He pressed his hand flat to the door beside her head, leaning close enough to smell the warm peach scent of her skin, aching for the graze of her rising breasts against his chest. Below his belt, a heavy rush of blood pulled him tight.
Flustered and anxious, she still managed to send a coy glance south. Her body arched ever so slightly so she brushed against him. She released a powerless whimper on a sobbing “Yes.”
“I want you very badly, Natalie. Not after five o’clock. Now,” he told her, willing her to fall in with his demands. To let him bend her over the desk and take both of them where they were screaming with agony to go.
* * *
Natalie heard the words and flinched inside, telling herself to remember who she was dealing with. She set her jaw and leveled her chin, forcing herself to stare into his black-coffee eyes. “Is saying that part of giving me the fantasy? Because I prefer honesty, Demitri. I’m pretty sure what you want is sex, not me.”
He narrowed his eyes, displeased, but he only levered himself straight and said, “Do you know what vacuous means?”
Apparently it was a real question. He waited until she said, “Yes,” with an exasperated frown before he continued.
“Most of the women I’ve been with don’t. And it shows. You’re sexy as hell, but you’re also interesting. Give me your number. I’ll text you where to meet me tonight.”
Just like that? Breeze right past shouldn’t to will? Misgivings danced in her periphery, but there was no sick knot of guilty conscience that would have stopped her doing something truly immoral. Two unattached adults spending time together for a few nights was allowed, she rationalized. She’d be leaving on Saturday. Three nights out of her life to keep her warm for the next thirty years. It might make her cheap, but it would make her happy. She’d regret saying no.
When would she ever again have a chance to be with a man on her terms, without it impacting her daughter? This was the only time she could do something reckless and imprudent, selfish and deeply sexually satisfying.
With giddy excitement expanding in her chest, she heard herself giving him her number, saying, “You could have got that from my company profile. You realize that, don’t you?”
“I told you, I’m not going to read about you when I can see you face-to-face and ask.” His eyes came up from his smartphone, gaze warm with satisfaction and lit with anticipation. His carnal expression was exhilarating, but unnerving.
“You’re really not going to read it?” she asked.
“Is there a reason I should?”
“No,” she said with false calm. Three nights of sidestepping honesty and pretending she didn’t have a daughter. That made her squirm internally, but she instinctively knew it would change everything, and she wanted the fantasy. She wanted to be a single woman alone in Paris having an affair with a hotel magnate.
And what an affair! They didn’t come up for air until two in the morning, when she rose to dress, muscles aching, nipples abraded and loins tender. Oh, it was an amazing feeling. Her skin felt like velvet on the inside, luxurious and petted smooth.
“I don’t like you going back alone at this time of night. Stay.”
“I’m not going to walk. I’ll take a cab,” she said, even though it was only a few blocks. He’d booked this suite in a competitor’s hotel for the rest of the week, he’d informed her when she had arrived to a candlelit dinner looking out on the Eiffel Tower.
They hadn’t eaten any of it, consuming each other with a crazy appetite she put down to her years of abstinence and his years of building a healthy one. In her heart she knew this was bad, being such an easy conquest for him, but, dear Lord, he knew how to make it good for her.
“Bring a bag tomorrow,” he ordered, following her into the lounge, casual in his nudity. “So you can go to work from here in the morning.”
The man was incredible. Completely un-self-conscious, possessing more command unclothed than a decorated general. He was playful when he was relaxed, like right after sex, but he got straight to the point if things weren’t going his way.
He was spoiled. Privileged and spoiled, yet so generous in bed she felt like the spoiled one.
He was dangerous, that was what he was. If she wasn’t careful she’d start fantasizing about more than two more nights with him.
She crossed to the untouched table where the tea lights in their globe of water had gutted out. Stabbing an olive with a fork, she waved the little green orb at him.
“That’s two meals you’ve made me miss—lunch this afternoon, now dinner. You’ll be lucky if I don’t go on strike for better conditions.” She popped the olive into her mouth.
“Here I thought the package of benefits was enough to keep you satisfied.”
Said package was twitching to life, making her grin right along with him. They locked gazes, and the prospect of returning to the bedroom crackled like a welcoming fire. But one of them had to show some control.
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m one of those high-maintenance women who can’t be pleased.”
“Ha! That is far from true, Natalie,” he said in that husky tone he used when all his blood was rushing into one particularly prominent place.
“You’re saying I’m easy?” Even though they were her own words, they went through her like a white-hot spear. She looked away from him, startled to feel the backs of her eyes sting. Why? Because she’d just remembered she was one in a legion of women for him? Because this was as good as it would ever get for her?
She dropped her fork with a clatter and headed for the door.
“Hey.” He caught her up before she reached it, scowling when she stiffened with resistance against his hold. “What’s wrong?”
“I just need some proper sleep,” she dismissed. “I get emotional when I’m tired.” And she was suddenly so homesick she could cry. She wanted desperately to hold Zoey. Right now. Her arms ached with need to feel the wiry strength of her girl. That was who she was: Zoey’s mom. That was where she belonged, and she didn’t need a man in her life, in any capacity, to make her life bigger or better.
She told herself.
He cupped her jaw and smoothed his thumb along her cheek. “Give me a minute to dress. I’ll come with you.”
“No, I’m fine.” She couldn’t let him become something she thought would fulfill her. She already had all she would ever need. Smiling flatly, she pressed the middle of his chest, tempted to let her touch linger on his taut skin, still able to taste his flavor on her lips, but she was her own person, apart from him. Had to be. “Good night.”
CHAPTER FOUR
DEMITRI WAS TYPICALLY the one who needed space. That was how it had always been. Yet Natalie pushed him back a step and walked out.
Usually he created distance when the microcues of emotional discord began to manifest. He was deeply attuned to them, whether he wanted to be or not. His childhood had predisposed him to picking up the slightest shift in the air, when bad could go worse within the space of a heartbeat.
He’d learned to defuse those explosive situations with an outrageous comment or an injection of chaos. He stirred the soup very deliberately, taking control of the moment by drawing attention and forcing the detonation. The shrapnel never landed on him, so it had always worked for him to push the plunger or pull the pin.
This was different. Everything about Natalie was different. She wasn’t clingy. She was defensive. Oddly quick to isolate herself even though she projected genuine warmth and affection. One second she’d been teasing, the next revealing a kind of desperation, but not looking to him to resolve it for her.
That was often the impetus for him to dust his hands of a relationship. The moment things grew complex and a woman grew needy, he slipped away. But Natalie hadn’t looked to him for solace. She’d looked off into the distance, as though he was the last place she’d expect to find whatever it was she needed.
A bizarre, painful hollowness sank into him, urging him to follow her to the hotel and catch at the connection they’d had and lost without him understanding how or why.
Damn it, he didn’t do introspection and angst. Especially over women.
Nevertheless, he found himself returning to the hotel first thing, snapping out arrangements that brought her into the hotel dining room with a harried look on her face. It was just before 8:00 a.m. Her hair swung in the sweep of gold he’d run his fingers through just hours before, and her warm brown eyes refused to meet his, instead taking a run around the table of three managers he’d assembled on the fly.
“I’m sorry. I just picked up the message about this breakfast meeting. I’m not prepared at all,” she said.
“No problem, Natalie. It’s informal. Adara asked me to check in on the software transition while I’m here, so I thought we’d have a quick round table over eggs and coffee.” It was an outright lie, but he’d wanted to see her and figured she’d balk at something more private or intimate. This was an excuse to sit beside her, brush his sleeve against hers, memorize her lipstick print on her coffee cup. He resented every second of not having her to himself, but it was better than nothing.