by BETH KERY
“It was my pleasure,” she said.
Kam was clean-shaven for once and his dark, russet-tinted hair was neatly groomed and combed back in thick waves. He’d told her his mother was Irish. Were those reddish highlights the Irish influence in him burning through the swarthy Gallic? It was like she’d never seen him before.
“Lucien,” she said, realizing she’d been staring at Kam. She stepped forward to exchange a kiss of greeting with Ian’s older brother.
“Hello. Francesca is right. You look incredible,” Lucien greeted her in his low, fluid, French-accented voice.
“Thank you.” She stepped back and experienced an awkward moment. Shouldn’t she greet Kam in a similar fashion? He was Ian’s brother as well, after all. Fortunately, she was spared having to decide. She saw the Gersbachs enter the ballroom along with a dozen or so other attendees.
“There they are,” she said in a muted tone, leaning her head subtly toward the door. Francesca nodded in understanding. Lin took Kam’s hand and started to lead him toward the father and daughter. It was easy to touch him when her excuse was guiding him to a business interaction.
That’s what she told herself, anyway, as she tried to ignore the feeling of his large, warm hand tightening around her own and her heartbeat began a steady throb in her ears.
• • •
He heard Lin greeting the Gersbachs and introducing them, but he wasn’t really listening. Even though he wasn’t looking at Lin, the vision of her still burned in his mind’s eye. She usually wore her hair up. The only time he’d seen it down was when they’d been in bed together. Then, it’d been a waving, curling, tumbling delight that fell to her mid back. Tonight, she wore it down, but it had been straightened. Without the curls and waves, it fell in a straight, fluid line almost to her waist. It was drop-dead sexy. As Lucien and he had approached her, the silky curtain of it brushed her naked back, the vision disrupting rational thought.
She’d turned, and it was like silk whisking against silk. He was suddenly overcome with a brutal, primal need to be inside her once again, pounding inside all that soft, sleek glory, straining to build a crashing crescendo in the harmonious orchestra that was Lin. A pulse began to throb in his temple and his cock at once as he’d met her stare.
How inappropriate could he be? He really was going to ruin this whole fucking night.
“. . . he just arrived on Monday. Isn’t that right, Kam?”
He blinked and the present moment plummeted into his awareness jarringly.
“Yes,” he said, realizing that Otto Gersbach’s hand was extended. He shook it and mumbled something that was mostly unintelligible except for the word pleasure. He did the same when he was introduced to Brigit Gersbach. Brigit stared at him with wide blue eyes like he was part of the exhibit. Kam glanced uncomfortably sideways at Lin, looking for a cue as to what he should do or say next. Her hand looped around his elbow, and it suddenly didn’t matter.
“I can’t tell you what a pleasure this is for us to meet you as well,” Otto was gushing in crisp, Swiss-accented English. “Brigit was very busy with the advertising campaign for the holidays, but she insisted upon accompanying me in order to meet the genius who created such a revolutionary mechanism. Even now, I can’t quite grasp what you’ve managed to accomplish.”
Kam resisted an urge to shrug and just held Otto’s stare.
“He’s modest,” Brigit said in mock-confidential tone to Lin. “The brilliant ones often are.”
“He’s unconventional, that much is true. Don’t try to pigeonhole him if you truly want to draw his character,” Lin said, smiling warmly up at Kam.
“Do you?” Kam asked Lin, looking down at her upturned face.
She blinked, taken off guard by his question. “Do I what?”
“Want to draw my character?”
“Of course she does. Everyone knows Lin has a talent for seeing straight to the heart,” Otto joked. “She can see to the rotten core of a person in two seconds flat during a business deal. It’s one of the many reasons Ian guards her like a personal treasure.”
“Fortunately I see no rotten cores here tonight,” Lin replied.
Her manner was easy, polished, and businesslike, but Kam took heart from her light touch on his arm. A waiter approached carrying sparkling fruit juice and carbonated water. “Shall we take in Francesca’s exhibit?” Lin invited when they’d all taken a flute.
