“I have a farm downstate. You?”
She blinked. “Oh . . . I’m waiting for my condominium to be finished. Hopefully, I’ll be out of here in a month or two, but they keep putting me off.” She shrugged and gave a shaky laugh. “It could be worse. I work downtown at the Chicago Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art, so Riverview Towers are convenient. If it weren’t for the fact that I feel like I live in a beige and white nightmare, things would be great,” she added with a chuckle.
“What’s your name?”
She paused in her mirth. “Oh, sorry. I’m Niall. Niall Chandler.”
She started to put out her hand for a friendly handshake but paused in surprise when he began to laugh. “What’s so funny?” she asked in amazement.
He set his drink on the counter as he stilled his mirth. “Your name. You’re the most feminine thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and you’ve got a boy’s name.”
Niall inhaled sharply. He was usually so terse and impassive that it unsettled her to hear him compliment her—for that was undoubtedly what it had been, given the warm, husky tone of his deep voice.
Her anxiety mounted when he took her glass from her stiff hand and set it next to his on the counter.
“I’m Vic.”
His hand rose to cradle her chin, lifting her face until she met his gaze. Niall’s pulse throbbed madly at her throat when she saw the heat in his gray eyes as they fixed on her mouth.
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way . . .” His head dropped slowly. “Let’s get down to the good stuff, Niall.”
From the very first, Vic incinerated her. The thought of pushing him away never entered her mind, Niall realized the next day. It should have, logically. Not ten minutes before, she’d put a halt to Evan’s attempts to get her into bed.
But this was different. Vic seduced her so effortlessly. The strength of her desire for him burned away the few remaining insubstantial shadows of rational thought.
The hand that wasn’t already holding her chin came up to join its twin, holding her steady for the onslaught of his kiss. His tongue drove between her lips without preamble. He didn’t seem particularly interested in mutuality at that moment. He probed deeply, sweeping his tongue everywhere, establishing dominance over her body with a stunning attack on her senses.
Niall moaned as his taste registered in her brain. Her hands clutched desperately at his back as he continued to fuck her mouth with his tongue. He tasted like premium Scotch with just a hint of mint. Her fingertips explored the sensation of smooth skin stretched tautly across dense muscle. Heat resonated off his body. Niall pressed closer, wanting to share that heat, needing to be thawed . . . desperate to be burned.
Her hands began to move over him greedily. He groaned, deep and savage, and tore his mouth from hers. For a tense moment, he just stared down at her. Then he lifted her in his arms. Niall held on tightly to his shoulders. A kaleidoscope of images from his apartment spun before her eyes as he quickly moved toward his bedroom, adding to her chaotic emotional state.
He tore off the wrap that she wore around her shoulders before he lowered her to his bed. The zipper of her sophisticated little black cocktail dress came down next.
“Arms up,” he muttered.
She complied. He tossed aside her black dress a second later.
Niall’s hips moved restlessly on the bed, instinctively trying to relieve the pressure growing at her sex when his gaze dropped over her. She wore a black bra and panty set and some thigh-high stockings. And her pearls. As if that counted for anything, she thought with a touch of hysteria.
Vic’s expression didn’t alter much, but his eyes blazed so hot as they toured her body that she felt sexually scorched.
“Take off your panties and move back on the bed.”
She felt like she was in a dream as she did exactly what he’d demanded. But it was a very hot, exciting dream . . . and she hadn’t the slightest desire to resist the carnal allure of it.
He covered her body with his own by the time her head hit the pillows. He palmed her thighs, spreading them to accommodate his body in the process. He immediately took possession of her mouth again. Their tongues tangled and mated wildly. His hands ran down her sides, one pausing at a small, silk-covered breast, the other sliding down her waist and cradling her hip.
He tilted her pelvis up and pressed himself to her, forcing her to feel the strength of his desire.
Niall moaned into his mouth. He felt so vibrant next to her, so alive. It was a dizzying sensation for someone who had been one of the walking dead for the past three years to suddenly awaken as if from a jolt of sexual electricity. He molded her breast in his palm gently, then roughly . . . always surely. Niall strained up, desperate for more of the sensation of him. Her hands ran over his back and shoulders, sliding and rubbing, consuming him with her touch.
Vic grunted at the feeling of her slender, curvy body pressing to him so tightly. Her skin felt like warm silk. Her nipple pressed into the center of his palm like a hard little dart, maddening him. The feeling of her hands moving anxiously over him blinded him with lust.
He rolled off her onto his left hip, ripping at the button fly of his jeans. He shoved them down his thighs with precise, rapid movements. His cock sprang free, stiff, tight, straining toward her. His eyes caressed her body. She was the color of pale honey, looking like she could tan easily if she chose, but refrained. She’d tasted so good . . . her skin, her mouth, her sweat.
He couldn’t wait to eat her pussy.
He winced in agonized pleasure when he moved and his cock brushed the bare, satiny skin of her thigh. She whimpered.