Looking Inside

“I thought we decided we still had business together. I wanted you to wake me up,” he ground out.

Her expression flattened at his bluntness. Then she straightened her spine and took a tiny step closer, so that their faces were only inches apart.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t had time to learn your every preference. Maybe I could ask your girlfriend Alessandra to make a list for me, master,” she said, her low, vibrating voice oozing with sarcasm.

“She isn’t my girlfriend.”

She blinked. “She’s not?”

“She used to be. We split a couple months ago. She’s one of the ugly breakups I told you about that made me want to go cold turkey in regard to women.”

“But then . . . what’s she doing here? Why were you meeting her?”

“I wasn’t. I forgot that she’d texted me and said she wanted to meet tonight. It was just an accident that I was down in the lobby. I never told her I’d meet her here, she just assumed. The only thing I was doing out in the lobby when you showed up was trying to bribe Ralph into getting your doorman to give me your phone number.”

He studied the flicker of amazement on her upturned face. Did she believe him?

“Would it have mattered? If she was my girlfriend?” he prodded.

She pressed her mouth together in an obstinate line—that delicious mouth he’d been having the most illicit, vivid fantasies about.

“Would it have mattered if I was here on a date with Jimmy?” she countered.

He realized she’d sidestepped his question, but was too hypnotized by her upturned mouth and gleaming eyes to care. He lifted his hands and cupped her curving hips. Excitement flickered at the base of his spine. He pulled her against him, feeling her gasp fly across his nudging lips. He bent his knees and thrust his hips forward slightly, liking the pressure of her supple, soft body against his cock. Digging his fingertips into the firm swell of her ass cheeks, he shook his head, causing their touching lips to brush together.

“It wouldn’t have mattered. I would have still wanted you. Nothing’s changed. Or maybe it has,” he acknowledged, biting her lower lip gently and dragging his teeth across the tender flesh. She quaked against him. “Instead of wanting you less after that night, I want you more. Even if you were just coming on to me to get a bigger donation for the museum.”

“I told you I was doing no such thing,” she seethed.

He grinned at the return of her outrage and pierced her lips with his tongue. One of his hands delved into her silky long hair. He twisted his fingers and tugged, tilting her head back farther for his kiss. She whimpered into his mouth, kissing him back. She grasped his waist, clutching him, her fingers digging into his back, stroking and rubbing him. Her anxious movements struck him as wild.

Desperate.

Satisfaction and sharp arousal swept through him at her returned display of lust. He bent over her, his kiss growing furious. What right did she have, making him want her this much, causing him to be so distracted and restless on what was supposed to be a relaxing family weekend?

She started against him and moaned, pulling back slightly. He put a hand on her jaw, keeping her in place while he took his fill. But then he felt her jerk back more firmly, and the sounds of approaching footsteps pierced his lust. He realized she’d heard someone approaching before he had.

He sealed the kiss, but didn’t release her from his hold. He just stared down at her as she cast a nervous glance around his upper arm. A door opened behind him.

“It was some woman,” she whispered. “Not Alessandra.”

He still fisted a bunch of thick, silky hair. He tugged gently and she looked up at him.

“It wouldn’t have mattered if it was Alessandra. I didn’t ask her here tonight. What I told you was the absolute truth.”

“Well I’m telling the absolute truth when I say I didn’t do what I did for a bigger donation!”

“I wasn’t serious about that.” It was true, for the most part. She clearly was being evasive about her job, for some reason. But he honestly didn’t think the reason was because she was going to hit him for a donation at some point.

Her

lips trembled, fracturing his curiosity and puzzlement. He wanted to punish that gorgeous mouth of hers again for the crime of tempting him so outrageously.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said quietly, coming to a decision. “We’re going to go back out there. You’re going to say you don’t feel well and that you’re going home. You’ll go back to your condo. Then I’m going to make an excuse to Alessandra and go up to my place.”

“But they’ll know we’re lying,” she said, eyes flashing.

“I don’t care if they do. Do you?” he challenged. She closed her mouth slowly. She shook her head.