The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood Book 3) by Nikki Sloane (freda ebook reader .txt) 📕

like a hot knife through butter. “Ask the next man who walks by if he wants to taste your pussy.”

Whoa.

“What?” I jolted back from him, and my eyes went wide. “What if he says yes?”

There weren’t words to describe how Clay stared at me. If there were, I wouldn’t be able to find them, because I flash-boiled and everything inside me became steam. His eyes were lidded with desire.

He likes to watch.

His shoulders rose with his uneven breath. “Would that be a limit for you?”

The steam fogged around in my head, and I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to get it to disperse. Was it a limit? Could I let a total stranger go down on me while Clay watched?

The depraved part of me hungered to find out. A runaway freight train had replaced my heart, barreling out of control, chugging away at a million miles an hour.

He’d asked if this was a limit, but I’d been waiting for him naked in his house this afternoon. He knew what my answer would be.

I subtly shook my head. “It’s not a limit.”

Excitement crackled in his eyes before his gaze turned toward the room, surveying the crop to see who’d be the lucky man.

Hyperawareness traveled up my back like faint pinpricks. My body sensed what was happening, while the rest of me struggled to catch up. Had I subconsciously willed this into existence?

No, I realized. This was too perfect to be anything other than designed.

At some point, the man in the gray suit had come into this room. Now he stalked toward us, and his intense gaze was fixed on me.

EIGHT

All the sound in the room faded out, and my heart leapt up to my throat, cutting off my airway.

The man in the gray suit moved deliberately and with focus, ignoring the groups of writhing bodies scattered around the space. There was an easy swagger to him as he walked. If Clay was a man drawn with sharp angles and precise measurements, this guy was beautifully sketched by freehand.

I dry-swallowed. As he approached, so did the moment I’d have to speak to him. I wanted to—part of the fun was the challenge of it—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous. What if my question, like, offended him?

And what if he said no?

He reached the end of the couch, stopping a respectable distance away from us, which meant I couldn’t whisper my question. I’d have to say it loud enough for him to hear me over the swelling noise of the room.

It wasn’t just music and conversations in here now. There were throaty moans. Cracks of palms against asses. Steady thumps of hips beating against hips.

The man didn’t notice or care. He was focused only on me.

I opened my mouth to speak, but when the words didn’t come, the guy cocked his head, puzzled.

His voice was deep and hushed. “You have a question for me?”

I knew it. Clay was an architect. He made his living by planning and designing, and that extended into the other areas of his life. I glanced at him, but his expression was fixed. I’d have to ask him later how he’d accomplished this, but I suspected it’d happened when he’d stepped away to use the restroom.

“Yes,” I said, “I have a question.” I was grateful it came out confident and clear.

And why shouldn’t I be? I wanted this. Even if nothing came of my offer, just making it to a complete stranger was wild and exhilarating. I uncrossed my legs and pressed the front of my skirt down in the hollow I’d created between my knees, my hands curled around the hem.

He peered at me expectantly as I took in a preparing breath.

“Do you want,” I said, “to taste my pussy?”

Disbelief knocked him back a half-step, and as soon as he finished processing the question, his attention snapped to Clay. Was it to check with him if this was all right? To see if my date would allow it? The two men exchanged a long look, and God, what I would have given to understand their wordless conversation.

But I didn’t.

Satisfied, the man’s focus swung back to me and swept downward, taking in my outfit, my legs, my heels . . . A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. It made me smolder, but then the word he uttered? It set me on fucking fire.

“Sure,” he said.

Oh, my God.

My pulse went erratic when he stepped into the space between the couch and the ottoman I was sitting on, blocking my view of Clay. I stopped breathing altogether when he knelt on the floor between my parted legs, bringing him perfectly into my eyeline.

Time suspended as this handsome stranger stared at me. Did he see the same curiosity he had reflected in my eyes? I was fascinated by who he was to Clay and what he’d been told about tonight. There weren’t answers in his eyes, though, only more questions.

His gaze drifted down and came to a stop on my hands holding my skirt in place. “Can I touch you?”

It was the same question Clay had asked me earlier, and the flashback to the ruler striking my skin was unavoidable. I shuddered with a pleasurable aftershock, but hopefully the man didn’t notice.

I pressed my lips together and nodded, too anxious to speak, because I worried what might come out. This whole night had been intoxicating and obliterated what few inhibitions I had. If I wasn’t careful, I might tell this stranger he could fuck me.

The man’s palms were warm when he gently set them on my knees, but they didn’t stay there. Up his hands went, sliding along the tops of my thighs, and showers of goosebumps burst across my legs as he pushed back my skirt.

I had to force air in and out of my body, making my corset heave. Then I put my hands down behind me on the ottoman and leaned back, making room for him. Over his shoulder, Clay was there, supervising us with a hungry look.

The