up my own temptations.
I have to get rid of him before I do something really stupid. Like giving in to this.
One night. That was all it was meant to be.
‘If she’s deleted her profile, it suggests she doesn’t want to be found, Mr Rothsmore.’ His name in my mouth is so sexy. I want to kiss it against his skin.
I watched him get dressed on Saturday night. I lay in bed sated and so full of pleasure, and I watched as he pulled on his shorts, his trousers, donning the tuxedo he’d had on earlier. Even after sleeping together, that simple act of voyeurism felt strangely intimate.
‘Perhaps.’ His eyes narrow.
‘In which case, I can’t help you.’
‘For a million dollars, you’re not willing to discover who she is?’
I wait a moment.
He pulls a card from his pocket. It’s jet black, matte, thick, with gold writing across the front. As he brings it closer I make out his name and, beneath it, a series of numbers.
‘I’ll tell you what, Imogen. You find her and ask her to call me. Whether she does or doesn’t, the million dollars is yours regardless.’
I stare at the card, the trap he’s unknowingly set one I refuse to enter. Because it’s dishonest. I can’t take his money under these circumstances. I mean, the woman he’s looking for is standing right in front of him.
‘A million dollars? You must have shared something pretty special.’
Damn it! Why the heck did I ask that? I jackknife off the edge of the desk, leaving his card where he’s placed it.
‘You could say that.’
Oh, God. I didn’t need to hear that. Temptation is slicing through me.
And yet, he’s loaded. Seriously loaded. A million dollars isn’t even small change to him. It’s the lint in his pocket after he’s got rid of his small change.
And Chance is my life’s purpose.
I toy with the morality of this, mentally tossing it back and forth.
‘I’ll try to find her,’ I say, quietly.
It seems to placate him. He nods, moving towards the door. ‘Then I won’t take up more of your time. You’ll let me know, one way or another?’
His hand curves around the handle. He’s leaving. I swallow back an urge to shout the truth at him.
‘Count on it.’
Count on it.
Her words jam against me, hard, holding me completely still. I’m back in Sydney, in the Intimate Rooms.
‘That’s what you want?’ I asked her.
‘Count on it.’
Count on it. Common enough, I guess, but no.
I spin around, catching her staring at me. Except it’s impossible to tell because of those damned glasses she’s been wearing.
Suspicion moves quickly to certainty.
I shut the door and stride across the room, and it’s so unexpected that she doesn’t even have time to react. I stand before her for a second, and now I look at her lips and I kick myself for not realising sooner.
I lift a hand to the glasses and pull them from her face before she can comprehend what I’m doing.
Those eyes, eyes that have stared into mine as pleasure made her wild with insanity and desire, look back at me, heavy with surprise now. Those lips that I have tasted and dragged between my teeth form a perfect ‘O’.
‘Miss Anonymous,’ I drawl, and before she can answer I lift my hand around to the base of her skull and pull her head forward. I’m kissing her, kissing her first with exploration to test my theory, even when I know I’m right. And as I feel her familiar mouth, taste her sweetness, my kiss turns hard and heavy with censure for trying to hide from me, for lying to me, for being about to let me walk away.
She makes a strangled noise into my mouth and I swallow it; my body, denied the pleasure of hers for nine long nights, throbs with a need that will not be suppressed.
And whatever impulse had prompted her to try to get rid of me, it’s gone now, as her hands lift urgently, pushing at my shirt, running it up my body, so her palms connect with my naked chest, her fingertips finding their way back to paths she explored last weekend.
‘You were going to fucking hide from me.’ I curve my hands around her ass, lifting her onto the edge of her table, spreading her legs. The skirt she’s wearing splits with an almighty sound and she laughs, that husky sound having been imprinted on my memory in some strange way.
‘It was meant to be one night, we agreed,’ she says, tilting her head back so I can run my mouth down her throat, my teeth lightly nipping at the flesh on her collarbone. I feel her tremble beneath me and I have no time for the sensual seduction I thought I’d be engaging in. It’s been nine nights and I don’t think I’ve gone that long without sex since—
Well, since ever.
I reach into my back pocket, pulling my wallet out and flicking it open to find a condom without breaking our kiss. I move higher between her legs; the skirt splits more. I don’t fucking care.
I undo the button of my jeans and slide the zip down, freeing my rock-hard, aching cock. I shift for a second, just long enough to rip the packet open and push the condom down my length, and then I lift my head to stare at her for a long second, my eyes laced with a thousand and one feelings—anger, annoyance, heat, need, mockery, impatience.
‘You were going to fucking let me walk away just now?’
She bites down on her lip and in response moves forward, her hands against my chest, her face tilted, her lips seeking mine. I deny her that kiss, instead lifting her off the edge of the desk, using my hands to push the scrap of lace at her core aside, and sliding her onto my cock, stifling a moan as her muscles squeeze me so tight I convulse a little.
I take one step across her office and push her back against the thick, cold glass, bracing her there as I push into her hard. The eyes that meet mine are the same—exactly the same. And she knew it! Those fucking glasses.
Anger that she wanted to hide from me crests in my gut and I kiss her, pressing her head against the glass as my body takes command of hers. She is crying my name into my mouth, over and over, her nails digging into my shoulders, her heels pressed to my back.
Her muscles tighten, her whole body vibrates and her cries get louder and faster. At the moment she comes I let go of my own control, I stop fighting this, exploding with a guttural roar, pushing myself hard against her as I come buried deep inside her; finally feeling this release and giving myself over to it completely.
It
