to nothing about him and probably never would? She knew he wanted her—wasn’t that enough?
Passion fed and passion burned as their kisses grew deeper and more urgent, and when the limo started to slow and Ruby looked out of the window through glazed eyes and saw her high rise up ahead she groaned, and Damon groaned with her.
‘Drive with me a while,’ he whispered, and she knew what he was asking and she’d resisted him before but there was no resisting him now.
Slowly, she lifted her hand to her headband and slid it from her head and dropped it to the floor. ‘Yes.’
Damon reached for the intercom switch and said, ‘Take us for a drive,’ and the limo moved off.
Time enough now to loosen Damon’s tie, and the buttons on his shirt, with her forehead pressed to his and their breath mingling as he slid the straps of her dress down her arms with gentle fingers.
‘Tell me you know what you’re getting us into,’ he muttered. ‘Tell me you know what you’re doing.’
‘I know what I’m doing.’ While the top of her dress peeled away from her body and she drew his head down to the curve of her breast. ‘So do you.’ As her strapless bra came apart beneath his fingers and he claimed her nipple with his lips and set her to arching back and biting her own.
He explored every hollow and worshipped every curve and before too many minutes had passed he had her beneath him on the seat, half naked and wholly mindless as he moved inside her, every stroke a revelation.
‘Tell me you can taste the truth in this,’ he whispered. ‘In me.’
‘I do taste it.’
In the way he savoured her, honoured her, and in the way his touch made her tremble. ‘Tell me you won’t regret this.’
‘Never. Damon, not ever.’ As the driver kept driving and Ruby and Damon got lost in each other.
It had to end eventually. Love-making always had to end. With Ruby climaxing in Damon’s arms as he emptied himself into her. With Damon swallowing her cries of completion and groaning softly as her body grew boneless and his did too, and somehow she ended up stretched out on top of him, with Damon’s arms around her waist keeping her there.
The interior of the limo looked like someone’s messy closet. Her clothes would be here somewhere and she would get around to putting them back on soon.
But not just yet.
‘That was …’ Damon didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence ‘… a revelation.’
‘I concur.’ Ruby pushed herself up into a sitting position, still straddling him, still very, very naked. Damon’s gaze fell to her breasts and his lazy grin turned lopsided.
‘Here’s a tip,’ he said huskily. ‘If you ever want to win an argument with me, just get naked.’
‘Something to remember,’ she murmured. ‘Are we going to argue now?’
‘No.’ He slid his hand around the back of her neck and rose up to kiss the side of her mouth. He wasn’t done with her yet, and the notion delighted her. ‘Not right now.’
She couldn’t seem to get enough of his touch. Of his kisses. ‘So what shall we do?’
‘Ladies’ choice.’ He leaned back against the seat, his slitted gaze not leaving her face as he began to harden against her once more.
‘Good. Because, right now I just want to sit back and enjoy the ride.’
They found their clothes and put them on eventually. They made it back to Ruby’s apartment building, and it was after one, and technically Christmas Day already, and Damon had places to be—like with his family—and Ruby had things to do, like go inside and figure out what she was going to do with Damon West for the rest of the undoubtedly short time he would be around.
He was as dishevelled as Ruby, but he got out of the car when it stopped at her door, and extended his hand for hers and brought it to his lips as she alighted from the limo with most everything in place, including her headband.
‘Merry Christmas, Ruby.’
‘You too,’ she murmured, and took her hand back and headed quickly for the door before she turned around and held out her hand for him to join her. Only when she was safely inside the foyer and heading for the lifts did she look back and smile at what she saw.
Damon, leaning against the car with his hands in his pockets as he watched her retreat, and secrets or not she knew more of him now and she had not met with disappointment.
He didn’t want true intimacy from her, and a wise woman accepted the things she could not change.
A wise woman took the gift of passion and pleasure that he had given her and cherished them for what they were.
Best Christmas present ever.
Damon West had as much self-awareness as the next man. He knew what he was good at, and seduction was one of those things. He knew what derailed him, and commitments of the personal kind headed that list. He’d set foot on the hackers’ path at the tender age of twelve when he’d hacked into his school’s academic database. At seventeen—with five more schools under his belt—he’d blitzed his exams, hacked the filter the department of education used to expose students of interest, and MIT had come knocking. He’d hacked into their system too and they’d sent him back a six-page mathematical proof of his predictability and offered him an education.
That education, and the one that had followed, had given him travel, a reason for being, and all the excitement he could handle and then some. All they’d asked from him in return was absolute discretion and a willingness to go anywhere, any time.
At twenty, he thought he’d found heaven.
At twenty-five he knew he had.
He would be thirty-three in January and as he headed back to his father’s apartment with the scent of Ruby Maguire on his skin and the image of her naked and open for him dominating his mind, Damon West took the time to mourn the loss of the ordinary lifestyle he’d so willingly given up.
CHRISTMAS Day started late for Ruby. Nowhere to be, no reason to get up. The two gifts beneath her tiny tree were ones she’d put there herself. A book on humanitarian imperialism—that one was supposedly from the cat. The other was a bottle of her favourite perfume. A light and woodsy scent to lift the spirits and brighten the day.
A Merry Christmas phone call came in from her mother before Ruby had found her way out of her sleepwear. A mother who sounded happy and content and who urged Ruby to come and stay a while in the New Year. A mother who asked if the courier had arrived yet, and sighed her exasperation when Ruby said not.
Ruby promised to ring back when they had.
A sashimi breakfast feast for a contented little cat followed. Freshly brewed coffee for Ruby and a butter croissant with fig and honey jam got her positively cheerful. The gourmet food hamper