“Absolutely. Such a talented young woman . . .” Otto was saying. Kam tuned him out as the four of them began the circuit around the room. He was forced to break contact with Lin as they moved about. He was too distracted by her to be anxious about meeting the Gersbachs. He was caught up in the spell of Lin’s lithesome bare arms and sexy long legs. His senses were always extremely sharp, but tonight they seemed exponentially sensitive. He was entranced by the sound of her melodious voice and the nearly silent swish of hair on both her bare skin and the fabric of her dress. He managed several responses to the Gersbachs, a decent amount of which were longer than two words. It wasn’t that hard, given his honest admiration of Francesca’s sketches and Lin’s effortless, yet warm and genuine skill for social conversation.
Even though he’d been forced to allow her to drop her hand from his arm, he touched her whenever he got the chance, subtly and outside of anyone’s notice. He’d brush her waist or bare shoulder, silently urging her to a more ideal spot in which to see the artwork. Significantly, she never gave him a quelling glance when he first did it, so he continued.
As they moved throughout the exhibit, more and more people started to stream into the room. Many of them took different paths than the Gersbachs, Lin, and Kam.
Several people were already gathered in front of one of the larger sketches when they reached it. Otto and Brigit maneuvered for a view. Kam reached out and spread his hand on the tight curve of Lin’s hip, urging her in front of him. He was tall enough to see the sketch over her head, but he wasn’t looking. Not really. He dared to put his other hand on her hip, encircling her. She went very still in his hold. He just felt her for a stretched second, absorbed her refined energy, the sensation of her feminine hips and the delicious fragrance from her hair. A tickling, arousing buzz started on the root of his cock. He resisted a strong urge to press himself against the tight, round curve of her ass. Somehow he knew that, for that brief moment, she was as hyperfocused on him as he was her.
From the corner of his vision, he noticed a familiar form coming around the corner. He dropped his hands from Lin, recognizing Lucien walking next to Francesca.
They finished the circuit and approached Francesca, the Gersbachs and Lin giving their warm praise and impressions of the exhibit.
“And you, Kam?” Francesca asked after a moment. “You haven’t said much. Worried about offending your sister-in-law?”
“You know me well enough by now to realize if I wanted to offend, I would have by now,” Kam mumbled. He blinked when Brigit Gersbach gave a loud laugh, as if he’d been joking. “I enjoyed it,” he told Francesca. “No reason I wouldn’t. Your attention to the tiniest detail is amazing, and yet it only adds to the overall impression of harmony.”
“Not unlike a quality timepiece, no?” Brigit asked him, looping her arm around his elbow, staring up at him with a brilliant smile. There was something jarring about her voice. He looked down at her in bemusement. Lin cleared her throat, and he suspected he might have been wincing.
“Speaking of time,” Lin said brightly, checking her delicate diamond watch. “Shall we go into dinner?”
“Absolutely,” Otto said briskly. “I have pages of questions for you,” he told Kam, drawing him away from his clinging daughter.
Kam glanced back warily at Lin. She seemed to notice his resigned suffering, her humorous glance encouraging him to bear it out. She’d said he could have her to himself afterward. Or at least she’d said she’d think about it.
He was having trouble thinking about anything else.
• • •
Kam seated Lin when they were led to a table at Elise’s chic restaurant, and then took the chair next to her. Brigit and Otto sat across from them. Lin noticed that Brigit appeared to be slightly annoyed by Kam’s indifference toward her. Lin wasn’t immune to the other woman’s disappointment. Neither Ian nor she should have worried about Kam ruining anything with his disdain for luxury and fashion. If anything, his tendency to say little in combination with his penetrating, intelligent gaze and stunning good looks gave the impression of an aloof prince. The quieter and cooler he was, the more Otto, and especially Brigit, seemed determined to draw him out.
Otto wasted no time in beginning to question Kam about his invention, digging in even before they’d ordered drinks. Lin listened with interest, although she understood only a portion of the technical terms the Gersbachs and Kam used. Even with what little she comprehended, she was fascinated. According to Otto, the brilliance of Kam’s invention was not only the minuscule size of the data chip, but his ability to use the delicate clockwork of the watch to enhance the mechanism. As Kam spoke, she slowly realized it was as if he’d needed a surrogate for his device and found the perfect mechanical organism in the escapements of a timepiece.
