Don’t think about Ian in bed.
I gulped and tried to hang on to my righteous indignation, but it was getting swamped by the weariness that always accompanied an attack of self-doubt. I knew I needed to ease up on myself. Most of the time, I felt good about the way I looked, but there were always those situations that set off a spiral. That was okay. The longer I lived in my body, the better I got at remembering how to love it.
But no amount of self love was going to change the fact that I was just a regular person. Ian was a star, and mere mortals like myself were not meant to touch the stars. The best we could hope for was to admire them from afar.
I gazed at Ian, who was gazing right back with a look on his face that I couldn’t interpret.
“Believe me, I’m looking at you,” he ground out, voice rougher than gravel.
It skated over my skin like a touch, and I shivered. Crossing my arms over my chest to hide the way my nipples had perked up as if he’d rubbed his callused thumbs over them, I frowned. “Quit. Doing. That.”
“You told me to look at you,” he pointed out, frustration leaking into his tone.
“Not that. I mean. Stop acting like you think I’m . . . I don’t know, hot or something.”
I laughed to show I knew how ridiculous it sounded, but Ian didn’t laugh. Instead, he took a prowling step toward me.
“It’s not an act.”
My mouth dried up so fast, I nearly choked when I tried to swallow. But right on the heels of that burst of glee—Ian Hale thought I was hot!—came a cleansing shot of anger.
“Bullshit,” I told him. It was on, now. I’d gone this far, and there was no going back and smoothing it over. So I might as well put it all out there. “At least half the time, you seem like you can barely stand to be near me. You’ve walked off and left me hanging twice now! Whatever you think about my supposed hotness, you obviously aren’t planning to do anything about it. Which leads me to believe you’re not really that interested at all.”
“Not interested.”
Ian blinked, and suddenly the air in the small, cramped room felt supercharged with electric tension. Every hair on my body stood on end.
“You think I’m not interested,” Ian repeated, gripping the back of the chair on his side of the table. His big body tensed, the cords of muscle standing out on his bared forearms. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the straight-backed wooden chair had snapped like kindling under his clenched fists.
“I know you’re not interested,” I heard myself say. “If you were interested, you would have kissed me already.”
I caught my breath at the boldness he brought out in me. I was baiting the tiger.
Ian’s knuckles whitened on the back of the chair. His stare never left my face. “I can’t kiss you.”
The disappointment was crushing, even if I’d already told myself it wasn’t going to happen. “Why not?”
That chair creaked under Ian’s grip, but he didn’t move. His eyes pinned me in place, like one of the rare butterfly specimens skewered to a display upstairs.
Ian leaned forward, filling my vision. His voice was almost a snarl as he answered, “Because if I start touching you now, I’m never going to stop.”
Holy shit.
Everything low in my belly went tight and hot in a dizzying rush. Desire knotted between my thighs, sharp and aching with the emptiness of Ian still being across the goddamned table from me.
“So don’t stop,” I said recklessly, one hand lifting to tug at the open collar of my shirt, which suddenly felt like it was strangling me.
We locked eyes. For a moment, I really thought he was going to do it—upend the table, swipe all the priceless folios and manuscripts onto the floor, and lay me out on top of them like a feast. But when his gaze flicked to the lockless door standing slightly ajar to the hallway, where someone walked by at that exact moment, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.
For the sake of the folios and manuscripts, I was relieved. For myself? Not so much.
None of the intensity had drained from Ian’s expression. If anything, he was staring at me even more intently. There was a look on his face, something like protectiveness, and it warmed a different part of me than the parts that were still simmering with lust.
But instead of saying something rational and mature and true like, “This isn’t the time or place, when anyone could walk in on us and take a cell phone photo that would sell to the tabloids for hundreds of thousands,” he put one hand down on the table and lowered his voice to say, “When I touch you for the first time, neither of us will stop for hours. Days, Mallory.”
