Do You Know Who I Am

"I'm… fine…"

She tried to haul upright a body that kept folding under her, but it was no easy thing.

"Tsk."

The click of his tongue was pure contempt. A hard thigh pushed between her failing legs and took her weight. In any ordinary moment she would have flinched away at once, but her condition would not allow it. Zena let out a pained sound and tightened the fist knotted in his collar.

Dane's brow twitched as he looked down at her.

Dim light settled over the woman's face and drew out its fine shading. Ivory skin so pale the down on it nearly showed, eyes swimming and unsteady, and the quick breath slipping in and out between full lips—all of it was far too tempting. He tried not to register the body pressing into his, but there was no ignoring the heat of her rubbing against his thigh.

"Pull yourself together."

The trouble had started the moment he took her ID from the front desk. If he had simply left it, she would have remembered and come back for it herself. Who could have imagined he would end up standing here at this hour, holding her in a pose this indecent?

Dane wet his lightly bitten lower lip with the tip of his tongue.

"Is there anyone I can call?"

It had begun as curiosity at the way her manner shifted every time they met, and before he knew it he had one foot in a game he could not predict.

Thirty minutes earlier, when he placed the call, he had not expected anything like this. The instant the ringtone cut out, music loud enough to pierce an eardrum creased his face of its own accord. Answerless music and static dragged on, and he was a breath from hanging up when a voice drifted through.

One eyebrow drew tight at the sound. He called her name, but only incomprehensible mumbling came back. That was all. A dull thud, as if the phone had struck the floor, and then nothing but the noise of too many people in one room. She did not even seem to realize she had dropped it.

Ha. He clicked his tongue and rose from the desk. His thumb swept his lower lip; the thought lasted only a moment before his gaze landed on the attendee list the Sugar Party organizers had faxed over.

The navigation brought him to a shabby townhouse near NEIU. When Dane's Bentley rolled to a stop, a few students on their way home glanced at the car and quickened their steps. Dane, who had been watching the street through the glass with quiet eyes, got out. He pulled on the suit jacket from the back seat, fastened the buttons, and started forward. The measured strike of his shoes broke the stillness of the night.

An untended garden, proof of a student rental. Bicycles chained together. Aside from the night-light, the whole house was dark, as if announcing that no one was home.

He pressed the bell beside the door several times. Only silence answered.

Dane looked down at the woman's ID in his hand. What had he expected? He had known she might not be there, and still he could not explain, even to himself, why he had come all this way.

I've lost my mind.

He turned and went back to the car. The headlights flared, the engine caught, and the Bentley began to ease away. Just then a taxi slid past. Dane's eyes went to the rearview mirror. The cab was stopping in the very spot he had left moments before.

A dark silhouette stumbled out. She was drunk enough that it would not have surprised him if she collapsed where she stood. Even after the taxi pulled off, the shadow wandered a long while, unable to get inside, then sank down on the steps.

It can't be.

Watching, Dane finally reversed. He got out and strode toward her, and she was so unguarded she never noticed. He stopped at the foot of the steps where she sat. Dust and night insects drifted through the dim glow of the outdoor light. Beneath it was the woman he had been looking for.

And now she was moaning, rubbing her cheek against his chest. The crisp collar crumpled under her hand, but he could not peel away a body clinging to him so pitifully.

"Pull yourself together."

A body shaking hard, pupils blown wide. She was in no state anyone could call normal.

"Hey."

Zena's lips brushed the line of his jaw. Wet breath slipped through her trembling mouth and overlapped his own.

"How much did you drink to end up like this?"

Light gathered in Zena's hazy eyes and vanished, again and again.

A face drawn in clean, flawless lines, and an aura of inborn refinement. Too dazed to tell dream from waking, Zena stared at Dane as if her soul had left her.

"Haah… please, just…"

After fixing on his face for a long moment, she wound her arms around the nape of his neck. The hot rush of her breath grazed the skin above his lip.

Startled, Dane tried to straighten, but he could not evade the mouth that came at him in a rush.

Eyes that had narrowed to a razor edge flew wide.

He wanted everything that made up his life under his own control. He despised people who acted on impulse and without reason, and it was his iron rule never to step outside the lines he set for himself. And yet.

Soft, fragile lips, and a saliva thick and sweet as if condensed milk had melted into it—these had slipped his control. Excitement surged so hard he forgot they were on the steps of a shabby rental. As if her condition were passing into him, he felt his whole body writhe with an impulse he could not govern.

Barely catching the corner of a reason already in flight, Dane tightened his grip on Zena's shoulder. He tore his mouth away and knit his brow, plainly at a loss. The woman gave him no time to think. Zena reached inside his jacket. Ten slender fingers climbed his chest, groping as they rose.

She clung to him, seeking his lips. There was no way to ease the heat stoppering her throat.

