He doesn’t pull back his hand. His fingers are long and brutally elegant, his palm big enough to cup my breast. He catches the direction of my gaze, and draws my attention back to his face with a rasp of my name—Laela.

Off his lips, in that soft Southern drawl, the sound of it sends a shiver of desire running down my spine.

“You wouldn’t still be here if you weren’t tempted,” he says quietly.

Damn him for being right.

I clutch velvet in both fists and take another step toward him. This close, it’s impossible not to notice his towering height. For once, I’m not forced to look down. The top of my head nearly reaches his chin and I allow myself the luxury of tipping my head back so that I can peer up into his eyes, which sweep over my throat like he’s already imagining claiming my pulse with his lips.

A kiss that I’ll feel all the way down to my toes.

“Tell me something, sir.”

Beneath the clinking glassware and eager chatter, I hear the rumble of a masculine growl at the pointed moniker. The tension on my gown loosens as he meets me halfway, taking his foot off my train to enter my space and fill my lungs with the scent of male arrogance and fresh pine. His fingers curl beneath my chin, his thumb hovering just over my lips. “Say it.”

I wrap my fingers around his wrist. “Were you invited tonight?”

A slight pause, and then, “No.”

“Did you come here for me?”

The question is soft but laced with steel. He gives no outward reaction of having heard me, but then his thumb grazes my lip, back and forth, like he’s trying to commit the brief touch to memory.

It feels like a confession.

“Yes.”

Bitten out from behind clenched teeth, the gritty admission has me swallowing hard.

He could easily be a stalker. Maybe even a member of the press hoping to catch me in a compromising position before airing out all my dirty laundry in tomorrow’s newspaper. I’m not one to make rash decisions. Every action has a direct consequence. And, unlike my father, who gave up the names of his friends and longtime associates to escape a fate behind bars, I don’t believe that I’m above the law.

For once in my life, I want to be reckless.

My thumb skates over the stranger’s wrist, sweeping over hair-dusted skin until I stall over his thundering pulse. There’s no way that I wouldn’t remember a face like his, and yet . . . “We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

The air crackles with anticipation as he seems to carefully consider my question. Clearly, I’m not the only one who isn’t naturally rash or impulsive. Wanting to push him, I utter a single word that I suspect will crawl under his skin: “Sir?”