“My mom died when I was sixteen. Hit and run. I’m her twin so everyone who knew her looks at me like I was the one who died. Especially my dad and brothers.”

It was my biggest, saddest truth, and now Aleck knows it.

Aleck lifts his hand to my face and slides it over my cheek, caressing it with his thumb. “You’re no one’s twin to me. You are very uniquely Winter Sommers, the woman with two seasons for a name, a closeted romantic with the voice of a siren.”

Jane. Austen’s. Ghost.

I smile, feeling my heartbeat in my ass. “Let’s go.”

Aleck smiles back, then his jaw tenses almost instinctively, and his determined expression returns. He grabs my hand again and ushers us through the resort entrance.

A woman at the front desk throws on a bright smile when she sees Aleck coming. “Good Evening, Mr. Fox. You have two messag—”

“Not now.” Aleck doesn’t look in her direction. Instead, he leads me to the elevators, pressing the button with determination.

While we wait, he doesn’t look at me. No flirtatious glances. No warmth or idle chit-chat. Just his hard body standing with perfect posture and his stoic glare.

The elevator opens, and he gently pushes me into it by the small of my back. More silence. With every second one of us doesn’t speak, the knot in my stomach twists tighter.

“Slow elevator,” I whisper sheepishly.

“I’m ready to negotiate terms, Grimm,” he says, his brisk, businesslike tone nowhere near receptive to small talk.

“What do you want?”

“I want to taste you,” he deadpans, staring at the elevator door. “To be clear, I’d like to eat your pussy like it’s the last meal of my last night on this planet. I want to stick my tongue so far up it, you’ll feel me in your throat.”

I’m frozen in the wake of his brazen straightforwardness. I try to hold down the shutter that vibrates through me so he doesn’t see how vulnerable I am. I have to hold on to even a shred of control. Even though Aleck is very much in the driver’s seat, driving me straight into the eye of a tornado.

I lift my chin confidently. “I said nothing sexual.”

He glances at me sideways with an incredulous smirk. Stupid girl, it says.

“Winter. Let’s not pretend we don’t want the same thing.”

Shit. He’s right. And let’s not ignore the fact that he could have asked for anything, yet he asked to please me. Any asshole armed with knowing a woman is willing would ask for a blowjob, at least.

Jesus. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

“Would we have sex?”

His head snaps in my direction, his eyes harden on mine like volcanic rock. “Do you want to?”

I take a deep breath. Do I want to? More than I want world peace, if I’m being honest.

I shrug. “Depends on how the pussy eating goes, I suppose.”