The Pleasure Contract by Caitlin Crews (best books to read in your 20s txt) 📕

why on earth she’d come to this dinner. But suddenly, when his hands found the wall on either side of her head and he leaned in, it all became clear.

It was this.

His heat. The stark desire on his face and the lure of his mouth, hovering close. The sudden, greedy punch of a need so hot inside her, it almost hurt.

“Where would you like me to take you, Bristol?” he asked, his voice a low rumble in the dark.

An invitation.

Worse, a temptation.

Bristol had spent so many years catering to her mind. Following each and every thought or connection down whatever rabbit hole she found, disappearing into her research, and rarely bothering to come up for air. If she thought about her body at all, it was an afterthought. As far as she’d been concerned, for years, it was a machine she kept fueled so she could keep on thinking.

Yet right here, in the back alley behind a Manhattan restaurant, she was suddenly aware of every square inch of that body and she no longer felt much like a machine.

She was too aware of her skin. Her muscles. And all the places where she was nothing at all but throbbing, delirious need.

Maybe her sister had been right all along. She really did need to get out more.

Where would you like me to take you? he’d asked.

Her body was taking over and it had a whole host of ideas.

She tipped her head back, wondering how she could feel as if she was falling from a great height when she could feel the wall at her back. “Maybe I’ll be the one to take you, Lachlan. If you can handle that.”

“Don’t worry, Bristol,” he said, his voice a dark delight. “I can handle you.”

And if she already felt like she was falling, why not jump? She arched herself toward him, pushing up on her toes to find his mouth.

It felt like ignition.

A burst of a dark, intense heat. He met her with the same greed, his hard mouth claiming hers.

Claiming her.

Her heart thudded so hard she pressed herself closer to him, so if it burst straight out from her chest he could contain it.

If anything could contain it.

Because the way his palm, big and hard, gripped the back of her head to guide her mouth where he wanted it made her think it was already too late.

That heat only deepened as he tasted her, roaring into flame and fire.

His kiss was a wild thing, demanding and just this side of rough.

Bristol loved it.

He kissed her the way she’d always wanted to be kissed. He consumed her. He devoured her and it made her clit throb to think that this man who could kiss anyone was kissing her at all, much less like this.

Like he might die if he didn’t.

She let her hands roam over that celebrated chest of his, astonished that he felt even better than he looked. Everything about Lachlan Drummond, who she could admit she’d expected to find sad and faintly creepy, was better.

He was dressed like half of Wall Street, his suit tailored to adore him, but Bristol found that irritating. She wanted to feel him. She wanted to imprint his flesh into her skin so she would carry this with her, always. It took her a moment, but she found her way beneath the soft shirt he wore.

But the reward was that ridged glory of an abdomen. She could feel that V-shaped indentation that she knew led straight to that hard, hot cock pressed against her belly. She wanted to rub herself against it, to get him between her legs, but for the moment she was consumed with running her palms over his six-pack, then higher to find the heavy planes of his pectoral muscles.

And still Lachlan kissed her and kissed her, as if he couldn’t decide if he was eating her alive or if he was letting her do the honors.

Bristol couldn’t decide either. She forgot where she was. She forgot who she was.

Sensation was everything. His hard temptation of a mouth, the press of his gorgeous body, the wall at her back. And all of that bright-hot need that kept pouring through her so she was nothing more than heavy breasts and nipples pinched tight, and the greedy, hungry pussy that pulsed between her legs.

She couldn’t remember wanting anything as much as she wanted this man.

And somehow, he knew.

Lachlan’s free hand moved to trace down the line of her back, but then he found her ass, gripping her in a way that tugged at her clit and made everything hotter. And then he kept moving, reaching down until he could pull her dress up. And up.

She entertained the faintest thought that she should object when the cool spring air found the bare skin of her thighs. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want anything to stop what was happening, because she wasn’t sure she’d live through the disappointment if they stopped. If they didn’t dive straight into the heart of this fire.

Then it was hard to care about anything at all because his hand found the mound of her pussy and held her there, just for a moment, while she shuddered.

And shuddered.

Before she could think about that, or analyze anything the way she liked to do, he found his way beneath the panties she wore. Then he stroked his way into her slippery heat.

His kiss grew harder, slicker, as he found his way inside her.

With the heel of his palm against her clit, he experimented with one long, broad finger, then two.

Bristol bucked against his hand while he drank every beautiful sound she made from her mouth. He ground down harder against her clit, then laughed a bit darkly when she tipped her head back and came.

Hard.

“More,” she panted at him. At the alley around them. At New York. The world. “I want more.”

Lachlan hauled her against him, drawing her legs around his waist and then holding her against the brick wall with little more than