“This is ridiculous.” She pushed his hand away from her face then. And the light in his green eyes changed again, but he dropped his hand all the same. “If you don’t want to have sex with me, Dylan, I wish you would just say so. All this poncing about, grimly talking about doors that can’t be closed and emotional states that will be forever disrupted. I’m talking about having sex. You either want that or you don’t. And I won’t hate you if you don’t.” She made herself smile. “Too much.”
And the strangest expression moved over his face then. She couldn’t read it. Still, she found herself holding her breath, and felt something almost like loss when he ended up somewhere...wry.
“Risk assessments are a part of what I do for a living,” he told her, sounding...careful. “The part you don’t like to talk about, as it’s so hard for you to imagine me ordering people about. Isn’t that what you said?”
“I find it a lot less hard to imagine after tonight.”
“You don’t think you’ll fall in love with me,” he said, and surely there was no reason for her heart to turn over at that. “That’s fair enough. I won’t patronize you and tell you, again, that I don’t think you quite know what you’re talking about.”
“Even if I don’t, does it matter? It’s obvious in the way you’re talking about this that you’ve had it happen before. But it’s obviously not real love, or the lady in question would still be here. That means it’s a sexual hangover, or some such. Don’t worry, Dylan. You’re safe.” She smiled at him, and this time, she didn’t have to force it. “I’m not going to relocate to Sydney, start stalking you and scale your wall to boil bunnies on your stove. I’m getting married next spring. And Conrad might not be in love with me, nor I with him. But I don’t think either one of us is interested in the kind of scandal that would ensue if I was arrested in Australia for harassing an old friend. This is about as low risk as possible to get.”
He only stared at her. She sighed.
“I promise,” she said.
“Right.”
And again, she watched him change. There was a flash of the Dylan she knew, almost rueful. Then that intent Dylan again, edgy and dangerous. And breathtaking.
He shifted, turning her around so her back was to the rail. And his hands moved to either side of her so he was caging her there, then angling himself toward her.
“What kind of protection do you prefer?” he asked, blandly, as her whole bodyignited.
“Uh... You mean...?”
“Yes,I mean. Do you have a latex allergy? Are you on the pill? Do you prefer the ease and convenience of a coil?”
She was a grown woman. An adult in all ways. And yet the clinical frankness of those questions made her blush.
“I do not have a latex allergy,” she managed to say, perhaps more primly than necessary. “And as a matter of fact, I am on the pill. Thank you for asking.”
His green eyes gleamed, and this time, she was absolutely certain that it was, in fact, amusement. But she couldn’t tell if that was better or worse.
“When were you last tested?” And his head was lowered close to hers, but all he did was smirk. “Or do you not bother with such things, because you’re Lady Jenny, impervious to love, married off for a fortune and unlikely to ever choose the sort of disreputable man who might dare approach you anything less than squeaky clean?”
“For the record, this is the most unsexy and grossly disturbing conversation I’ve ever had when someone wants to get me naked.”
“I find that hard to believe, given the wanker contingent you’ve allowed in your bed.”
“I get tested once a year as a part of my annual physical,” she said loftily. “But then again, I don’t throw it about like some.”
“I’m never unsafe,” he told her. “In terms of protection, that is. But I get tested every couple of months, because I like to be both promiscuous and sure.”
“Am I supposed to be turned on now?” she asked, aware that her hands were in fists at her sides, and not willing to ask herself why. She was supposed to long for open discussions like this. It was supposed to herald her maturity. And she already knew he slept around, or he wouldn’t have been the perfect person for her purposes. There was no reason this should all make her feel a bit like crying. “Because I’m whatever the opposite of that is. And I feel absolutely no trace of anything resembling impending giddiness. In case you were wondering.”
“I know these practicalities are so confronting,” he said, and he did bend his head then. But only to put his face...near hers. As if he was contemplating sinking his teeth into her neck like some kind of vampire.
Jenny had no idea what it said about her that the very idea made her break out goose bumps. And not because the notion disgusted or scared her.
“Are you sure you’re the opposite of turned on?” he asked.
And she could feel his breath in the crook of her neck. He wasso close. He surrounded her, and there was something dominating in the way he stood there, holding her in place without touching her at all. She should have hated that, but it was Dylan.
And the fact it was Dylan made it worse. Wrong, and strange, somehow so much better.
Her pussy began to pulse, in time with that same restless beating thing inside her. And her nipples were so hard she couldn’t quite tell if the sensation that washed through her from the tight points was pleasure or pain. Only that it didn’t stop.
“I can’t decide if you’re trying to scare me off or if this is your seduction technique,” she managed to say, aware that she was panting a bit as she spoke. “But I’m beginning to think that the reason all those girls look so giddy is because of some kind of head trauma. Is that your secret?”