Pearl ran her tongue across her lips, big eyes lifted to meet mine. “Are you planning to let me go, Dean?”

“I was actually enjoying holding on to you.”

“Nobody is watching.”

I thought she must’ve meant the words as a reminder. After all, we didn’t need to pretend to care for each other when we were alone. I pretended to interpret her words another way. “You’re right. It’s just us. That means nobody is here to call us on breaking our own rules. Just this once.”

“Is that all it would be?” she breathed the words, each syllable a hot little puff of air on the skin above my collarbone. “Just one time.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Pearl seemed to think this over for a long while. I held her there, feeling the soft but quick pace of her breathing from where my hand held her back–my fingertips just barely giving me a taste of the curve at the top of her ass like how I’d held her in the lobby before the restaurant. I wasn’t sure I’d ever wanted someone the way I wanted Pearl at that moment. I’d never needed someone. And I felt myself hanging onto the silence between us, desperate to hear some sort of invitation, because I wasn’t sure what I’d do if she turned me down.

“It can only be this one time,” she said carefully. She was breathing even harder now, so the temptingly soft flesh of her cleavage was drawing my eyes as it pulsed with each intake of air. “Just this one time. And we both have to agree not to… start feeling things for each other.”

I was far too desperate for jokes or caring about the circumstances. All I heard was “yes”. My cock throbbed between my legs, so ready to be inside her that it actually hurt.

“Just this once,” I agreed. “No feelings,” I added, even though I wasn’t certain I could hold up my end of the agreement on either count. Maybe that’s why I was the kind of asshole women never settled down with. It was exactly why I wasn’t the right person to take care of Pearl the way she deserved. But tonight, I only planned to borrow her. I’d give myself a tease of what being with her would be like and I’d avoid all the pitfalls of an actual relationship.

Just a taste.

With how serious she looked, I almost expected Pearl to lead me to the table in our room so we could draft up an iron-clad “no attachments” contract. So when she reached up and took my tie to tug me down to her mouth, it took me a moment to react.

Her lips were warm, soft, and fucking incredible. Her tongue eagerly met mine as her hands slid up the nape of my neck and into my hair. We both started stumbling as we kissed toward the bed until she backed me into it and fell on top of me with my knees bent over the edge.