I pause mid step and stare at her in all seriousness. “Then I’m going to enjoy this dance with you and say goodbye.”

Her forehead mars with a slight frown. “There’s no man waiting back home for me.”

“Good,” I respond. “That clears the way now.”

“For what?”

“For me to stake a claim on you.”

She stumbles, but I catch her and continue to move her across the dance floor.

“Are you always this confident of your charm?”

“Always.”

She raises her chin. “You’ll find that I’m not so easy to impress.”

I pull her closer enjoying this verbal tug of war between us. “The things is,” I whisper in her ear, “I know you’re already impressed.”

She chuckles. “You are quite audacious.”

“I always go for what I want Aaliya. And what I want right now is you.”

“What if I don’t want you?”

My lips twitch. “I’m going to enjoy taming this fiery spirit of yours. One night soon, you are going to submit to me. You will scream my name and beg me to bring you to completion as I take you to the brink over and over again.”

Her eyes flash in defiance to my brash words and my blood sizzles with the thrill of a chase. This woman silences the chaos in my mind and makes herself the focus of all my attention.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she rasps.

My brows pucker.

She leans forward into me, her breasts deliberately crushing against my chest, inflaming me. She comes closer to my ear, raises herself on her toes and whispers. “I don’t do one-night stands.”

My already hard body throbs at her huskily spoken words.

She tries to take a step back, but I don’t allow her the space to do so. My palm skims across her waist, digging into the curve of her lower back as I bring her body flush against mine. She gasps as my hardness presses into her. I bite her ear lobe and whisper into her ear, “Who says it’ll be for one night?” Her small moan is music to my ears.

I step back and without taking my eyes off her, offer her my hand. She looks at it for less than a second before she puts her hand in mine. I hurry her out of the ballroom to somewhere I can be private with her.

Aaliya

A SHUDDER RUNS THROUGH me as I put my hand in Damien’s. Every nerve ending in my body sizzles as he leads me away from the ballroom. We exit through a side door and Damien turns to the left and pulls me down an empty corridor. He opens the first door in front of us and ushers me inside. I peer at the rows upon rows of books stacked in shelves that line the walls of the dimly lit library.