After only a moment’s hesitation, her lips moved beneath his, answering his passion with a hunger that sent his libido into overdrive. He crushed her body in his arms, plundered her mouth and drank from her moans.
When he’d planned how to get her to forgive him, storming her defenses with long, drugging kisses had been pretty far down his list. Her fingers burrowed beneath his shirt, finding skin. Any ability to think rationally vanished in a haze of desire so strong he tore buttons loose getting the shirt off. The shirt landed atop his leather jacket at his feet. A second later, he’d swept her into his arms and carried her the blessedly short distance to her bed.
With the mattress against her back she stiffened. “Wait.”
Roark had already been waiting for days. His patience was long gone. Kissing his way down her neck, he traced his fingertip around the nipple that had hardened to a tight bud beneath the black silk camisole she wore. Her turtleneck lay on the floor beside his discarded clothes.
She arched her back, offering her body for his pleasure, but her next words blunted his desire. “Roark, stop. I’m angry with you.”
He drifted his lips along the skin just above the camisole’s lace edge, tantalizing her with kisses, but ventured no lower. If he wanted to make love to her, he could seduce her into forgetting everything that was wrong between them. But as the glow from their passionate reunion faded, the same issues would resurface. He’d abandoned her when she’d needed him. She wasn’t going to forgive that easily.
“I’m sorry I took off the way I did.”
“You’re sorry?” She shoved at his chest until he rolled off her. Sitting up, she ran her fingers through her hair and glared at him. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through in the last three days?”
“I have an idea.”
“Sabeen humiliated me in front of your friends. Then my name was plastered all over Page Six in a career-ruining scandal. You asked why I gave you back your money. It’s because I can’t afford to have a child right now.”
“I did this. Let me help you until you’re back on your feet.”
She scrambled off the mattress. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“This.” She waved her hand to indicate them both. “I never should have let you in today.”
“Why did you?” Roark came to stand before her. He set his hands on her hips, slid his palm over the jut of her hipbone. Momentum carried him to the swell of her bottom.
“It’s over between us,” she said, ignoring his question.
He eased her against the thunderous ache in his groin, dropped his cheek to her soft golden hair. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“So I’m just supposed to be grateful you’re going to stick around for the near future?” The edge in her tone told him the opposite would be true. “And then you go your way and I go mine?”
Silk sighed against his palm as he drew his hand up her spine. In seconds he could whisk the fabric over her head and bare her gorgeous breasts. The trembling in her limbs told him she was fighting what her body craved. Already the fists she’d made were loosening. The anger was ebbing out of her and with it, her determination to fight him.
“Can I borrow your shower?”
“I guess.” The confusion in her bright blue eyes dominated the sensual fullness of her parted lips. She hadn’t expected him to back off so easily and stood lost between battle and surrender.
“Thank you. It was a long flight from Cairo.” He kissed her nose and headed for the bathroom.
She called after him. “Why aren’t you showering at the loft?”
“Because your place is closer.”
“Is that why you came over? To use my shower?”
Roark grinned as he turned on the water. The disappointment in Elizabeth’s voice gave him hope. Naked, he stepped into the doorway and gave her an eyeful of what she’d just passed on.
“No, I came by to see you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you the entire time I was gone.”
Even if he lived an infinite number of lifetimes, he’d never stop enjoying the way she was staring at him at the moment. The stark lust in her eyes as her gaze drifted from his chest to his groin. The dreamy expression that told him she liked what she saw. And the way she bit down on her lower lip as if holding back was the most difficult thing she’d ever done.
“How was Cairo?” As if it took a great amount of will, she looked away. “Were you able to find Darius?”
“He was gone before I got there.”