think you have to show me to my door just in case I get waylaid by some of those lecherous men you seem to think are waiting around every corner for a country bumpkin like me?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘It’s the dress. It stands out. When you said that it was going to be smart I had no idea what to buy. I didn’t think that everyone would show up in black.’
‘I could have warned you. Those functions are usually deadly. Black is an appropriate colour. Anyway, it’s not the dress.’
‘You don’t think so?’ Their eyes tangled and she didn’t look away. She licked her lips, shivering in the burning intensity of his stare.
‘We’re here,’ Art murmured, relieved.
‘So we are. And just when I was beginning to enjoy the car ride.’
‘I take it you’re enjoying yourself,’ he responded once they were out of the car and making their way up to her suite.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Enjoying playing with me.’ Art shot her a wry smile. ‘You must know what you’re doing to me... I don’t play games when it comes to sex...’
‘You played a game with me when you slept with me.’ She slid the card key into the slot and pushed open the door to her room. When she walked in she didn’t push it shut behind her and she didn’t tell him that it was fine for him to leave now that he had done the gentlemanly thing and seen her safely to her door. She looked over her shoulder, face serious.
‘No game,’ Art muttered in a strangled voice. ‘The sex was for real. Stop looking at me like that... I’m not going to do anything, Rose. You...you’ve had a bit to drink. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you’re playing with.’
‘Fire. You’ve told me that already. I’m playing with fire.’ The bed beckoned, oversized, draped in the finest Egyptian cottons and silk.
Rose turned to face him. The lighting in the room was mellow and forgiving. ‘I’ve had a bit to drink,’ she admitted without skipping a beat, ‘but I’m not the worse for wear. I’ve been drinking a lot of water in between the wine and I’ve also eaten for England. Those canapés were to die for.’ She walked towards him, kicking off the heels on the way. ‘Want me to walk a straight line for you?’
‘There’s a lot I want you to do for me and walking a straight line doesn’t figure.’
‘What? What would you like me to do for you? What about this?’ She reached down to cup the bulge between his legs and felt his swift intake of breath. Now or never.
Art pressed his hand over hers. He had to because, if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure what his body was going to do at the pressure she was exerting on his arousal.
‘I want you.’ Rose maintained eye contact. She’d never seemed more sober. ‘When you told me who you really were I felt betrayed and deceived and I never, ever wanted to see you again.’ She moved her hand and reached up to link fingers behind his neck. It was as if she’d given herself permission to touch and it was all she wanted to do now. ‘I thought that it would be easy to put you behind me. How could I carry on wanting a guy who had used me?’
‘Rose...’
‘I know you’re going to go into a long spiel about why you did what you did but that doesn’t matter. What matters is I couldn’t put you behind me. It didn’t matter what you’d done, you’d still managed to get to me in ways...in ways I just never thought possible.’
‘You underestimated the power of sex,’ Art murmured, resting his hands on her narrow waist.
‘I thought that if I saw the real you, the unscrupulous billionaire, then I would be so turned off that this stupid attraction would wither and die.’
Art inclined his head and knew that he had felt something similar, that if he saw her out of her surroundings and in his own terrain then common sense would reassert itself. ‘No luck?’ He ran his fingers along her back then over her ribcage, leaving them tantalisingly close to her breasts, close enough for her to shiver and half close her eyes.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Rose practically wailed.
‘Some things don’t.’ Art hadn’t planned on taking her to bed, not tonight. But this wasn’t a Rose who was not in control of her faculties. This was a Rose who was so in control that she could vocalise why she was doing what she was doing. This was the Rose he knew—open, honest, forthright and willing to confront a difficult decision head-on.
She couldn’t have been a bigger turn-on.
Sex. The power of it. Never more than now was he forced to recognise the strength of body over mind. For someone always in control, this was like being thrown into a raging current without the benefit of a lifebelt. He looked forward to the challenge of battling against that current and emerging the victor.
He hooked his fingers beneath the straps of the sexy red dress and slid them down. She was wearing a silky bra that cupped her breasts like a film of gauze. Art groaned at the sight. The circular discs of her nipples were clearly visible, as was the stiffened bud tipping each pink sphere.
‘You gave your phone number to another man,’ he said illogically.
‘Were you jealous?’
‘I wanted to punch him straight into another continent.’
‘But you told me I should network...’
‘I can’t stand the thought of another man touching you.’
‘Take me,’ she breathed, reaching behind her to unhook the bra, which she shrugged off, stepping back then to unzip the dress at the side and then wriggling out of it so that she was standing in front of him in just her lacy panties.
‘Is this the wine talking?’ Art was close to the point of no return. She wasn’t tripping over her feet but there was no way he was going to get up close and personal with her, only to find himself pushed to one side because she’d fallen asleep on him. He intended to hear groans of pleasure as opposed to the snores of someone who’d had a glass too many.
He smiled at the image because if there was one woman alive who would fall asleep on him it was Rose.
‘You’re grinning.’ Rose began undressing him, clearly trying her best not to rush.
‘I’m grinning because I’m busy picturing you falling asleep on me and snoring like a trooper, leaving me with the consolation prize of a cold shower.’
‘No chance of that,’ Rose said huskily. ‘You don’t have to worry that I’m under the influence.’ She shot him a wicked look from under her lashes. ‘Don’t tell me that you’re so lacking in self-confidence that you think a woman will only sleep with you if she’s had one too many.’
‘Wench...’ But he burst out laughing and propelled her gently back in the direction of the bed, simultaneously completing the job she had begun of getting rid of his clothes. ‘Shall I show you how timid and lacking in confidence I am when it comes to pleasuring a woman?’
Rose
