“You were told this area of the house was off-limits.” His voice was rough, the guttural tone surprising him.
He watched as her cheeks flushed before his gaze flickered down to watch her abdomen convulse.
“I’m told a lot of things that I ignore, Ian.” Composed, husky, filled with hunger. He heard it all in her voice and it made him impossibly harder. There was no anger in her, only a bit of humor, a lot of arousal.
Son of a bitch. He was going to explode if he wasn’t careful. The rueful suggestiveness in her voice had every man in the room shifting in his chair, obviously as hard as he was. How long had it been since he had seen such natural sensuality? Such supreme confidence in a woman and her effect on the male sex?
He forced himself to move, to walk to her, to keep from throwing her across a table just to see if she was wearing panties under that tiny skirt. He had a feeling she wasn’t. Did she shave or wax? he wondered. If she were his, she would be bare, pierced, screaming as his dick stretched her wide.
He gritted his teeth, forcing back the thoughts. Dane would f**king kill him. And rightly so. There was little enough innocence left in the world, he would be damned if he would be the cause of so much as a single virgin losing hers. And she was a virgin. Innocence shrouded her, glowed from inside her despite her sensuality. There was no possibility that she was anything less.
“You don’t ignore the rules here, Courtney.” Touching her was going to be hell. “They’re here for a reason. Get back to the main part of the house. Now.”
Her brows snapped into a frown as the flush on her cheeks deepened.
“Do I look like a child to you?” She waved her hand down her upper body as she cocked a hip and faced him in challenge. “Excuse me, Ian, but I haven’t been a child for quite a while, and I don’t appreciate being spoken to as though I were one.”
His hands itched. They f**king itched to feel the soft, sweet flesh of her well-rounded ass burning beneath them. Damn her, he had never, ever wanted to possess anything as desperately as he wanted to possess Courtney now.
“You know what this club is, Courtney.” He crossed his arms over his chest, fighting to instill derision, censure in his voice. “How would your father feel if he saw you here?”
“How many times has he visited?” She smiled knowingly. “I know my parent’s lifestyle, Ian. Just as I know my father is indeed a member of your very elite establishment. As I have already explained to you, I am not a child.”
“You are not a member of this club,” he snapped then. “Members only, Courtney, for a reason. Now get your ass out of here.”
“So, how does one go about receiving membership?” She seemed to ignore the harshness of his voice. Even her eyes hadn’t dimmed, nor sparkled with pain or anger. As though the cruel words hadn’t even registered. “I will assume some of your women are allowed in here?”
“Our women.” He smiled tightly. “You do not belong to any man here. You are exempt.”
Her eyes narrowed, though the smile that tipped her lips was almost frightening. Knowing. As old and as knowledgeable as Eve herself. She licked her lips slowly, her gaze flickering around the room.
“Then I need a patron of sorts?” she asked softly. “I think that could be arranged.”
Like hell.
Touching her was the worst mistake possible, but every damned man in the room was ready to stand up and offer their services. His gaze hardened as he followed her look, warning them all. It didn’t sit well with any of them.
“Such force,” she murmured in amusement, aptly deciphering his look. “Very well, Ian. I’ll leave your very lovely club and return to the main portion of the house. It’s obvious I’ll find no entertainment here…” She paused before staring back at him, her look direct, determined. “But there are other places I’m certain I’ll be welcome.”
She moved around him slowly, obviously not in the least intimidated by either his anger or the tension pulsing between them. Sexual tension, so f**king hot his skin prickled with it.
He turned, watching her leave, the swish of her skirt just beneath the rounded globes of her ass, her luscious legs moving with an inborn, natural grace. She passed through the doorway, looking neither right nor left, nor glancing behind her. She knew every man in the room was watching her, she didn’t have to check to be certain. Finally, blessedly, Matthew closed the doors, leaving him to face the condemning stares of the men now watching him.
“Virgins are off-limits,” he snapped, reinforcing his past rule. “Especially this one. Most especially this one.”
“And what makes you so certain she’s a virgin?” The argument came from the one person he hadn’t expected to speak up.
Cole Andrews lounged lazily on the barstool, a drink cradled in his hand as he watched Ian closely.
“Does it matter?” he snapped.
Cole shrugged. “Not to me, but it might to the others.” He indicated the men now watching with single-minded focus. “The rules don’t give you a right to select the women they choose to share. Just because she’s the daughter of a friend doesn’t make her exempt.”
Ian clenched his fists, fighting the need pounding through him. Damn Cole to hell and back, he had no idea just how much Ian wished he could make her exempt.
“Her virginity makes her exempt,” he snarled, hating it, despising that veil of innocence that held him from her. If he were a lesser man, he would allow one of the others to have her, to bring her in, then take her. It would ease the lust, but not his conscience. He had known her too long, helped Dane protect her too many times. He wouldn’t be party to seeing that light inside her extinguished. Not him, and not those within this room.
“She’s not a virgin.” Cole’s confident conclusion had heat swirling through Ian’s body, pooling in his dick and torturing him with the demand that he go to her, f**k her, pound the hunger out of his system.
“And you know this how?” he snarled. “Should Tessa be making an appointment with her lawyer?”
Cole laughed. A low, amused sound that grated on Ian’s nerves.
“You’re a fool, Ian.” He shook his head slowly. “That girl is no more a virgin than Tess is. But you do what you want to. I’m sure, that as she said, she’ll find entertainment elsewhere. Beautiful women like that have no hardship finding what they need.”