“Demitri,” she managed weakly.
“You’re incredible,” he muttered, hooking one arm behind her to draw her to the edge of the table. Then his gaze caught hers and something like panic edged into his. “You’re not with me?”
“No, I am. I want you. This. Now. Please.”
His breath flowed over her lips as he released it in an expulsion of jagged humor and relief. Firm pressure nudged at her opening and she closed her eyes, not wanting him to see how desperate she was right now. Aching with need.
He pushed with inexorable power into her. A smarting sting took her by surprise, making her catch her breath and set a hand on his shoulder.
Rearing back slightly, he said, “You’re not a virgin.”
“No!” Her gasping laugh came out as a papery husk. “It’s just been a long time. Please don’t stop. I really want this.”
He made a noise between frustration and despair as he covered her mouth, kissing her with hungry desire, trying to persuade her body into softness.
She enfolded him with her limbs, drawing him in, making the penetration happen despite the discomfort so they were locked tight, both pulsing in expectation. Yes. She’d needed so badly to be held tight against a warm body, a man’s hands caressing her as though she was treasure, his hardness filling her where she’d felt empty forever.
His head tipped back and he groaned at the ceiling. “You’re killing me.”
She smiled, easing her tight grip on him, but squeezing internally, signaling that she was ready. Needy. Scraping her nails against his sides, she bit his pecs, inciting him.
He drew in his breath as a fierce hiss, slitted eyes staring deeply into hers as he practically pulled her off the table and onto his firmly planted, hard body. Then he caged her with hard arms, one hand low enough on her tailbone to brace her on the edge of the table, the other hooked behind her knee, holding her open. From there it was primal, but so good. Basic he might be, but selfish he was not. Each thrust was possessive, controlled and deliberate. And he watched her the entire time, as though he was willing her to lose herself in their lovemaking.
She couldn’t hang on to control, not when the crashes of their hips sent detonations of joy splashing through her. Feverish and acutely sensitive, she felt everything from the friction of her silk slip to the damp sheen on his hot skin. He ducked his head to set his teeth against her neck. She knew a love bite would be bad, but she arched to make it easier for him to mark her. She’d never felt so glorious, so sexy or desired or alive.
They made love with lusty groans and fevered gasps as she greedily fought orgasm, loving the way he made her feel, filling her up and stroking his hand restlessly up her inner thigh, under her dress. Swearing gruffly against her cheek, he found her mouth with his own and her breast with his hand, pushing her bra cup up so he could pinch her nipple, seeming to shake with need as he quickened his pace and claimed her mouth as though she was his last meal.
“Now, Natalie,” he broke away to demand. “Now.”
His voice sent prickling sensations down her spine. The coiled sensation where he moved inside her deepened to a kind of tension she couldn’t resist. This was good, but the other side would be better. When he thrust deep and held himself there, held her tight to him, nudging her through the door of ecstasy right along with him, she gave herself up to it, clinging as though they were falling from an airplane into the sky.
For a blind second it was that fathomless. Then the tumble of orgasm struck, near wrenching in its power. The release and contraction inside her redoubled as Demitri pulsed and rocked, his body arched against hers in ecstasy, his cries triumphant, extending her sensation so she could only gasp and tremble, utterly helpless to their combined climax. He held her so tightly she was sure she’d bruise, but she didn’t care. Nothing hurt. All the dark spaces inside her glowed hotly. Her entire being flooded with bliss and perfection. She never wanted it to end.
But the quivering pulses eventually died away. Her awareness returned to their ragged breaths and the hard marble under her bottom and the coat of sweat on his skin against her own layer of perspiration.
Embarrassment struck like a hammer. She’d been so easy. She’d just had a one-night stand—literally with him on his feet.
Lifting his head, Demitri stole a few tissues from the box near her hip and eased from her. When he stepped away and turned his back, she forced her weak legs together and prayed they’d hold her as she unsteadily found her feet.
He walked into the first door down the hall. A powder room, she imagined, but didn’t stick around to find out.
Mortified, she grabbed her purse and left without a word.
* * *
Demitri was barely forming thoughts. Deep in the back of his mind he knew what had happened with Natalie was wrong, but that wasn’t why he’d sought a moment to pull himself together. He was fairly shameless when it came to right and wrong, but not usually so audacious as to take a woman inside the door like a sailor with a doxy. He might get his date into the mood in the lounge, but he never lost control there, not so completely.
That loss of sense made him uneasy. He loved sex, loved the escape and pleasure a woman’s body offered him, but what he’d just done with Natalie had been the wrong kind of mindlessness. As impulsive as he was accused of being, he typically knew exactly what he was doing at all times. How much damage and why.
In this case he’d cast any sense of consequence to the wind. She’d waved him in and he’d slid home.
And he wanted to do it again. In a bed this time. Again and again.
That was unsettling. He had a very healthy appetite for sex, but sex was sex and women were women. He never, ever thought things like, I want her.
Probably best to walk her back to her room and cut this short.
Avoiding his own gaze in the mirror, he closed his pants, but left his shirt open. One damp hand lifted to rub away the itch of drying sweat on his chest as he walked back to the lounge. His muscles still felt quivery and weak...
Where was she? Her coat was still there on the sofa, so...
“Natalie?”
In the bedroom? A strange relief flicked through him. The night wasn’t over after all. He ought to be uncomfortable with her making assumptions, but all he could think was that he could sate this disturbing desire to have her again. How could he be this restless and hungry when he was still buzzing with orgasm?
She wasn’t in his room.
Of course, she wouldn’t know which one was his.
“Natalie,” he called, pushing open all the doors as he went, even the ones to the room the children used, but she wasn’t in any of them. Kitchen?
As he went through the lounge, he glanced at the table by the door and noted her purse was gone. A sick lurch hit the pit of his stomach and panged a little higher when he saw the scrap of black lace he’d snapped and discarded on the floor.
Oddly uncomfortable with the evidence of their passion lying where housekeeping could find it—really not like him to have such a sudden and acute need for privacy—he stuffed the lingerie in his pocket and glanced into the hall outside the suite.
Empty.
Grabbing his room card, he went all the way to the elevator and hit the button. The doors opened immediately, so the car hadn’t moved since they’d left it less than thirty minutes ago.
Baffled, he went back into his suite and did another search.
Had she taken the stairs?
He dialed her room.
She answered with a brisk “Hello... Bonjour.”
“Natalie?”
A tiny pause, then, “Yes?”
“It’s Demitri.”
“I know. I recognize your voice.”
Another pause, this one longer. He was waiting for her to explain why she’d left, but there was an expectant curiosity on her side, as though she was waiting for him to tell her why he’d called.
It dawned on him that she hadn’t expected him to call.
When had he last called a woman in a timely fashion after a tryst, let alone within minutes of their parting?
“Oh, I forgot my coat!” she groaned in realization. “Rookie mistake. I’m sorry. That could be awkward, couldn’t it? Can you sneak it into the small meeting room on the second floor first thing tomorrow morning? That’s where we’re doing the group training sessions. I’ll pretend I brought it so I wouldn’t have to go to my room before leaving for lunch.”
“Sounds elaborate,” he commented with false calm, feeling like the rookie here as a hot, spurned sensation followed the word sneak. He told himself to go along with her plan and count himself lucky she hadn’t read more into their evening than was warranted, but he still found himself speaking in a low, uncomfortably dry voice. “I could bring it to you now. Or you could come back.”
“People are going to talk enough after seeing me go to dinner with you. I’d rather pretend nothing else happened.”
Ouch. He scowled across the empty lounge of his quiet suite.