performance?
His eyes didn’t leave hers as he strode to the door, kicked it shut. Her damp skin prickled in the draught he’d created. As he approached her he shrugged out of his suit jacket, let it fall where it would. Yanked off his tie, tossed it behind him. Undid the buttons of his cuffs.
What did he intend? Isn’t it obvious? a tiny voice whispered. A shiver of doubt snuck through the heat. Her fingers crept over the top of her towel, needing to keep herself secure, protected. ‘Um … thanks …’ She flicked a finger, couldn’t manage the hand. ‘For … that.’
He didn’t reply. He just kept coming, like an approaching storm, big and dark and all-powerful, making her feel insignificant, a fugitive with no place to hide.
His hands curled over hers on the towel, knuckles rough against the swell of her still-throbbing breasts and his eyes turned molten, lightning on cobalt.
‘What was that about needing me, Didi?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
DIDI’S breath snagged mid-chest. She gulped in air. ‘I said … we … both needed one another …’ Oh, cripes … with Cameron’s hands covering hers covering her breasts and his gaze hotter than hell’s kitchen that did not come out sounding the way she’d intended. ‘I mean I think we need to discuss … I nee—have to explain …’
Her words—indeed her entire brain function—seized up as he lowered his head again. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you shut up for a bit?’
His breath feathered across her brow, her cheeks. She could smell fresh winter rain on his clothes, the foresty scent of his aftershave. As if her head were being manipulated by some invisible puppeteer, it tilted up, her lips opening of their own volition. Waiting, trembling …
She had a glimpse of eyes, dark and bright with purpose, a frown of concentration—or was it something else?—between heavily lowered brows before his mouth met hers once more and her eyes slid shut.
This time his tongue didn’t linger around the edges of her mouth, it delved inside, seeking, exploring, finding hers. His flavour filled her mouth. She already knew how he tasted but this was more. Now she experienced, not only the flavours of peppermint and coffee, but the exhilarating essence of desire that slid like sun-warmed silk over her tongue, her teeth, inside her lower lip.
His hands left hers to better hold her head, to whisk his fingers over cheeks and jaw, leaving her own hands free to touch his shirt, absorb its crisp feel against her fingertips. To feel the steel muscles of his stomach tighten as she flattened then curled her hands against him.
To feel the quickened tempo of his breathing, his chest expanding as his hands left her head to slide over her shoulders, the shh as they shimmied over the towel, warmth from his palms stroking her, lower, lower. Her limbs turned to jelly, her brain liquefied and she felt herself dissolving against him. Total meltdown …
He lifted his head the tiniest bit. ‘Do you need me, Didi?’ he murmured, seduction oozing from the words.
She heard herself murmur something unintelligible back. Was that her voice all deep and drowsy and detached, as if it came from somewhere outside her?
‘Do you need me to touch you …’ she jolted, her hands whipping back to hug the security of her towel when she felt his fingers curl under the hem to touch the bare flesh of her thigh ‘… here?’
Her eyes snapped open to find his eyes focused on hers. She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Holding her breath as his hand glided towards her inner thigh, calluses at the base of his fingers creating a delicious friction and sending shivers spiralling from his touch. Moisture swamped her most feminine place.
His hand changed direction, sliding slowly, inexorably towards the source of that moisture, every second an exercise in torture, every inch a scandalous pleasure. She sucked in a breath but there wasn’t any oxygen, only hot airless space filled with his scent. Then her breathing stalled completely as his thumb found the source of her heat, the pinnacle of her pleasure.
‘Or maybe you need me here …’ He prodded the swollen knot of need with gentle pressure.
‘Ah-h-h …’ Oh, yes, right … there. She shuddered on the edge of the world, unable to look away from his eyes glittering in the muted light from the bathroom. His facial muscles bunched, his lips firmed, then curved ever so slightly in the knowledge that he’d taken her to the brink of no return with a single flick of his wrist.
It was humiliating to realise that at this moment the man had total and absolute control over her mind and body. But somewhere in her semi-coherent brain a fragment of sanity still clung. ‘No,’ she whispered, knowing her eyes made a liar of her. Knowing the engorged knot throbbing wantonly against him made a mockery of her.
He wiggled his thumb. ‘Your body’s sending me an entirely different message.’
‘My body doesn’t want to listen to reason,’ she said over a parched throat. ‘I don’t even like you.’
A brief hesitation, then his lips stretched into a smile, and she realised he didn’t care one way or the other. ‘Since when did that stop two people from enjoying such a mutually satisfying experience?’ he said reasonably, continuing to stroke her moisture as she rocked helplessly against him.
She swallowed. Yeah, since when? Over his shoulder she saw a gibbous moon sail silently from behind a high-rise, bathing the room in silver light.
‘Didi.’ He removed his clever hand to tilt her face to his, thumbs rasping over her cheeks, eyes dark with intensity. ‘I played along with you, didn’t I? Don’t you want to convince Veronica I’m the real deal?’
‘I think we managed that a few moments ago.’
‘Ah, but tomorrow morning she’ll be expecting to see the afterglow in your smile.’
‘Afterglow …?’ Her breath caught as every internal organ leaped up and changed places.
‘I promise,’ he said. Low and smooth and sexy. Confident. Arrogant, even.
And she had no doubt he could deliver. She shuddered even as she willed those talented fingers to find their way beneath her towel again.
The hot tub of desire in his eyes swirled and swallowed her up. ‘Why don’t we find out what this thing between us is all about?’
‘This thing?’ This angsty, itchy thing that hadn’t given her a decent night’s sleep since she’d met him? ‘The thing about “things” is they get complicated and someone ends up getting hurt.’
‘It doesn’t have to be complicated.’ He paused. ‘Unless there’s someone else?’
She glared at him, her back stiffening, shoulders tensing as Jay’s image flitted through her mind. ‘Would I be standing here naked with you if there was?’ Sweet heaven, naked with Cameron Black.
He must have read her wistful expression because he looked into her eyes and said, ‘Who was he, Didi?’
‘Just a guy I … thought I loved.’
‘He hurt you. He’s scum.’
