He sidled up to her. “But she’s not you, is she?”
Suddenly a shadow loomed over her. She didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Tristan. Her body set off the internal alarm it always did every time he was close. He slung an arm over her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. Her body seized from the shock and the hot spear of need.
“Sorry, I got distracted, darling. I hope the champagne’s okay. I can get you something else if you want.”
Unable to move her limbs, she forced herself to inhale deep. The hint of musk and ocean breezes swirled around her. When her brain finally came online again, she turned to stare at his arm pointedly, then back at his face. Either she was too subtle or he deliberately ignored her reproachful glare.
Tristan turned to her companion. “Who’s your friend, Syn?”
The guy put up both his hands. “No harm intended. Just having a conversation.” He beat a hasty retreat.
Because she wasn’t interested, she let him scamper away, but the moment he was out of earshot, she stepped out of Tristan’s hold. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Here’s a hint, sweetheart. Where I’m from, when someone rescues you, it’s customary to say thank you.”
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Who said I needed your help?”
“Oh, come on. It was clear you weren’t into him. The only person who didn’t know that was him.”
It would be a snowy day on Venus before she thanked him. “For your information, I can take care of myself, Ricky.”
He frowned. “Ricky? I’m Tristan, remember?” he said cheekily.
“Ricky Schroder. I didn’t need you to ride in on your little train. This isn’t an episode of Silver Spoons.”
He shook his head. “You know what? Next time, I’m going to leave you to fend for yourself.”
She placed her glass on the cement ledge before she gave in to the urge to throw it in his face. “I’d appreciate that. That guy was probably taking his lessons from watching you hit on woman after woman all night.”
Tristan grinned and she cursed the butterflies. Her body warmed and heat pooled in her core. “If that were me, I would have recognized a lost cause.”
A lost— She spoke through clenched teeth. “Oh, so I don’t fall for your phony charm, and I’m the problem? I’ve had enough for the night. Dealing with morons has a way of exhausting me.”
She had made it only about a hundred feet before a strong hand wrapped around her upper arm. “Where are you going? Not that I care about your presentation, but I know you. You’ll find a way to blame me because you didn’t get all the information you needed.”
Syn dragged her arm back. “You worry about your own presentation. Unlike you, I don’t lose.”
If she thought she was going to manage to escape him in the elevator, she should have thought twice.
Using his key fob, he hit the button for their floor before rounding on her. “What is your problem with me anyway? From the moment I started at Stellar Reach you’ve been riding me.”
Oh, hell. She would not think about riding him. She would not think about riding him. She would not— Oh, there it was, an image in her mind of them on the floor, naked and writhing, with her riding him to orgasm.
She pointed a finger in his chest. “I take offense to how you do things. You think with a pretty smile you can get whatever you want.” She jabbed him. “I worked my butt off on the Boyd campaign and you just strolled in with your connections and your smile and pushed me off my own project, and that wasn’t the first time. And I wouldn’t even have had a problem if I’d seen you put in any actual work on that. Instead you relied on your ability to pal around to get that client.”
He leaned into her jabbing finger and bracketed his arms against the elevator wall on either side of her head. “You’re still pissed about that? You really need to let things go. It’s not like you haven’t stolen clients from me before. Does the Travers account mean anything to you?”
She narrowed her eyes at him and poked him again. “It’s not called stealing if you actually do all the groundwork and the client chooses you.”
“That was my first time I had a shot as a lead and you swooped in with your charts and your graphs. You are such a pain in the—” He muttered something unintelligible through ground teeth.
“Likewise.” With the both of them squaring off and breathing hard, with only a scant two inches between their bodies, Syn knew definitively how this weekend would end. With only one of them still standing.
“You are infuriating and obstinate,” Tristan muttered.
The hell she was. She poked him again. “You’re a pompous jackass, so I guess—”
He shut her up with a hot, searing kiss. She should have seen it coming, but irritation blinded her.
His strong arms wrapped around her, and his scent wove a hypnotic spell, seducing her, making it impossible to think.
His tongue slipped between her lips and she moaned. He tasted so good. Oh. My. When her brain started to process, her first thought was Holy moly, Tristan Dawson, sex god to the world, is kissing me. The next, as he expertly slid his tongue over hers: Oh, hell. He could give lessons.
Tristan backed her up against the wall as he growled low in his throat. Hands on either side of her head, he nipped at her bottom lip. Syn hesitated for only a second before her arms looped around his neck into his hair. When she twined her fingers into the silken locks, he groaned and deepened the kiss.
Her body was a bundle of raw nerves and he knew just how to stroke every, single, one. It was as if each rational, thinking brain cell she had stood by on the sidelines gawking as her body and its need took over the helm.
He braced her against the wall and urged her legs around his waist. They both moaned as that brought her heated core in contact with his pulsing erection.
For once, Syn took a vacation from her overanalytical brain. She took a vacation from good sense. All she wanted to do was feel. To be desired and for once to throw caution to the wind. For once just take the pleasure that was offered without thinking it to death a million times.
For that elevator ride, she went on a ride with Tristan Dawson. Not only did he devour her lips; he treated her mouth like a delicacy, tasted and tempted and teased her tongue into playing. She wanted this. Wanted him.
As he licked into her mouth with his hot tongue, he slid a hand up her stomach and ribs. He paused just short of touching her breast and Syn whimpered and arched into him.
She would have sworn she heard a chuckle. But her tongue was otherwise engaged, so a tongue-lashing would have to wait until later. He fumbled for something to the left, and the elevator came to an abrupt halt.
He skimmed his thumb over her breast, and a spike of desire rolled through her, causing her to undulate her hips. With a muffled moan, Tristan scooped a hand over her ass and held her tighter to him, pressing his erection into her.
His tongue slid over hers and he sucked her tongue into his mouth, making her want him, making her need him, making her wet.
Tristan tore his lips from hers and dragged in ragged breaths. Syn forced her eyes open and met his blistering gaze. When he spoke, his voice was low. Gravelly. “Now’s a good time to stop me if you don’t want to do this.”
What? It took three tries to process the words that came out of his mouth.
“I— What?”
“Do