EMBER followed Cai Wyvern to the casino’s elevator.
The doors closed, and the floor dragged at her feet as they soared upward.
After Cai inserted a keycard into the slot above the floor buttons and pressed his thumb on a reader, he turned to her. “My room is pretty high up there, so we have a minute to talk. I feel that I should let you know that anything between us is in no way coercion nor related to your employment at the Dragon’s Den Casino—”
Ember grabbed the crisp cotton of Cai’s shirt and flung herself against the back wall, dragging him with her.
He stumbled but ended up with his hands on both sides of her head and a small smile on his lips. His voice was deeper as he said, “As I was saying, Dragon’s Den Casino is a wholly separate entity and has no bearing nor effect on anything—”
She hauled him down to kiss her.
And he did.
Oh, he did.
That gorgeous man pressed his lips against her mouth, and his hand slipped around the back of her head. He stepped closer to her, and Ember lost her grip on his shirt. His other hand slipped around her waist and pressed her against his chest and stomach. Heat from his body warmed her like he was on fire inside. She slipped her hands up to his shoulders, feeling the rounded muscle of his pecs and broad shoulders through his shirt.
His lips parted, sucking on hers, and she opened her mouth.
The faintest taste of smoke lingered on his tongue, not like he’d been smoking a cigarette, more like the subtle suggestion that he burned inside.
He kissed her more deeply, his hand slipping around under her jaw to lift her face, and then his fingers slipped down the skin of her neck. His thumb rested in the hollow of her throat, just a suggestion that he might really get rough.
Oh, wow.
She was into it. She was up for it. She would do anything.
When the elevator door opened, Cai glanced up at the row of buttons and stepped back, holding both her hands in his and grinning.
She just loved the way he grinned, a funny combination of lasciviousness and self-deprecating laughter. It looked like he wanted her, but if she wasn’t into it, he would just laugh it off and everything would be a joke.
But the upturned corners of his eyes looked a little devilish.
That scared her just a little—the thought that maybe going with him was the wrong thing to do, to have sex with this guy she’d just met for absolutely no reason because certainly they weren’t in love or anything—but she grinned back at Cai even if she was gritting her teeth behind her open lips.
Hey, Ember could do a lot worse than funny, smiling, hot, gorgeous Cai Wyvern for her first time.
She swung her hips as she pranced after him into the penthouse, and his grin widened.
They walked directly from the elevator into the vestibule of the penthouse, a wide room with a table in the center holding an enormous vase of tall, fresh flowers. The profusion of blue hydrangeas and wide-throated lilies was as extravagant as the gold-veined marble floor and dark red, velvet curtains around the columned doorways that led to other rooms.
Her mother always said that in Las Vegas, everything was overdone, super-sized, and certainly the work of the Devil. Nothing was modest, clean, and clear, which were her unyielding standards.
Well, the penthouse did look clean. The floor under Ember’s black witch boots had been buffed to a high gloss, and reflections of her shoes trailed down into the glassy floor and met her feet as she walked.
Ember kept a big ol’ smile on her face and followed Cai into the Vegas penthouse.
“Would you like something to drink?” Cai asked, his voice unconcerned, casual. He caught her fingertips in his. “A glass of wine before lunch?”
The last thing she needed was to drink too much from nerves and get weepy or barf on him. “No, thanks. I’m fine. Do you want anything?”
With a twitch of his fingers, he tugged her forward, and she was in his arms again. He buried his face in her neck and nibbled from her shoulder to her ear. “I think you know what I want.”
“Yes,” Ember said, suddenly breathless. She closed her eyes to feel the moment and his strong body more deeply, to remember this singular moment.
“Is that consent?” he asked, growling in her ear, “because I want you to fully enjoy and want what I’m about to do to you. Otherwise, we can stop right here. Understand me?”
“Yes,” she said, still not quite able to breathe. His chest was so warm, almost glowing with some sort of magic she’d never seen before. It wasn’t black magic or clear, and it wasn’t elemental like her little bottle dwellers. It was beautiful, shimmery, and ethereal, almost angelic. His arms around her waist and back cinched her body tightly against his.
“I like it when you say yes,” Cai said, nipping her neck.
“Yes,” she sighed, letting her head fall back as his warm breath crested over her shoulder and flowed down her back under her blouse and suit jacket.
“Just like that,” he growled.
Her feet lightened, and his arms were under her knees and shoulders, carrying her. “I can walk!”
He laughed and bounced her in his arms. “You’re a feather.”
She grabbed his neck, afraid of falling. “I am not!”
“Dragons tend to be strong from flying,” he said as he walked through the living room and past the dining room with a table set for ten. “You’re just a tiny bit of fluff to me.”
Ember had never been a bit of fluff before. She was a lot curvier than any fluff yet discovered.
It was kind of nice to be a tiny bit of fluff.
She laid her cheek on his shoulder, and he smiled down at her.
The green glitter in his eyes rushed from the edges of his irises into the center, glowing with emerald fire. If anything, they were even more vibrant than just an hour ago when she had met him in the HR office. She sighed, “You have such beautiful eyes.”
He blinked, and his smile faded a bit. “My mother had green eyes.”
“They’re not just green, and they’re really pretty.”
He tilted his head. “I like your eyes. I think your eyes are beautiful.”
“My eyes?” She was totally fishing for compliments.
“Yes, yours. They’re as dark as my favorite time of night, when anything can happen, when all the impossible things become possible and magic glows at midnight.”