Shock and delight zapped me like a lightning strike.
“Once I get you into my bed, you won’t be leaving it until I’ve tasted every inch of your delicious body,” he growled. “Until I’ve licked your gorgeous breasts and hips, the backs of your knees, your smooth belly, every one of your toes.”
His voice caressed each part of my body as he mentioned it, awakening sensation and yearning. My breasts tightened and swelled, nipples aching. My hips wanted to thrust. My knees tingled. My belly quivered.
“You’ll wear nothing but me for days on end, nothing to hide you from me, no barriers between us.”
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. My knees went shaky and loose, and I caught myself against the edge of the table. The corner pressed hard into the juncture of my thighs, teasing me through the sensible wool of my skirt. Little explosions of light flickered in my brain and I realized at some point I’d squeezed my eyes shut.
The air was still and thick in the tiny room. All I could hear was the thundering of my heartbeat in my ears. My nipples were tight, aching knots and my legs trembled with the need to push forward and press myself more firmly against the table for some kind of release from the tension.
But the only release came in the form of Ian’s soft rumble of a voice.
“When I finally touch you, I’ll dip my fingers into your sweetness, one by one, and lick you off them like honey. God, I can’t wait to taste you. I’m starved for you.”
I gasped, my eyes flying open. He was leaning on the table now, both hands flat against the wood grain. As I watched, they flexed slowly, the scarred knuckles teasing me with flickering fantasies of how they’d feel brushing my soft, inner folds and widening the tight, wet core of me.
“Your body was made for pleasure,” he rasped. “And mine was made to give it to you.”
My thighs spasmed, internal muscles contracting, and a shuddering breath left my body as I stared into Ian Hale’s hot, ravenous eyes and came, completely untouched.
Aftershocks staggered me and I fell against the table. “Oh my God,” I panted. “What . . . how . . . ?”
He groaned, fisting his hands and grinding his knuckles into the table hard enough to make his shoulder muscles flex. His beautiful face was set in lines of torment for a long, choked moment while a lethargy I’d never experienced swept over my shivering body.
Those electric blue eyes pierced my bewildered languor. He straightened and ran a shaking hand down his stubbled face. “Fuck me if you aren’t the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The words killed whatever embarrassment might have tried to rise up to overshadow this moment. The way he was looking at me, the way he let me see his honest lust and stark need, didn’t allow me to get self-conscious.
And believe me, I wanted to. The part of my brain that was hyperaware that I’d just soaked my panties in front of the world’s biggest movie star, while he talked me to the orgasm of the century—that part of my brain was urging me to run away and hide. Even if it meant leaving before I got the chance to look at that first edition of The Compleat Housewife. My heart clenched a little at the thought.
But the biggest part of my brain was more concerned with the fact that Ian was across the table from me, his huge body rock-hard with sexual frustration, and yet he still hadn’t laid a finger on me. While my body finally began to wind down to a gentle simmer,
muscles loosening and relaxing as the wave of pleasure receded, Ian clenched his jaw hard enough to make a muscle jump under his stubble.
So he wouldn’t ravish me in a private reading room at the British Museum. Maybe there was someplace else we could go? “My apartment is like five minutes away,” I blurted.
Oh good, there was the awkward, right on cue.
My cheeks went hot as confusion lit his blue eyes, but in the next moment I saw him get it. And I could still hardly believe it, but serious temptation flared in Ian’s gaze before he could tamp it down.
“And I’d like to see it sometime,” he rasped. “But right now, you have rare books to read.”
Warmth kindled in my chest—a different kind of warmth than the fire he’d ignited earlier, but this small candle was no less powerful in its own right. Ian wasn’t just the sexiest man who’d ever wanted to get me into bed. He also seemed to care, genuinely, about what I wanted outside the bedroom. It was a completely unique experience in my life so far.
