voice seeped through the door.

"Mr. Stafford, is everything all right in there? The guests in 3202 reported an intruder—"

Jeremie's eyes narrowed. He took her by the back of the neck and peeled her off his chest, the way a man defuses a live bomb.

Her breath came out in scalding puffs. Driven by nothing but the unnatural heat running through her veins, she leaned right back in and pressed open-mouthed kisses to the side of his throat.

Something bloodthirsty and unhinged moved behind his eyes. Without looking away from her, he reached back and slammed his palm onto the wall intercom.

"I'm resting," he said, his voice perfectly flat. "If anyone touches that bell again, they're off this property by morning."

Outside, dead silence. Only the muffled thud of security boots on the hallway carpet. Nobody dared knock again. Nobody dared leave.

He released the button. When he looked down at her, the last of his restraint was gone. He slammed his rocks glass onto the bar hard enough to crack the base, hooked an arm around her waist, and kicked the master bedroom door open. It swung shut behind them, not quite catching.

"You asked for this," he growled, and bit her bottom lip.

They stumbled into the dark and crashed onto the gray velvet bed. Tearing fabric and ragged breathing swallowed the hum of traffic thirty-two floors down. Caught in the undertow, Alicia arched her back, her nails raking bleeding lines down the tight muscle of his shoulders—until a thin white line of dawn found the gap in the blackout curtains.

Alicia's eyes snapped open.

A deep ache spread through her limbs and dragged her fully awake in half a second. She turned her head on the pillow. He lay with his back to her, a dozen angry red claw marks across his spine, the deepest one over his shoulder blade still tacky with dried blood.

The facts stacked up fast. Her stepmother and her fiancé had tried to set her up. Her clutch was still in 3202—no phone, no cash, no ID. Her engagement party was tomorrow. If she was photographed leaving this floor, she'd walk into it as the scandal instead of the bride. And no one could ever be allowed proof that the eldest daughter of Gray's first marriage had spent the night in Jeremie Stafford's bed.

She lifted a corner of the dark charcoal duvet, slipping out from underneath and leaving the heavy velvet bunched over the center of the bed. Between the thick blackout curtains and the charcoal-gray sheets, the vast mattress lay entirely in shadow. Her bare soles touched cold carpet—and the mattress dipped behind her.

A big, calloused hand shot out and locked around her wrist.

"Done using me already?" His voice, low and scraped raw by sleep, cut the quiet in half.

Her breath caught. Before her next breath, she'd wiped the panic off her face and let her shoulders sag into a frightened tremble. She turned slowly under his grip, letting her tangled dark curls fall forward to hide half her face.

"Sir, last night was an accident we both walked into," she whispered, a weak, empty smile on her lips. "Why take it so seriously?"

He propped himself on one elbow. His gaze dragged over the marks scattered along her collarbone.

"An accident?" His mouth curved, and there was nothing warm in it. "No woman in New York has ever played me and walked out intact."

Alicia leaned in and rested her forehead against his shoulder, all helpless surrender. "Then what do you want? Should I stay and make you breakfast?"

At the soft touch, his breathing hitched. His grip on her wrist loosened a fraction.

Under her lowered lashes, her eyes glinted. Her free hand slid across the nightstand, fingertips brushing the cold edge of his phone and the keycard pinned beneath it. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, her voice going thin and fragile.

"Can I at least wash up first?"

Jeremie let out a low scoff. Something pleased and proprietary flickered across his face—the look of a man who thought he was still holding the leash. His hand opened. Alicia stood on shaky legs, one palm braced on the bedpost, her eyes already locked on the custom black dress shirt he had dropped in the foyer before his shower—just visible through the gap.