“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 fucking 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, fuck 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.”
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 cock 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 cock 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 fucked? 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 nipples 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.”