Still, wasn’t I supposed to strike while the iron was hot? And looking Ian up and down, from the strain in his jaw to the enticing bulge in his jeans, I could tell that the iron was indeed very, very hot at the moment.
“The books can wait,” I offered, licking my lips in the dry air of the room.
“So can I.” He said the words like a promise, his gaze turning inward for a moment I didn’t quite understand. And in the next heartbeat, he’d relaxed his shoulders and pulled up a version of that small, private smile. “It may take a long, cold shower, but I’ll live. And you have work to do.”
My gaze slid to the stack of folios and manuscripts sitting on the table, full of secrets and stories and long-gone history. The tips of my fingers twitched in the direction of the top book.
“Well,” I said reluctantly. “You did go to an awful lot of trouble to set this up. I’d hate to have wasted your time.”
“It was one phone call.” He dismissed his own efforts with a shrug, but his stare went sharp on my face. I fiddled with the collar of my shirt, suddenly aware that all the heaving my bosom had recently done had opened the gap between the buttons even wider.
“I’m not winding you up here,” he said suddenly. “You know that, don’t you?”
My laugh was muffled by the fall of my hair, which finally gave up on its topknot situation and tumbled down to shield my face. “I guess? I mean, yes. You made your point about being into me, and I believe it. It’s just hard to keep believing it, if that makes any sense.”
He made a frustrated sound. “Mallory.”
Gah. My name in that voice, with that accent. And that tone, which did even more than the sex talk to make me believe this was real. It was all fond exasperation, like he kind of wanted to shake some sense into me, but he never would because he liked me too much.
He actually liked me, I realized. Perhaps belatedly, given the orgasm and the favor with the museum director and the way he looked at me. But in fairness to me, nothing even remotely similar to this had ever happened in my life.
“Okay,” I said, tossing back my hair. “This is a bonkers situation, but I accept that it’s happening. So what’s next?”
Approval warmed his ice-chip eyes to ocean blue. “Cold shower for me while you gin up on the right way to roast an ox, and that. And tonight I’ll take you out. Anywhere you want to go.”
My pulse leapt. “Anywhere?”
A strange, resigned look flickered over his face, there then gone in an instant. When he smiled, it was the big, charming one he’d used on Dr. Chesterton. “Anywhere you like. Top restaurant, posh club. Whatever.”
I made a face before I could stop myself. “No thanks. That’s not really my scene. I mean, unless that’s what you want to do tonight.”
I stuttered to a stop, already dreading the prospect of digging through my closet for something to wear to a trendy club, but Ian was shaking his head and smiling his real smile again.
“Nah,” he said easily, hands sliding into his jeans pockets. “Not my scene either, as it happens.”
“You sure spend a lot of time in places like that, for someone who doesn’t like them.”
“Part of the job, innit?” He shrugged, resigned again. “Being seen out and about at the right places. Getting papped with the right people. Price I pay for doing the work. Not that high a price, all things being equal.”
He was right, of course. He got paid gazillions of dollars to make blockbuster movies, which was probably an easier job than digging ditches for a living. Having to show up at fashion shows and wild parties with a model or two on his arm wasn’t exactly a hard life. But that didn’t mean he had to love it.
“Could be worse,” I agreed. “But I’m not that interested in going somewhere that feels like work to you.”
“So where to, then?”
“Take me someplace you’ve never taken anyone else,” I said impulsively. “Someplace you go to have fun.”
I loved the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. He shook his head slightly. “You don’t make it easy, do you?”
Feeling bold, I flirted back. “Do you want easy?”
Sauntering around the edge of the table, Ian headed for the door. He had to pass me to leave, and he came close enough for me to feel the heat from his body and smell his clean, masculine scent.
He leaned in, his lips mere millimeters from my ear and his warm breath sending shivers down my spine.
“Mallory, luv,” he whispered, like a confession. “When it comes to you, I want it all.”
