His cocky smirk returns. “Grimm, I could have you screaming in less than a minute if I wanted to. In the interest of transparency, I would very much like to fuck you. But that’s your call. We’ve been drinking, so you call the shots.”

I stand two feet from Aleck, feeling ridiculous for how nonchalantly we’re having this conversation as if it’s a business transaction. This is probably par for the course for Aleck, but I read romance novels for a living and spend most of my free time sharing all of my most intimate thoughts with my three best friends. I’m not used to taking emotion out of sex, or life for that matter.

“Okay,” I say.

Aleck narrows his glare on me. “Okay? Okay as in, yes, you would like to have sex with me?”

I nod, nervously. “Yes.”

I was signing my name in blood, making a deal with the devil, I knew, but I couldn’t muster enough strength to stop it.

Aleck’s lips curl into a saturnine smile. He takes a hungry step toward me just as the elevator dings, then slows to a stop, and the door slides open four floors from ours.

An old lady holding a chihuahua steps into the elevator, smiles at us, then turns her back and faces the door. As the elevator ascends upward, she lets out a chirp, making her dog yap back.

Aleck’s jaw tics, and his chest expands with an irritated breath. I press my lips together, suppressing a laugh.

“Oops. Pressed the wrong button,” the little old lady says under her breath. “Are we going down?”

“No, ma’am,” I answer. “This elevator is going up.”

“Oh, dear…” She steps forward and presses the door open button. The elevator slows, preparing to stop on the next floor.

Aleck reaches the distance between us and grabs my hand, threading his fingers through mine. Swarms of fluttering butterflies take flight in my stomach, and the door to the elevator slides open again, now two floors from ours.

“Is this… is this the lobby?” The woman squints through her large-rimmed glasses and hesitates to step out of the elevator.

Aleck’s hold tightens on my hand, intensifying the laughter I’m holding in my throat.

“No, ma’am,” I say. “Press the button outside of the elevator with the down arrow on it. Once inside that elevator, press the button with the large letter L on it.”

“Oh. Okay, missy. Thank yo—”

“Alrighty,” Aleck’s impatient tone dominates the small space. “Out you go.”

As the woman steps out of the elevator, I try so hard to suppress my laughter that tears form in the corners of my eyes.

Before the door slides completely shut, Aleck yanks my arm, pulling me into his chest. I yelp from the abrupt movement, then laugh. He walks forward until he’s backed me against the elevator wall, and my laughter falls away as Aleck’s glare shoots a bullet straight through it.

“Was that funny, pretty girl? You won’t be laughing when I stuff my giant cock into your tight, wet pussy, will you?” He breathes heavy, his warm breath fanning across my lips. “No, you won’t. You’ll be screaming, begging me for more.”