Take Me for a Ride Read Online Free PDF Page B

ending the game of twenty questions. McDougal handed the guy the requisite amount of cash and then slid out, towing Natalie with him.
    The moody, gray clouds had cleared off, and countless stars twinkled up there in the deep navy sky.
    She pulled her coat around her more tightly and stared up at them. “It’s cold . . . but it’s a magical night, isn’t it?”
    He nodded. Here he was with a beautiful girl that he wanted—and yet didn’t want—in almost equal measures.
    Magical? Yeah, okay. Magical as in cursed.
     
    His room at the Waldorf-Astoria was luxurious but not in an over-the-top, Trump sort of way. McDougal liked the hotel because it was historic and top-notch, with unfailingly polite staff. He noted that its grandeur had little effect on his tipsy guest, who didn’t seem overly impressed by the scale and elegance of the lobby or anything else.
    He poured her off the elevator and through the door of his room. Natalie looked around and then shrugged off her coat and unwound her woolen scarf, exposing the smooth, milky skin of her throat. Why did it make him feel as if his canine teeth were lengthening?
    Her neck was vulnerable, just like the rest of her. McDougal stood there wondering whether he should order a bottle of champagne—his usual choice in matters of seduction—or a pot of coffee to sober her up.
    He wasn’t used to indecision and he didn’t like it. Indecision didn’t suit him. Cursing under his breath, he dialed for room service and ordered a bottle of Veuve Cliquot.
    Then he walked over to her and brushed the pad of his thumb down that long, white throat of hers.
    She shivered and stepped closer.
    He bent his head and touched her lips again with his, feeling the same jolt of electricity he had before. Eric deepened the kiss, sliding erotically into her mouth with his tongue and exploring what she had to offer. Dark, warm, inviting . . . sexy as hell.
    Natalie kissed him back, tentatively at first, and then more boldly, with passion. She made a throaty little noise as his tongue danced with hers, and he instantly hardened. He slid his hands through that glossy dark hair of hers, down each erotic vertebra of her spine, and over her firm little ass. He pulled her against him, lifting her off her feet, and she made that faint, primal noise again.
    He wanted inside her, now. Wanted to slide that long black skirt up to her waist and push apart her thighs and plunge into hot, wet oblivion.
    But he set her back on her feet and held her away from him, searching her face. “Natalie. You sure about this?”
    She didn’t answer right away. She seemed breathless, her face flushed and her hair in disarray. She swayed on her feet.
    “Natalie?”
    She nodded. “I’m sure. I just want to forget . . . everything. For a little while.”
    He wasn’t at all sure that she was sure. But he also wasn’t going to argue with a drunk girl. Long experience with inebriated women had taught him that was useless. “Okay,” he said. “I’m just going to go take a quick shower. Make yourself comfortable.”
    She sat down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. She shimmied out of her black tights, then her skirt, and he had a hard time looking away from her slim, muscular legs, at the apex of which were black lace panties.
    With a muffled groan, McDougal disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door firmly on the sight. He turned on the shower but didn’t have the discipline or the desire to make it cold. Instead, he shed his own clothes quickly and climbed in.
    He soaped up, rinsed, toweled off, and stepped out of the steamy bathroom with the towel knotted at his waist, just in time to answer the door for room service. Eric signed for the champagne. “You can put it over there,” he said, turning around.
    That was when he realized that Natalie had crawled under the covers and passed out cold.
    “Uh. Tell you what. Let’s not open that bottle just yet.” With a tight smile, he tipped the guy and saw him out.