Chapter 132

“And not everyone born rich is automatically evil,” Lexi replied. She squeezed his hand as she held it. “Something you’re going to have to come to terms with should you create a new generation some day. Will they grow up pampered and spoilt? Or will they learn they have a responsibility to do what others can’t?”

He found his thumb moving back and forth over the back of her hand. “You don’t make money at what you do, do you?”

“Of course not. I’m a career volunteer. It’s what makes swanning off to Olkfield on a whim possible.”

She peered past him into one of the salons off the hall, where a scrum of finance types were boozing it up like they were down at the local, except what they were quaffing would qualify as a mortgage payment in some places. All she did was smile, but Tyler was suddenly uncomfortable. He’d been there once, in the first flush of his first million. And the notion that Lexi might have looked at him then as he was looking at the pack of them made something twist inside.

“That’s the trouble with money,” he said darkly. “If you’ve never had a lack of it and don’t understand what a gift that is, you don’t cherish it. You grow complacent.” He nodded toward the pack of idiots, but pulled her along past their room. “And you find yourself using it to help yourself feel things you wouldn’t otherwise.” Like entertaining the wrong women for years because the right one was permanently out of reach. But he remembered himself. “Like leaping out of planes, which the lot of them like to do on the weekends. Regularly. But no one’s a thrill junkie if they can feel things on their own. They wouldn’t need it.”

Lexi was looking up at him again as they walked, that rueful expression turning to something more pointed. “Have you already become bored? So quickly?”

“I don’t believe in boredom,” Tyler told her, growling it out as if she was hitting hard into the very heart of him. “That’s one more privilege I never had.”

“You seek thrills for the hell of it, then.”

She wasn’t quite frowning at him, but there was a challenging light in her eyes. And Tyler didn’t want to debate class differences with the one person who had always treated him as if there weren’t any. As if he was grand as he was, always and forever. And she was going to leave him, soon. He didn’t want to tell her that she was his model for how a very wealthy person ought to behave, because he didn’t want to admit how much he thought about her, felt about her, changed himself for her. Start discussing one part of it and who knew where he’d end up?

Lexi never hid her wealth, but she never flaunted it, either. She gave back quietly, without fanfare. And she was unfailingly kind. He fell short of these things daily, but she was always there as a goal. He was good at goals. But then, there were other, more attainable goals tonight. He could work on being a better version of himself in all the lonely years ahead of him.

Tyler stopped at the next door they passed, seeing the discreet green light that indicated it was empty. He coded them in, then leaned back against the door when he closed it. And locked it.

“Does that mean you don’t feel anything?” she was asking, paying no attention to what he was doing as she walked into the lounge area, then turned back to him. “And, crucial follow-up question, if you can’t feel anything, are you really the best tutor when it comes to sex?”

“Lexi.”

“I’m no expert myself, but I did think it had a lot to do with sensation,” she said, shaking her head at him. “Feeling. All those things you just said —”

“There’s only one thrill I’m after,” Tyler told her.

He hauled her into his arms, where she belonged, and he got his mouth on hers once more. And this time, in private.

___________

If Lexi had ever had the slightest idea that kissing could be like this, her whole life would be different.

Tyler was addictive. The scrape of his tongue, the way he moved that hard jaw of his… She couldn’t get close enough. Her whole body was flushed, hot, ready.

She felt needy, filled with greed, and some part of her thought that this experiment was going to take a bit longer than planned. Because she could kiss him forever. Calling what he was doing kissing seemed to do it a disservice, in fact. He tasted the way she imagined heroin must feel. An impossible, magical lift, and then a beautiful storm.

And she felt dizzy, but it took her a moment to realize it was because he was moving her, backing her up until something prodded her at the hips.

She pulled away from him, which made her want to cry. But she looked around, and realized they were in a sitting room of some kind. There was the door to one side discreetly marked with an embossed WC. There was the door they’d come in, and then a third with no markings.

“Is this a hotel?”

“After a fashion,” Tyler said, in a perfectly normal voice that was at complete odds with the ferocity in his gaze. The contrast made her skin feel too tight. “These are considered day rooms. They are most properly used for members fighting off jet lag when they come in on one of those early flights. A nice place to have a bit of a sleep, freshen up and then head straight to a business meeting.”

“Are we having a business meeting?” Lexi asked, there where he’d backed her up against a sturdy little antique secretary.

But he only smiled. Like a wolf. And then he was shifting, going down on his knees before her. And suddenly, she didn’t care what took place in this building. All she could see was Tyler, his eyes blazing and his face set. Hungry. Very nearly feral.

She felt the same. And she wanted to ask him what he was doing, but her mouth was too dry.

Then his hands were on her. He smoothed his way over her hips, then went straight to the fastening of her jeans.

“I’m going to feed you,” he told her, and his voice sounded thicker. Darker. “But first, I need to taste you or I’m not going to make it.”