Chapter Five
The problem with going on a mystery date with a movie star was that I’d left myself with literally no idea of how to dress. I was pretty sure I didn’t need club clothes—not that I owned a mesh miniskirt and thigh-high velvet boots, like the starlet who’d accompanied Ian to the opening of L’Etoile. The photos had been all over the newsstands just a month ago, and the memory made my sensible slacks and cardigans look entirely too sad staring back at me from the depths of my closet.
I hadn’t gone to the trouble of wrestling my boobs into this low-cut, lacy bra just to swathe them in a thick layer of wool.
I contemplated my underwear-clad body for a moment, palms skimming the curves of my hips. It was the same body I’d had pretty much since puberty, but somehow it looked a little different to me today.
There was still that definite softness to my rounded belly, the too-large breasts that were impossible to hide or downplay. Maybe I didn’t need to downplay them though. And maybe being soft where Ian was so hard and chiseled—maybe that would feel good, to both of us. I shivered in the cool air of my flat, and from the bed, Pilot made a whuffling whine in his sleep.
“Easy for you to say,” I told him. “You always wear the same outfit, no matter where you’re going.”
Deciding to take my cue from Pilot, the most confident, outgoing creature I knew, I grabbed a pair of jeans that made my ass look like a bitable peach. Jeans were always good. Ian had been wearing jeans every time I’d seen him. You could dress them up with heels and dangly earrings, or dress them way down with sneakers and a ball cap. For tonight, I’d thread the needle with flats and an emerald green V-neck sweater that clung just enough. The plunging neckline was one I didn’t dare often, and it took advantage of my most daring bra, exposing the upper swells of my breasts in a way that felt casually sexy. I was nailing this.
Unless Ian’s happy place was, like, the opera or something. Oh, God.
I wavered for a moment, but the text alert chimed on my phone. Good, it was probably Sam—I could take a quick mirror selfie and get her to sign off on the outfit!
But when I snatched up my phone, the text was from Ian. My heart plummeted—was he canceling on me?—but no, the text said: Meet me at the Vauxhall tube station.
My gaze flew to the clock on the wall. It would take half an hour on the tube. I would just barely make it. Relieved not to have any more time to dither about my clothes, I snatched up my
crossbody bag and peacoat, and with a last kiss to Pilot’s scruffy head, I hurried out the door.
I had thirty minutes on the London Underground to wonder what was at Vauxhall. There were the famous Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, not that there was anything left of them from their glory days. It was just an inner-city park now, but a very pretty one right on the south bank of the Thames. I’d studied the map of London quite a bit when I first arrived, trying to orient myself, but I hadn’t memorized the locations of many restaurants or theaters or whatever Ian might have in mind.
As the train swayed through the dark tunnels and the sleepy-eyed Londoners around me read their books and listened to music on their headphones, I decided to stop trying to guess. Instead, I’d just enjoy the pleasant flutter of anticipation and the sizzle of excitement at the prospect of seeing Ian again.
That sizzle flared into a bright flame in my belly when I jogged up the Underground station stairs and found Ian waiting for me at the top.
He was leaning against an empty red telephone booth, both hands in the front pockets of his jeans and a gray wool ball cap pulled low to shade his handsome face. He stared down at the phone in his hand and didn’t look up. To the stream of commuters flooding up the stairs behind me, he must have looked like a regular guy hanging out. No one gave him a second glance.
I wondered how it was possible they didn’t recognize him. I felt like I’d know those shoulders, that loose-limbed slouch, the tilt of his head and the hard angle of his jaw, no matter what he was doing or wearing. If nothing else, from the way my entire body instantly zeroed in on him and pulled me forward, as if he’d cast a line and reeled me in.
“Hi,” I said, hoping he’d attribute my breathlessness to the fact that I’d just run up a flight of stairs. Not that it said much about my cardio fitness, but it was maybe slightly less embarrassing than betraying the fact that the mere sight of him squeezed my lungs in a tight fist.
Naughty Brits: An Anthology Page 28