The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas
“But—”
He put his index finger over her lips. “Truly, Kristy. I don’t want you to regret anything in the morning.”
She wasn’t going to regret anything in the morning. She’d said no lovemaking earlier, before she knew him, before she understood the power of the electricity and passion between them. They owed it to themselves, to the rest of their lives, maybe to the entire universe, to see where this was going.
“Wouldyou regret it in the morning?” she asked.
He searched her face. “Not a chance in hell.”
“Then—”
“Dessert,” he said, with a small shake of his head. “And then our respective bedrooms.”
A small part of her knew he was right. But a much bigger part of her railed against logic. She wanted to throw caution to the wind and drown in Jack’s arms, even if it was only for one night.
She wasn’t normally an impulsive person. But he brought out something latent and wild inside her, and she feared if she stopped it now she’d never get this chance again.
Maybe she’d regret it later, and maybe she wouldn’t. “I don’t see—”
“But I do see. Trust me on this one.” His look was deadly sober. “Because I’m right.”
Finally, she nodded, telling herself it would seem like a good decision in the morning.
At 7:00 a.m., with sunlight streaming through the window of the hotel bedroom, Jack wished he still thought tucking Kristy into her own bed had been the right decision.
He wasn’t a man who normally questioned his actions. Once his decision was made, it was made. And for better or worse, he went forward from there. But at this particular moment, he was questioning. For one, he’d be in a lot less pain if he’d let last evening proceed to its natural conclusion. For another, she’d made no secret of wanting him.
And making love might have actuallyhelped in his plan to romance her. He hadn’t been dishonest about his feelings. Deliberately romancing her had been the furthest thing from his mind for most of the evening.
He’d simply been enjoying himself with a bright, beautiful, funny woman.
Now, while the daytime traffic came to life on the city streets below—just past that eerie lull between five and seven while the gamblers and partygoers crawled into bed and the bakers and city workers ate breakfast—the right or wrong of his actions last night pounded uncharacteristically through his brain.
Following a private opening of the hotel boutique for slacks and T-shirts, he and Kristy had dried off and changed. Then they’d shared a sticky, sweet, chocolate volcano in the restaurant.
Watching her spoon the smooth, dark sauce into that pert mouth would have broken most mortal men.
But not Jack. He’d kept his hands to himself, all the way through dessert and all the way back to the suite.
There he’d behaved like a monk, and he’d been inordinately proud of himself at the time. Because her flushed cheeks and smoky sapphire eyes had transmitted the kind of invitation that made his body beg for mercy.
And it was still begging for mercy.
And she was in the next room. Probably still sleeping, since the traffic noise and the whirr of a far-off vacuum in the hotel hallway were the only sounds in the silent suite.
He toyed with the idea of waking her up.
There was nothing stopping him from crawling in next to her in the warm bed and picking up right where they’d left off.
The worst she could say was no.
The best she could say was…
Instead, Jack reached for the telephone next to his bed. Seven in the morning with no sleep and a raging hard-on was not the best time to be making logical decisions. He punched in Simon’s cell phone number.
“Captain Reece here,” came Simon’s staccato but sleep-edged voice.
“Sorry,” said Jack, feeling a twinge of guilt for unnecessarily waking the man up.
“No problem. You ready to go?”
“Not yet.”
“Okay.” To his credit, Simon didn’t ask Jack why the hell he was calling this early.
“Can you buy me another day?”
“In Vegas?”
“Yeah.”
Simon stifled a yawn. “Sure. Shipment delay on the parts?”
“That’ll do it.”
“Done. Just keep me posted.”
Jack chuckled. “But maybe not at 7:00 a.m.?”
Simon’s voice relaxed. “That’d be nice. But I’m on call whenever you need me.”
“Am I screwing up anybody else’s schedule?” Jack asked.
Cleveland had exclusive use of one of the Osland company jets, while Jack was the primary user of the other. But Jack didn’t need his jet every day, and other Osland executives frequently booked it when he was in L.A.