style="font-size:15px;"> Regardless of how gentle he was, she appreciated that he didn’t roll her beneath him, Now, lying by his side, she had access to his bare chest.
At almost the same moment she laid a hand on his side, he speared his fingers beneath the jacket she’d never buttoned. He stroked the silky camisole, his hands skimming up her sides until he cupped the undersides of her breasts.
Oh.
The feather-light touch held impossibly devastating consequences. She wore nothing beneath the camisole, the silky fabric providing her last line of defense against the touch that would conquer her completely. She knew it from the way her nipples beaded in anticipation.
He broke the kiss to study her, his blue eyes dark as a turbulent sea. She fell into that swirling chaos, her breath dragging through her lungs with labored effort.
How could she have worked so hard for years to rid herself of sexual difficulties while this man could stride into her life and swipe them away with one incredible kiss?
His thumb stretched over the cup of her camisole to tease the bare skin of her exposed cleavage, his caress patient and thorough. She breathed in his scent, clean and spicy at the same time. The light from the flickering candelabra cast his face in shadows that alternated with a golden warmth.
She wanted this, wanted him, with a hunger that shocked her. Her whole body trembled in breathless anticipation for what would come next. She wanted to be naked with him, burning with him, following this inferno wherever it would lead.
“Damn it.”
He swore softly as his hands vanished from her body with no warning.
“What?” Confused, she tried to read his expression. “I bet there are condoms at the gift store.”
She’d shop personally if he wanted her to. She wouldn’t let anything come between her and—
“No.” He shifted positions, sitting up on the chaise until his feet hit the floor at one end. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Confusion swirled through her as she tried to make sense of what he was saying.
“But I wanted you, too.” And wasn’t mutual consent a beautiful thing? She knew what she’d been feeling hadn’t been one-sided. “I’ve never felt like—”
“Don’t.” He swung on her, that one word a barked command. “Just—don’t.”
He turned away from her to reach for his shirt and all the frustration and anger she’d ever felt about intimacy suddenly simmered hot in her veins. How come sex could never work out for her? She thought she’d been so close this time. Kissing Rocco had been the most physically transporting experience of her whole life. And he had turned away from her as if nothing had happened.
“I don’t understand.” She stood, the tremors of desire that had lit her insides just a moment ago turning to resentment and embarrassment. “If I did something wrong I damn well deserve to know.”
Even if that served to increase her embarrassment. She refused to be kept in the dark over what had gone off course this time. She’d battled too hard for some semblance of sexual well-being to let this guy tear her down.
Standing, he buttoned his shirt as they faced off across the chaise.
“You want to know what went wrong?” He scooped his tie off the floor and wrapped it around the neck of his half-open shirt.
“Please.” Her whole body vibrated with thwarted longing, her cheeks flaming hot along with every other square inch of her skin.
“I’m not a waiter.”
Did he think she would care about his career? Was he embarrassed about his job?
“It doesn’t matter to me what you do for a living.” Heaven knows, she hadn’t exactly strolled out of a middleclass upbringing. She’d gone to bed hungry too many times as a child to ever disrespect what someone did to earn a living. She would have given anything for her father to hold down a job for more than a few weeks at a time. Maybe then she wouldn’t have ended up in foster care by the time she was a teen.
Maybe she wouldn’t have been assaulted because no one was there to help her navigate the confusing waters of sexual relationships.
“You don’t understand. I’m a recovery agent.”
“A what?” She was still trying to figure out what his job had to do with not wanting her.
“A repo man.”
The words possessed a sting she hadn’t expected. After all, more than a decade had passed since she’d put the fears of her childhood behind her. There had been a time when recovery agents, as he called them, had held a hell of a lot of power over her life, thanks to her derelict parents.
But not anymore.
She waited for him to explain himself, her gut twisting with new foreboding.
“I came here tonight purposely to investigate you and see if you were the kind of person who could lie to an old man’s face in order to drive away with an upscale new car.” His eyes turned icy blue again. “I needed to find out if that beautiful body of yours housed the cold heart of a first-rate scam artist.”
HE’D ENVISIONED this moment in his head more than a few times. He’d played it over and over since learning the father who’d raised him single-handedly was in deep financial trouble and that Jessica’s ploy might be the straw to break the camel’s back.
But not once had he envisioned the sputtering disbelief—no, make that fury—on her face.
“What kind of sick joke is this?” She actually trembled with anger, her shoulders shaking with it, and he wondered if he could be missing some piece of the puzzle. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman to play on an old man’s sympathies, but damn it, the Escalade he’d seen in the parking lot told him she didn’t mind reaping the benefits of her deeds.
“It’s no joke.” He reached in his pants pocket for his business license, regretting he’d let things get so far out of hand. He’d overestimated his willpower when he had allowed her to massage him, a mistake that had made it impossible not to kiss her. He’d avoided relationships since his accident, a conscious choice since he hadn’t been fit company for anyone with the anger and resentment weighing bitterly on him at all times.
But, of course, that meant he’d avoided sex, too.
Touching Jessica had been too much, too soon after a celibate stretch. His blood still pounded so heavily through his veins he swore he could hear a percussion section jamming in his head.
“Of course it’s a joke,” she spit back at him, yanking the chopstick device out of her hair until the auburn waves tumbled freely to bounce on her shoulders. “Either that or you’re the sorriest excuse for a repo man I’ve ever met. I have credit card statements that show my payments for the last six months. For that matter, I have the most recent printout in my vehicle. We can retrieve it before I let the security guards all over this hotel know that you’ve been harassing me.”
“A
