The Forbidden Note (Redwood Kings Book 4)

His fingers are warm and rough against mine as he pulls me through the lobby, parting the crowd with his long-legged stride and dark charisma.

My limbs are all liquid.

Every inch of me is pounding with frantic heat.

This isn’t me.

And yet, here I am, diving headfirst into the thrill of a passionate night with a stranger.

We stop in front of the elevator and he punches the button too many times. How high is his suite?

The thought disintegrates when he pulls me into the elevator. The doors barely close before he’s on me, hands around my waist and pushing me against the wall.

Sea-blue eyes swirling with gold flecks, his lips a breath away from mine. Calloused hands slide into the back of my hair, gripping my curls. His other hand sinks under my skirt.

I whimper, already feeling the throbbing build of satisfaction when his hands sweep my inner thigh. It’s been so long since I’ve burned. Since I’ve moaned. Since I’ve thrummed with pleasure. The parts of me that long to be teased, sucked and licked are crying out in need.

“You have no right to look that gorgeous wearing a freaking animal,” he growls, fingers skating over my quivering flesh.

“Will you finally admit it’s cheetah?”

“Will you finally give me a name?”

“No names.” I suck in a breath.

“Let me guess. You’re a spy out to steal my heart?”

I chuckle.

He brings his finger to my lips and traces my mouth. A breath skitters out as he teases the inner lining. “You have a beautiful smile.”

“You have beautiful eyes,” I whisper. “But I bet you’ve heard that before.”

“Not from someone who says it like you do.”

He makes it sound like I’m important. Like I’m special. Different from anyone he’s slept with before.

It’s probably just a line, one he uses to get women to fall for him.

But I give myself permission to believe it.

At least until the morning.

Come on, Grey. Do something. When will you get a chance like this again?

In a streak of courage, I slide my hands down his chest and to his pants. His breath catches and I feel a surge of confidence.

He’s powerful and masculine.

Everything about him sets my body on fire. His deep voice. His cocky smirk. His roaming hands.

And for tonight, he’s mine.

All six-foot plus of him.

“Bad girl,” he teases. His lips coast over my throat as his fingers trace a slow, seductive line under my skirt. “Did you lie when you said this was your first time?”

I’m trembling, aching with need as he grinds his hips on me. “Maybe you’re the one who makes me bold.”

My skin tingles as he closes his mouth over my shoulder and nips it with his teeth. Breathing hard, he whispers, “Be as bold as you like, tiger. As wicked as you like. Tonight, I’ll show you what it means to come to the dark side.”

We stare at each other.

A look of understanding.

Of danger.

I know instinctively that I’m about to step off a cliff.

It’s going to hurt when I slam to the bottom, but on the way down…

The view is going to be amazing.

Desire.

Lust.

Passion.

It swirls in the air between us.

The sound of our ragged breathing is so loud that I barely hear the elevator ding.

He takes my hand again.

Each step to the hotel room builds the anticipation.

The way he carries himself is already a teasing promise. Every inch of him drips with seductive strength and skill. I can’t wait to feel him. To have my hands full of him. To breathe in his pleasure as I breathe out my own.

He slams his keycard against the door.

It lights up green.

A moment later, I’m being yanked inside and he slams the door shut with his foot.

There’s no formality.

No shyness.

Just a driving force that demands I touch him everywhere and anywhere and all at once.

Inside the dark room, we claw at each other. Our bodies collide like rolling thunder. The pure chaos of reaching hands, discarded clothes, low moans and the heat of his mouth on my chest.

I wrestle him out of his T-shirt just so I can run my hands down his shoulders, arms and back. He teases me with his tongue and I groan, barely able to see clearly as he walks me backwards and tips me on the bed.

He climbs over me.

Limbs trembling, I run my hands over his shoulders and then press them into the small of his back, driving us together. His weight crushes me into the mattress.

Black hair falling over his forehead and screaming blue eyes wild with hunger, he growls, “You are so freaking tempting.”

“So are you.” I wrap an arm around his neck, rocking our hips together.

I have no idea who this sultry, seductive Grey is, but I like her.

His lips curl up in a wicked smile. Eyes locked on mine, he drops a kiss on my throat. Then lower, on my stomach.

Grabbing both my legs, he drags me to the edge of the bed and kneels in front of me. In mere seconds, he has me writhing, squirming, screaming in a way I never have before.

His mouth and fingers are greedy for as much as he can get, devouring me until my voice goes hoarse and I devolve into breathless pants.

