She ran her fingers through his hair, her hands curling around his skull. She rocked her hips against him, and soon this was about to become a very indecent public display of affection on the tiny dance floor in the bistro. He barely cared though as she moaned into his mouth.

It wasn’t going to be easy to teach her to let him lead all the time when he wanted this kind of wildness from her too, this kind of abandon as she grabbed at his hair, her fingers greedily diving in and holding on.

But he was determined to give her what she’d asked for, so he reached for her hands, gripped them tightly and brought them down to her waist.

He stepped away. The look in her eyes was hazy. She was panting.

The loss of contact with her lithe, eager body was a cold glass of ice water thrown in his face. But he had a better plan.

“You stopped,” she said, on a pout.

“You’re not learning if your hands are all over me. So you’ll need to get down on your knees,” he said, and her eyes flared with a wild awareness of what he was asking. “My room. Now.”

5

New Orleans, night . . .

He slammed the door shut behind them in one firm push. The sound of it clanging signaled a change in him. The dark look in his eyes and the stony set of his lips thrilled and scared the hell out of her too. She’d never seen him like this. Of course she’d never seen him like this. But she never even knew he had this side—a man staring down the woman he planned to claim.

He didn’t speak. He simply pointed. To the floor. Holy shit. He was serious. “You want me on my knees?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“You want to be on your knees,” he corrected, his confident, sexy voice sending a hot spark through her. She’d been on her knees. She’d given blow jobs. She wasn’t inexperienced. She knew sex inside and out and upside-down. She’d read books on kink, quirks, fetishes, and Kama Sutra. But never had she asked a man to take control like this. And never had she thought she’d like it. But her body didn’t lie. Not when the aching between her legs intensified as his hands moved to his belt, and he slowly, purposefully, took his time taking it off. Loop by fucking loop.

Like a man in control. He could do anything with that belt. He could tie her hands, swat her with the non-buckled end, or none of the above. She didn’t know and that was part of the allure.

She watched him take it off.

Oh God, her mouth was watering. This was Nate. This was her good friend, and he was stripping off his belt and flicking the leather on the floor of his hotel room.

A suite on the top floor of the hotel he operated, this room was designed for pleasure and luxury. The white bed cover was pristine, but so enticing, and the sliding doors to the bathroom were mirrored. She caught a brief glimpse of her reflection. Her blond hair was loose and curly already; the humid June weather hadn’t been able to work much voodoo magic on her tresses that were naturally on the wild side. The strap on her tank had slid down her shoulder. She looked like herself, except for one thing—the desire in her eyes. She knew her own body intimately, understood precisely what made her tick, tingle and heat up, but she’d never seen her own eyes when she was this turned on. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been this turned on. But when he’d kissed her at the restaurant he’d set her heart to flames, scorching a path of pleasure from the center of her body all the way to her fingertips.