I was tempted to follow her. My cock was hard as a rock beneath my jeans, and I could easily fuck her into oblivion, but I’d meant what I said. I had something special in mind for tomorrow. Something we’d both enjoy.

A few minutes later, she came back out fully clothed in her stiff office garb, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail once more. A shame. She looked the most beautiful with it down, in disarray around her creamy shoulders.

“My car is downstairs in the parking garage.”

“Okay. Lead the way.”

Her apartment was in a converted brownstone.

“It’s a studio. All I can afford,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride. And…for everything.”

“I’ll see you up,” I said.

“You can’t stop here. You’ll get a ticket.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“You still might get a ticket.”

“So? Then I’ll pay the ticket. It won’t be the first parking ticket I’ve gotten, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

She smiled. “Okay. It’s sweet of you to…see me up.”

I hurried out of the car and made it to her door just as she was opening it.

“Wow. A gentleman.”

“My father may have been a first-class shithead, but he did teach my brothers and me how to treat women.” I frowned, remembering. “Actually, that was my mother, not my father.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” We walked up to the concrete steps leading into the brownstone, and Charlie quickly put in a code. I opened the door for her. “Connie Wolfe was nothing if not the etiquette queen. She had an image to uphold. To the public, at least, and her sons were going to be perfect little gentlemen.”

“Even Rock?” she asked.

“Even Rock. Until he left.”

“Why did he leave, Roy?”

“You’d have to ask him,” I said. “None of us know, and he’s not exactly forthcoming.”

“Your parents didn’t tell you?”

“They told us he’d gotten into some trouble and they sent him off to military school. But that’s not the whole story.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he wouldn’t be the first pampered rich boy to get into trouble. Usually the mom and dad buy off whoever they need to, and the kid ends up in a different boarding school to wreak havoc in a new place.”

“Oh.” She stopped walking. “This is my door. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay. But if it’s the same to you, I’d rather not talk about my brother.”

“What do you want to do, then?”

I cupped her silky cheek, gazing into those sparkling silver eyes. “This.”

11

Charlie

His lips came down onto mine in a soft kiss. A gentle kiss. Not the raw kiss of untamed passion we’d shared earlier.

This was sweet. Gentle. A promise of something to come.