hot and illicit in her blood. And, more dangerously, the memories she’d been repressing all week were starting to break free of their moorings, flooding her brain with images and rising desire.
‘Primarily,’ he continued, oblivious to her inner turmoil, ‘the bit where you assumed that our...liaison wouldn’t last beyond the weekend.’
Lia was feeling breathless. Was it her imagination or were the mirrors in the elevator starting to steam up? She struggled to recall what he’d just said, and then asked, ‘Is that what it was? A liaison?’
Again, as if she hadn’t spoken, Ben said, ‘Do you really think I spent all that money just to get you into my bed?’
Lia wanted to squirm. Of course she didn’t. Not any more. But that was where the danger lay...in thinking about what he wanted from her outside of this insane heat. Or, worse, what she wanted. When she’d protected herself for so long—even going so far as to agree to a marriage of convenience.
She shook her head now. ‘No, I don’t think that.’
A slow, sexy grin spread across Ben’s face and Lia’s legs immediately felt weak. The tension thickened between them. He wasn’t going anywhere.
The giddy recklessness she’d felt in New York came back. Maybe he was here to finish what they’d started in Brazil. One more night? Two? And then he’d go back to his own life. After all, she reminded herself through the gathering heat in her brain, Ben didn’t do relationships, did he?
And neither did she. She shouldn’t have panicked in Brazil—it could have burnt out there. But she had. And now he was here. So maybe it would be okay to just...let it burn out. Here, as opposed to there. Did the geographics matter?
The fevered circling thoughts all led to one conclusion: Lia giving herself permission to stop fighting the inevitable. Resistance melted and she dived into the fever growing in her blood.
‘Kiss me, Ben.’
Stop the chatter in my head, a small voice begged.
He smiled, wickedly accepting her capitulation—again—and then he cupped her face in his hands, tilted it up to his, and kissed her, stroking his tongue into her mouth, deep. Reminding her of the exquisite pleasure he’d given her, and the gift of the knowledge that she wasn’t cold inside.
That alone made emotion surge again, and Lia wrapped her arms tight around his neck as if that would contain it. He’d flown all the way across the world to kiss her like this, deep and hot and wicked. And she would take it—because this was finite.
She arched her body into his, her blood throbbing in time with her heart when she felt the very masculine evidence of his arousal against her. His hands moved down her sides to her buttocks, where he cupped her through the slippery material of the dress.
He pulled back long enough to speak as he lifted her up, instructing, ‘Wrap your legs around my hips.’
She did it mindlessly, her dress sliding high on her thighs as he lifted her effortlessly. She hooked her legs around his waist. Kissing her again, Ben slipped a hand underneath the dress and explored between the lace of her panties and her bottom, caressing her bare skin. She moaned into his mouth, dizzy.
Her bare upper back was against one mirrored wall of the lift, and Ben angled his hips so that the bulge of his erection pressed against her, between her legs, where she was wet and hot.
Her dress felt too tight. But even as she was thinking that Ben was sliding his fingers under the top of it and pulling it down, so that one of her breasts was freed. He pulled back from the kiss, and stared at her. He looked drunk, dazed.
Lia was vaguely aware that the only things holding her up were the wall and Ben’s hand on her bottom. Because now he was thumbing her nipple and she was biting her lip.
‘Please...’ she begged.
He looked at her, and some hair flopped forward onto his forehead.
She brushed it back, feeling inordinately tender. ‘Touch me...like you did before.’
He smiled, and it was wicked. He lowered his head and flicked his tongue against her straining nipple. He looked back up, all innocence. ‘Like this?’
‘Yes...’ Lia growled, feeling even needier now. ‘Damn you...more.’
His eyes flashed and he lowered his head to her breast and took her nipple deep into his mouth. Lia tensed, to try and hold off falling over the edge, but Ben was remorseless and his hips were making thrusting movements against her... All he’d have to do would be to slide her panties aside and free himself and he’d be inside her, where she needed him so badly.
Shocked at the completely wanton direction of her thoughts, and at how desperate her desire was, Lia’s eyes snapped open.
In the reflection of the mirror behind Ben she saw her long pale legs, wrapped around his slim hips, and his dark head at her breast. She saw her own flushed face, blue eyes glittering fiercely. Her hair was mussed and her mouth was swollen. And they were in a lift.
She tensed even more and gripped Ben’s hair, pulling his head up. ‘We can’t make love here—in a lift.’
Ben looked about ready to refute that statement, but then he seemed to come to his senses and straightened up, removing the delicious friction of his body from Lia’s. She immediately felt bereft.
‘Actually,’ she said, feeling reckless and changing her mind abruptly, ‘I’ve never made love in a lift...the idea is growing on me.’
Ben looked stubborn. ‘No way. You’re right. I’m not going to be the crass American caught in flagrante delicto in one of London’s most exclusive hotels.’
Lia felt a little shard pierce her. He was not crass—at all. Ben unhooked her legs from his hips and helped her stand again. She was wobbly on her feet and only belatedly realised her breast was still exposed when the lift started moving again. Ben efficiently covered her up, his fingers brushing against her sensitive skin.
Just in time, too, because the doors opened and an older couple with severe expressions got in, muttering about how long they’d had to wait for the lift. Lia had to stifle her giggles and Ben took her hand, gripping it tight.
The lift came to a halt again and she followed him out, not having a clue where they were going until he stopped outside a door and unlocked it with a hotel key. The fact that he’d booked a room at the hotel made something bloom in her chest—something she hadn’t allowed room to breathe since she’d taken that flight from Salvador, back to New York and then home.
Hope.
The door shut behind them and Ben had her lifted against it with her legs around his hips before she could take another breath.
‘Now,’ he said throatily, ‘where were we?’
* * *
Dawn was breaking outside when Lia awoke. For a few seconds she lay there, blinking, taking stock of all the pleasurable aches in her body. She was aware that her dress was hanging precariously off the end of the bed, and that there was a trail of destruction along the floor from the doorway to the bed, of her underwear.
She