I’m begging for more by the time he works his way back up my body, but he doesn’t rush. Instead, he slides his hands over me, tracing every line, every curve, every scar and making me feel like a priceless work of art.

“So beautiful,” he murmurs, kissing my shoulders, behind my neck, the back of my legs. “So, so beautiful.”

I reach for him, desperate to be put out of my misery.

He stops to grab protection and then he’s back on me.

His invasion is sharp.

Swift.

A painful twinge rips my stomach.

I wonder if I signed myself up for more than I could handle.

It’s too much.

And yet not enough.

“You okay?”

I exhale. Nod.

“Just breathe.” He sets his forehead on mine, eyes on me and watching for every muscle twitch in my face. “I got you, tiger.”

It truly sounds like he cares.

My heart flips over.

A strange sensation fills me. A softening of my heart. Like a thread of solid gold slithering through a pitch-black night.

For a moment, everything is still. Suspended in time. A perfect rhapsody of sensations and smells. The slick heat of our skin. The ridges of his muscular chest. The way our bodies connect, heat sinking into heat.

And then he moves.

A thick friction that sends me bursting into flames.

I claw at his back.

Gasp in shock.

Pull him closer.

My body snaps apart with a furious need and I understand keenly that he meant what he said in the bar.

I won’t stop until every inch of you belongs to me.

The bed creaks.

Our moans fill the room.

I’m being torn apart from the inside and put back together with his name stained into every part of me.

He keeps going, not stopping until I’m on the edge again. I lose all sense of time, of everything except his body on mine, faster, deeper, harder.

Just as the world shatters and lights explode behind my eyes, I feel him lean down and kiss me passionately. He relishes my lips, drinking from them as if he’ll never get enough.

My fingers dig into his side and I kiss him back for all I’m worth.

When he catches his breath, he braces his elbows on either side of my head and looks down at me. There’s a hint of surprise in his gaze. “It’s not…”

“Usually like that?” I laugh and slide my hands down his side.

His hair is rumpled from my fingers and he looks deliciously sexy. My heart flips again.

“You’re bad for me, tiger.”

“Why?”

“When I’m with you, I want to break all my rules.”

Our gazes lock and hold.

His phone starts ringing in the distance.

I start to get up.

He pushes me back down.

“Shouldn’t you get that?” I point out, smiling as he grabs my waist again. “It could be your friends from the bar.”

“Uh-uh.” His voice a low grumble, he flips me over. “I told you I’d make tonight count.” Mouth descending on my back, he growls, “The night’s not over yet.”

My eyes burst open in alarm—crap! The sun is way too high in the sky.

I spring upright, hissing when I see the time on my phone.

Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.

I search frantically for my clothes and glance back at the slumbering stranger who made me scream in about five different languages.

His back is filled with scratch marks, evidence of the way I clawed at his skin in passion. It was all I could do to contain myself when it felt like he was literally splitting me apart.

The stranger was right.

He’s no gentleman.

The way he devoured my lips…

He was brutal. Rough. As wild as his love-making.

Heat climbs up my chest.

How could a man totally destroy my body while making it feel so good?

He’s a beast.

An animal unrestrained.

Barely human.

And I lapped up every second of it.

My fingers tremble at the memory of his delectable mouth groaning low in my ear as he plowed me into the mattress.

What. The actual. Hell.

I swallow hard and push off the bed.

The night is gone.

The woman I was last night is gone too.

I ended this era with a bang. Literally.

It’s time to step into my new life.

I dress gingerly, feeling the soreness in my muscles and hoping the strong, latching kisses he left on my neck don’t turn into bruises. My light brown skin can hide blushes, but it can’t hide love bites from ridiculously sexy strangers.

My shoes clop together as I balance them on the edge of my fingers.

This is my first walk of shame.

Might as well make it memorable.

I take one more look at the stranger and feel a slight zip of unease. He seems younger in the morning light with his eyes closed and his hair a mess of violet-black strands. Not quite a man, but definitely not a boy.

I withhold a groan.

I can’t believe I had a one-night-stand with a college student.

Without the gripping hand of alcohol around my neck, I’m starting to wonder if I made a mistake.

It doesn’t matter.

Even if it was a mistake, I’m leaving it behind too.

The door closes softly behind me and I rush to make my flight.

In a plane high over the clouds, I whisper goodbye to my past.

At least I think I do.

But the past swaggers into my classroom one month later.

Wearing a Redwood Prep uniform.

And calling me Miss Jamieson.