Claimed (Diamond Tycoons 1)

Opening the door a little wider, she stepped back. “I just opened a bottle of Pinot Noir. If you’re interested.”

“I’m very interested.” His voice was dark, wicked. She felt the heat of it in her stomach and her sex.

It made her nervous. Made her sweat, despite the chill of the air-conditioning. “It’s probably not as fancy as the wines you’re used to,” she told him as she entered the kitchen and poured him a glass of her favorite Pinot. “But I like it.”

He took the glass, drained it in one long sip. Put it on the counter behind him.

“Okay, then. Do you want m—”

He moved to cage her against the cabinet, an arm on either side of her and his long, lithe body pressed against her own. “I didn’t come for the wine, Isa.”

“Obv—” Her voice cracked, so she cleared her throat. “Obviously.”

“I didn’t come to apologize, either. I’m glad I did, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Marc.” The word was low, broken. “I don’t think—”

“Don’t think,” he said, cupping her face in his big, worn hand. “Just listen.” He leaned down until his lips brushed, soft as butterfly wings, against her jaw.

“I wasn’t messing with you on the balcony earlier.” His breath was hot against her ear. “I wasn’t trying to humiliate you at work.”

Her nipples beaded despite her earlier resolve to never let him make her feel like this again. “It felt like that to me.”

“I know. And that’s my fault, too.” His mouth skimmed across her jaw, his tongue darting out to taste the corner of her mouth. “Wrong time, wrong place.”

He licked his way across her lips, soft and delicate and oh so coaxing. She gasped at the first touch of his tongue on her lower lip and he took instant advantage, licking inside to stroke her.

“My only excuse,” he said, in between each dark and wicked kiss, “is that even after all this time, you make me crazy. You make me forget where.” His other hand cupped her breast through the thin cotton of her shirt. “You make me forget when.” He stroked his thumb around her areola.

Her heart was beating too fast, her chest heaving with each ragged breath she sucked past her too-tight throat. Still, she managed to force out the question she was desperate for an answer to. “Do I make you forget who, as well?”

“I’ve never been able to forget you, Isa. And believe me, I’ve tried.”

The words stung, of course they did. But there was an honesty to them that echoed her own experience, that had her weakened defenses crumbling into dust.

She could blame her surrender on the wine or the loneliness or the shock of seeing him after all this time. But the truth was, she wanted him. She’d always wanted him. And if this night, this moment, was all she’d ever have of Marc Durand...well, it was a more fitting goodbye than the last one they’d shared.

And so she didn’t fight him when he moved to trail kisses down her throat. Instead she let her fingers tangle in his dark, silky hair even as she tilted her head back to give him better access.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” he murmured against her skin.

“It’s been a long time since—” She forced herself to stop before she revealed too much.

But he wouldn’t let her off the hook that easily. “Since what?” he asked between pressing kisses across the upper slope of first one breast and then the other.

She couldn’t tell him the truth, didn’t want him to know just how much she’d once loved him—or just how long it had been since she’d made love to someone. “Since you’ve touched me. Our chemistry was never in question.”

Then, to keep him from digging any deeper into what was a very sore subject, she ran her hands over his chest. He’d discarded his jacket and tie before coming to her door, so all that was between her fingers and his hot skin was a thin piece of dark blue silk the same color as his eyes.

He was as powerfully built as ever—maybe more so—and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want to see him naked. Didn’t want to feel the heat of his skin, the resilience of his muscles, under her tongue.

But sanity finally intruded—in the form of his long-ago rejection that was still fresh in her mind. She didn’t think she’d be able to go through that a second time. At least not if she wanted to come out anywhere close to whole. So instead of unbuttoning his shirt as she longed to do, instead of slipping her hands inside the midnight-blue silk and stroking his pecs, his six-pack, the V-cut that had always made her mouth water, she forced herself to pull back. “What are we doing, Marc?”

He lifted his head from where he was licking a warm strip just below her neckline. “I would have thought that was obvious, Isa.”

She blushed then, her face turning hot at the sardonic amusement in his tone and the powerful look in his eye. “I just mean...” She turned away, refusing to look at him. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Yes, you do.” He straightened up then and looked her straight in the eye. Meeting his gaze when she felt so vulnerable, so uncertain, was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. But she forced herself to do it. Forced herself not to flinch or blink or look away. She had a right to know what she was getting into. With their history, this could be anything from revenge sex to reunion sex or a bunch of things in between.