Page 14 of Praised
“Are you buzzed?”
I set my drink on the bar, the glass almost still entirely full.
“Why the twenty questions?” I asked, letting my hand fall away from my face.
“I don’t play with people under the influence,” he said, so matter of fact.
“That’s presumptuous.” But even as I countered him, my palm landed against his stomach, feeling out the shape of his muscles beneath his shirt. “How much haveyouhad to drink?”
“This is my second.” He grinned, ignoring my hand against his stomach as he raised the glass to his mouth. Taking the smallest sip, he set his drink on the bar beside mine. “Who’s being presumptuous now?”
“I was just making conversation,” I lied.
Every word out of his mouth unraveled my willpower a little bit more, and Drake’s message flashed behind eyelids like a neon sign, obscuring the mental picture of Cody in bed with another man.
“Earlier you said you didn’t do casual encounters.” Flynn leaned back enough that his whole gorgeous face was in focus, so when he licked the taste of me off his lips and let loose a little groan, I saw the whole thing.
“I try to not.”
“I have a proposition for you.”
“Oh?” My voice came out weak and raspy, like a breath between us. “Don’t keep me in suspense then.”
“How about we get out of here, Rose. You let me take you back to my place, or yours, whichever you prefer. Hell, I’ll even book a hotel room if that would make you feel better. And then we go wherever you want and then I take you to bed in a very…” He was back in my space again, lips dragging their way up my cheekbone until they reached my ear. His mouth were hot, his tongue wet, and he kissed my earlobe in the messiest and most indecent way I think I’d ever been kissed on any part of my body.
My cock fucking leaked all over my panties and I leaned away from him so he could have more room to do it again.
“In a what?” I managed, bringing us both back to the club, back to the moment.
He hummed, smiling against his handiwork.
“Then,” he said, teeth sharp against my skin. “I take you to bed in a very, very serious and definitely not casual kind of way.”
CHAPTER5
FLYNN
What was the saying?
In for a penny, in for a pound?
That’s what I kept reminding myself on the drive to The Roosevelt. I didn’t even bother saying goodbye to Archie or the rest of them, every cell in my body focused on getting Rose out of the club and someplace private before either of us changed our minds. He regarded me like I was a predator, but little did he know that I offered him the same kind of wariness.
Since I hadn’t driven to Rapture, I had to call a car, but Rose had insisted on meeting me at the hotel instead of coming along. It felt like self-preservation, which I couldn’t begrudge. I’d gotten his phone number out of the deal, and after I checked into a suite, I sent him the floor and room number, then went up and waited.
He wasn’t far behind me, but thankfully I’d had enough time to stop for lube and condoms at the pharmacy, and after arriving at the hotel, still had enough time to take in the suite. The bedroom offered a four poster bed, which had me lamenting the fact I wasn’t prepared, a velvet couch at the foot of the bed that faced toward the rest of the room. I left the lube and condoms on one of the dark wood nightstands beside a green-shaded lamp and a notepad and pen.
A wood dining table separated the space and a long leather couch flanked one of the walls beneath the window. It wasn’t the fanciest hotel I’d ever stayed at, but it had a touch of old Hollywood glamor that reminded me of Rob’s library.
All in all, the only thing I didn’t like about the room was how nervous being alone in it made me.
I didn’t know what it was about Rose that had me absolutely out of my mind, entertaining all kinds of fantasies that should have never entered my mind. He was too hot for me for one, too young for another. I was pushing past thirty and he looked like he was still too far from twenty-five for it to even count. He wanted things I didn’t, someone to hold his drinks and be serious about him, which he deserved. I’d never argue that point, but I didn’t hold drinks and I didn’t do serious.
I mean, I was serious about the way I fucked, which was casual and unattached.
I hoped he understood that.
I hoped he knew this was for now, not forever.