"Please…"

The moment the plea entered his ear, something in his heart seemed to crack with a soft, splitting sound. Dane looked at her, his face dark with reluctance.

Did she even know what she was doing? Without a single explanation or excuse, she undid the buttons of his shirt and began to kiss the hard line of his throat.

A bad feeling swept through him. She could barely hold herself up, and yet she was grinding against him, lost in a heat that did not seem owed to alcohol alone.

He looked down at her with his brow drawn, then let out an irritated sigh. Right. He had thought something was off.

He had seen the news. Campus was on high alert because people using aphrodisiacs out of curiosity had surged—the pills were nearly as easy to get now as ecstasy. Taking them willingly was bad enough, but so were the cases of people dosed without knowing. He had heard the drug's effect, the loss of any hold on desire, was being abused, and that every kind of sexual deviance was being committed against those under its influence.

"Vile."

The voice he muttered could not have gone any lower. How in the world had she come home alone in a state like this?

"My body… it's so hot I think I'm going to lose my mind."

Still wrapped around him, Zena twisted. Soft breasts crushed, indecent, against his chest.

Dane bit his lip. This truly made no sense. What was so hard about pushing off one drugged woman? The will to pull her away thinned by the moment, and his head stained itself with filthy imaginings. He wet his dry lips with his tongue.

"You."

He had not called expecting an answer. But perhaps it was instinct. Her eyes turned toward his face. Long lashes rose and fell each time she blinked. Behind the glazed look revealed between them, the chance that any reason remained looked slim.

A long breath left him, and his throat moved with it.

"When you come to, you're in for it. Understand?"

In the space of a blink, Zena's heels left the ground. As Dane walked, her slender legs, lifted into the air, wound tight around his waist as if they had been made to fit there. Because she kept clutching his neck and rubbing her mouth against him, he had to spill curses under his breath and stop more than once along the way.

Wrists bound in his necktie, Zena sprawled onto the bed.

She had kept throwing herself at him while he drove, until at last he pulled onto the shoulder, tied her hands, and fixed them to a hook in the car. He exhaled and, with a restrained motion, folded his shirt cuffs up.

"Nn… ngh…"

Zena twisted like a fish dragged from water. Her chest heaved on short breath, and her whole body, past craving pleasure, was being torn apart by it into pain.

"Hold on. By morning you'll be all right."

A large hand settled on her sweat-damp forehead. It was meant to soothe her, but with every nerve in her screaming, his touch only fed wind to the fire.

"Nnh, please…"

Zena clenched her teeth and writhed. Both eyes were bloodshot red enough to pity, and a wet sound came from a nose blocked with tears. Hair stuck to cheeks smeared with sweat and tears. She was a wreck.

"Goddamn it."

Dane raked his forelock back and muttered. He had tied her for her safety, but seeing her thrash on the bed like that, it felt as if he were the one committing the crime. Anyone looking would have had grounds enough to misunderstand. With no other choice, he sat on the edge of the bed.

"Give me your arm."

She only twisted, pitiful. Well. If words had reached her in the first place, he would never have brought her this far. Dane reached out and undid the knot binding her wrists.

Unfortunately, the freeing of her arms and his being shoved onto the bed, collar seized, happened almost at the same instant.

Their bodies overlapped and their mouths met. At the way she clutched his collar as if to tear it and pressed her lips to his without aim, Dane's eyes went wide. Was it the heat the drug had stoked in her? The breath against his skin was hot enough to scald.

"Nn… nnh…"

Zena wound her tongue around his as if to urge him on, sweet, and let out a moan thick in her nose.

Damn it. What was so significant about a kiss this clumsy? The sound of her excited breathing spun his head. The wall of reason was coming down at a speed absurd in how fast it was.

After taking her urgent mouth for a long while, Dane wrapped an arm around her waist and turned them. Long hair scattered across the pure-white sheets, and breasts heaving with ragged breath rose and fell.

"Look at this."

He swept the body caught beneath his arm with a heated gaze. Desire, risen sharp, was setting a fire low in his gut.

"Do you know what you're doing right now?"

He took her cheeks in both hands and made her look straight at his face.

"Who am I?"

At the very least, she ought to know who he was before she threw herself at him.

"Do you recognize me?"

Even under the questioning that followed, Zena only looked up at him with eyes that held no soul. Watching her fail to answer, Dane drew his brows together as if his head ached.

Tsk. This girl. She shouldn't have put herself in this much danger—begging for pleasure, lunging at a man without even knowing who he was. His gaze traveled her red lips, breathing heat, and the white line of her throat, and he wavered.

Then the eyes that had been blinking slow stopped moving. And—

A voice as languid as a dream slipped from her. The sound of his name in that voice tickled his heart until it dizzied him. A cruel want surged through him—to swallow every inch of her, right now.