‘I like to see your eyes when I’m talking to you,’ he rasped, his gaze locking on hers with the precision and sizzling effect of a laser beam.
Except now he’d taken her glasses off he just seemed content to stare at her. When his gaze dropped to her mouth a moment later, Sage dragged in a strangled breath. ‘You were saying...?’
‘Don’t count on their interest waning any time soon. There’s an innocence about you that draws tabloid hacks like vultures to a fresh carcass.’
‘I don’t find that reassuring in the least. And I’m not innocent,’ she tagged on.
‘Are you not? When did you last have a lover?’
She couldn’t stop the heat that invaded her cheeks. ‘That’s none of your business.’
‘They’re going to eat you up if you blush at questions like that.’
‘Well, they’re welcome to try. I am not answering you and I certainly won’t be answering them!’
The car turned a sharp corner, throwing her across the bench seat towards him. He dropped her sunglasses and caught her by the arms. Between one breath and the next they were inches apart, with his breath washing over her lips as he spoke. ‘Who was he, Sage?’ he demanded in a low, deep voice. ‘Was he your first?’
‘Xandro—’
He made a rough sound under his breath. ‘Scratch that. I don’t think I want to know.’
She was attempting to decipher why his voice rumbled with dark irritation when he dragged her the rest of the way and slanted his mouth over hers, staking a claim she seemed helpless to deny.
The moment she parted her lips he went in deep, stroking her tongue with his in a move so blatantly erotic her breath caught and a moan erupted from her diaphragm before she could stop it.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world to grip his forearms to steady herself against the torrent of sensations buffeting her.
Strong muscles bunched at her touch, an intimation of the leashed power in his body. His tongue stroked hers with increasing insistence, his invasion deepening until she felt as if he meant to devour her.
She’d been kissed before. By the same lover Xandro didn’t want to know about. He’d been her first and last experience. One born out of loneliness and curiosity more than anything else. A fellow dancer who’d come to DC at the same time as her and stayed for a short time in the Georgetown townhouse, they’d fallen into a casual friendship, shared the same concerns about being in a strange city and had eventually drifted apart by mutual consent.
She didn’t regret giving Paul her virginity. He’d been a gentle, considerate lover. But at the time she’d secretly wondered why the earth hadn’t moved for her, or why she hadn’t been in a hurry to repeat the experience after the first time. Now she knew it was because he hadn’t set her world on fire.
Not like Xandro Christofides was doing now with a mere kiss.
Except it wasn’t a mere kiss. It was a blistering lesson in eroticism that singed her to her very toes. The relentless onslaught robbed her of breath and thought,
of everything except the need to experience more of the same. Even though she knew she shouldn’t.
One hand caressed up her arm and shoulder to rest against her neck, his fingers stroking the runaway pulse beating at her throat. ‘Thee mou,’ he muttered gruffly against her stinging lips.
Before good sense could return, he dived in for a longer, even deeper kiss, his groan matching hers as his other hand trailed down her back to the curve of her buttock. He gripped her, kneaded her flesh once, twice, before using his grip to tug her closer.
The shameless evidence of his arousal branded her hip, throwing another log onto the bonfire of her senses. Even through his pants, his girth and power was difficult to dismiss. When her thoughts strayed to what it would feel like to have all that power against her, inside her, Sage knew she was in deep trouble.
But, for the life of her, she couldn’t pull back, couldn’t stop her lips from following where he led, a slave to the pleasure invading her bloodstream. It was why she shockingly heard herself whimper when he lifted his head an age later.
Eyes dark with turbulent hunger raked her face, the tips of his fingers brushing back and forth over her jawline as he sucked in a deep breath.
‘We really need to work on our timing.’
‘I...what?’ she murmured, dazed.
‘Much as I’d like to continue this, pethi mou, we need to stop. We’ve arrived.’
It took a long, embarrassing minute for his meaning to sink in. A look out of the window showed the driver waiting for the signal to open the door. Beyond him, the iconic curved skyscraper that was Xandro’s flagship hotel and casino soared into the sky in a powerful statement of lights, glass and steel.
Feeling another blast of heat flame up her face, she scrambled away from him. Sage wasn’t sure whether he let her go because he also needed to get himself under control.