Page 76 of Ruled By Rivalry

“Goodnight, Elliot.”

Maybe I should’ve begged.

Half an hour later, the dress was back on the hanger behind my door, my makeup had been washed off, and my teeth freshly brushed. I’d done my skin-care routine, cuddled into my sheets, and told myself goodnight the same way I’d said it to Elliot.

But all I could think of was him.

Before I met him, I had no issues falling asleep. Now, thoughts of him and his hands and lips were keeping me up far past my bedtime multiple times a week. Making me play with the possibility of tiptoeing over to his room.

I wouldn’t, I told myself.

If that were true, I wasn’t sure why I’d just pushed my covers away. Why I swung my legs out of bed, turned on the lamp on my bedside table, and had my hand on the doorknob ten seconds later.

Why, after Elliot said we couldn’t, he was standing on the other side of my door. His hand, ready to knock, lowered.

His presence was so unexpected, I lied. “I was just getting some water!”

He smiled. “I wasn’t.”

He took a single step toward me, and again, we were chest to chest and nose to nose. Almost as close as I’d wanted him the entire night.

He looked me up and down, letting his fingers trace the fabric of my PJs so absentmindedly that I wasn’t sure if he was aware of what it was doing to me. When his eyes flicked back to mine, he swallowed thickly. Like talking was hard and he’d much rather do anything else. “I thought I should explain.”

But that just sounded like more talking and more time spent agonizingly close to each other without being able to do anything about that need for him. “Do you have to?”

His surprise turned into amusement, then into something much darker. That same pulsing need between my thighs and impatience, finally about to spill over the edge. He took another step, pushing me back into my room. Another step, and another until my legs hit the bed frame.

“Why?” His laugh was low, teasing. The same way his finger played along my collarbones, trailing down my chest and back up again. “Are you in a hurry?”

I couldn’t take it anymore. That knowing smile on his face, the teasing touches, and the fire behind his usual blue eyes, which were almost entirely black. My hand closed around his wrist, led his hand over that same path down my chest. “You tell me.”

I had no idea what I was doing, but it felt so right, and Elliot’s sigh of approval told me it wasn’t the wrong thing to do, at least.

So, I didn’t stop when our hands slipped below the fabric, grazing my skin and making both of us gasp in surprise and contentment and finally. Didn’t stop until his cold hand closed around my breast, nipples perked—and he snapped.

We fell back onto my bed, or I pulled, or he pushed. I couldn’t be sure between the fucks muttered into my mouth and his teeth digging into my lips in some kind of useless punishment for pushing him over the edge of his rational thinking.

“You’re evil, Maeve.” Just the way my name sounded in that guttural voice had me squirm below him. “I like to think of myself as a man with morals and self-control. But when it comes to you—”

He flipped us, held me by my hips, and kissed me in a way I’d never been kissed before. Not even by him. Hungry and desperate and ready. In a way that made me think anything could happen.

And in a way that made me think I was ready for it. For whatever he had in store for me.

“When it comes to me?” I asked, begging him to finish his sentence between one kiss and the next. Usually, I preferred men with their mouths shut, but I loved hearing him talk.

“I thought I could knock on your door and explain why this shouldn’t happen.” I didn’t need an explanation; I knew exactly why. Because we were rivals battling for the same job, trying to impress the same people. And because in every sense of the word, this was making things way more complicated. “I thought I could be reasonable and just talk to you. I took precautions to make sure I could.”

My hips rolled against his instinctively. Nothing about it was under my control. “Precautions?”

Elliot laughed into my mouth, and the sound bled together with a gasp, a groan, a damn-near moan. “You want to hear how I sat in bed, jerking off to the thought of you on top of me just like this?” His hand slipped into my shorts, grazing the lace of my panties, eliciting more delicious sounds from him. “How I know it’s wrong, it shouldn’t matter, but I could combust just thinking about being your first?”

I moaned against his lips; an encouragement, permission.

“That just the thought of slipping inside of you made me come so hard, I was scared you’d hear me through the walls?”

“God, Elliot—”

“And still, none of that helped me keep a cool head. You bat those beautiful lashes of yours, Maeve, and I’m a goner.” He flipped us back, hovering above me again. Somehow, my head had made it to my pillow, and he’d made it between my legs. “I came ten minutes ago, and still, I’m so hard for you it hurts.”