He lifted his glass, tossing back the last of his drink as he rose from his stool and moved to leave the room.
“Too bad she only got aroused when you walked in the room,” he said as he passed Ian. “That’s one woman who shouldn’t be wasted on a cynical prick such as yourself. Maybe Tess can try her hand at matchmaking…”
Maybe Tess could try her hand at matchmaking…
He didn’t bloody well think so, Ian snarled silently as he stalked up the main staircase, turning down the hall to Courtney’s bedroom. The little vixen was pushing him, and she knew it, she was doing it deliberately. He wasn’t a fool. He had watched the subtle signs she had put off for the past week, the heat in her dark, sexy eyes, the way her body seemed to soften, and arousal flushed her face.
He could feel that same heat growing in his body, a hard, steady simmer that he feared would boil out of control with the least provocation. She had no idea what she was tempting. She couldn’t understand the sexuality that drove him, the need he had to dominate—sexually—any female he bedded. It wasn’t just a need, it was a hunger, a driving, lascivious greed he had no intention of denying himself.
He clenched his teeth at the thought of her, so small and rounded, screaming in pleasure and pain as he spread the perfect curves of her ass and watched his c**k invade that sweet, tiny hole. Or holding her thighs wide, her mouth filled with his dick as he watched another take her, fill her. Sharing her, seeing pleasure suffuse her body as she was driven past any limits she could have imagined.
Damn her. He wouldn’t take her. Not him.
He deliberately chose women who knew well the games they were facing. Women with experience, who knew the trick to taking two men at once, or accepting the more depraved hungers that drove the men who inhabited the club he ran. Courtney couldn’t know, she couldn’t understand. The sweet innocence that glowed from some inner core and lit every cell of her body couldn’t have survived such wicked knowledge.
As he reached her door, he curled his lip at the thought of knocking. The hunger rushing through him fueling the anger of self-denial had him opening the panel forcibly and stepping into the room.
“Your entrances leave something to be desired, Ian.” She faced him, as pretty as an angel, all that beautiful dark hair flowing around her back and shoulders as she turned from the closet, a soft white jacket trailing from her fingers as she faced him in that siren’s outfit she wore.
Dear God, could anything be more tempting than all the bare, perfect flesh she was displaying?
Ian crossed his arms over his chest, fighting for control as he frowned down at her, using his most intimidating scowl as he fought to regulate his breathing. His c**k was already a lost cause. It was fully engorged and throbbing in demand.
Her gaze flickered down, heated, glowed with hunger.
Son of a bitch.
“Stop tempting me, Courtney,” he snapped furiously, surprised at the roughness of his voice as he fought to keep from shaking her. “You don’t want what you’ll get.”
She propped a slender, graceful hand on her cocked hip, her eyes languorous, her cheeks flushed.
“And who decided that?” she asked him with an arched brow. “You know, Ian, I really prefer to make my own choices, rather than having them made for me. Perhaps you should remember that before you work yourself into a fury.”
Patient, amused. Her voice stroked his senses as her accent seemed to give the tone an almost lilting quality. It was driving him mad. How would she sound screaming his name? Begging for his dick?
“Stay out of The Club.” He refused to argue with her, to tempt his self-control further. “It’s no place for you.”
“Shove your club, Ian.” The haughty tone and cool mocking expression had his blood boiling. “I don’t need it to entertain myself.”
“Your entertainment?” He felt like pulling at his own hair. What the hell was he supposed to do with this woman? “And exactly what kind of entertainment are you looking for, you little minx? Are you out to get f**ked? Or just out to see how crazy you can make me?”
Her lashes drifted over her eyes, giving her a sleepy, lust-filled look that had his balls tightening as she strolled closer. Stopping within a breath of him, she stared up at him, her little pink tongue running slowly over lips, making his mouth water.
“How crazy could I make you, Ian?” she asked him then, her breathing escalating, her hard ni**les nearly brushing his chest. Damn, he wanted to feel them—in his mouth, between his fingers, burning into his flesh.
Oh, she could make him crazy, he thought silently. Too crazy.
“Crazy enough to call your father and inform him it’s time you headed home,” he growled, nearly biting his own tongue.
She laughed. A low, devilish sound that sent flames licking over his body.
“Poor Ian, you must truly be desperate to threaten me with Daddy.” Knowledge, as ancient as sin itself, echoed in her voice. “I haven’t been under Daddy’s thumb for many years. Your only chance is throwing me out, period. Perhaps finding a patron wouldn’t be so hard under such circumstances.”
“Are you so desperate for a sugar daddy, Courtney?” he snarled. “Doesn’t Dane provide you with enough?”
A smile curved her lips. “Daddy can’t get me into your bed, Ian, otherwise I would have tried that route already. I refuse to lie about the reason I’m here any longer.” She laid her hand against his chest. He watched her breath catch, the way she swallowed tightly as pleasure tore through him. From such a small touch. How would he survive feeling her, bare flesh to bare flesh, burning beneath him?
“I won’t take you to my bed, Courtney.” He hated the words that slipped past his lips, hated the fact that he couldn’t allow himself to possess her.
She lifted her shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Then another will. Perhaps the nice Middle Eastern gentleman. He seemed to have promise…”
Khalid. Ian fought back his instinctive response, and it wasn’t anger.
He gripped her arm when she would have slipped past him.
“Don’t make decisions you’ll regret, little girl,” he warned her harshly. “You’re too young to know or to understand what he’ll ask of you. And it’s nothing compared to what I would demand.”
“Or perhaps, nothing compared to what I would demand,” she said then, causing his blood pressure to escalate, his c**k to harden to impossible degrees. He felt as though the thickening shaft would rupture from the hunger filling it. “But—” She shrugged again as she moved away from him. “As you have decided to deny yourself as well as me, I will leave you in peace, Ian. But I refuse to lay here and masturbate to sate the needs. I will see what other entertainment your fair city has to offer me.”