“It’s as if your invention should have been there all along, and we watchmakers were blind to the absence until now,” Otto enthused.
Kam’s explanations were short, but always to the point. He gave Lin a quicker and more valuable explanation of his own invention than anything she’d been able to glean so far from journal articles or patent drawings. His ability to concisely verbalize a complicated process was a valuable marketing commodity, Lin noted, filing away the information for future use.
It wasn’t just what Kam said or how he said it that fascinated her. She was highly aware of his long, strong thighs just inches away from her own. He rested his left hand on the thigh closest to her, moving it back and forth in a rubbing gesture every once in a while as he spoke or listened. She thought initially it was a nervous habit that only she could see from her position next to him. After a while, however, she altered her opinion. Kam really didn’t appear to be all that nervous. Instead, he seemed uncomfortable, yet forbearing, as if he were impatient to be elsewhere. It was highly distracting watching his large hand move so subtly over his thigh. His other hand rested on the white tablecloth. He possessed extremely masculine, capable-looking hands with several visible veins and blunt-tipped fingers that he drummed or tapped every once in a while against the white cloth. She recalled how they’d felt encasing her hips out there in the ballroom, warm and all encompassing.
The memory of him encircling her torso and moving her so effortlessly up the length of her bed on Monday night blazed into her consciousness. He could manipulate her into any position he chose so negligently. She’d never really thought about it before—perhaps because she’d never slept with a man as powerful as Kam—but it was arousing to know that he could maneuver her weight with such ease to optimize her pleasure. His.
Theirs.
She took a long draw on her ice water. Kam drummed his fingertips lightly on the tablecloth, and her clit tingled in response. He’d used those fingertips to take her to heaven Monday night, rubbing and sliding and vibrating her so masterfully until . . .
“Now I have a question for you, Otto.”
Lin came back fully to the moment at the sound of Kam’s frank declaration.
“Of course,” Otto said earnestly. “Anything.”
“Why don’t you have a line of watches that the average person can actually afford to own?”
Lin’s heart paused in her chest. She glanced anxiously across the table at Brigit’s frozen expression.
“We come from a long tradition of innovative, premier watchmaking,” Otto said, recovering before his daughter. “We employ the most talented engineers in the world and utilize the highest-quality components and materials. Gersbach is always pushing the envelope of the technology, giving our customers not only a luxury timepiece, but the most exclusive one in the market.”
Kam nodded thoughtfully. Lin forced herself not to start when he abruptly lifted his hand off his thigh and subtly moved it the two or three inches to settle on hers. He squeezed. The front cutout of her cocktail dress left her knees and a few inches of thigh exposed, but when she’d sat, the dress had ridden up a few inches. His hand enclosed a stretch of silk-covered skin. He continued talking as if nothing had happened. His heat emanated easily through the super sheer fabric of her silk thigh-highs. Lin just sat there stiffly, trying to rein in her scattered thoughts and slow her racing heart.
“You just said a moment ago that my invention would revolutionize the way people took care of themselves. With the constant feedback the mechanism can provide, people will know when they are in a medical crisis or when they need to make a doctor’s appointment. They will automatically change their habits to become healthier when they see firsthand, in a split second, how a behavior is affecting their heart or their blood pressure or their stress response,” Kam said as he picked up his fork. “Is it your belief that only the wealthy deserve to possess such technology?”
Lin hastened to say something that would smooth over his bluntness. Kam squeezed her thigh again gently. She was stunned to realize he was reassuring her. Her mouth clamped shut.
“I don’t think it’s up to me to decide something like that,” Otto sidestepped gracefully. “I run a company and provide a certain product to a defined market.”
Kam nodded. “You’re right. I’ll have to make similar decisions for my own product, and who has access to it is a major one.”
Otto glanced uncertainly at his daughter, who seemed even more ruffled than him.
“Well, I suppose that’s what this meeting is all about,” Lin said, unable to keep quiet a moment longer. “Gathering information so that decisions and plans can be made.” She made a toast and successfully turned the conversation while they ate to lighter, although still-relevant topics. At some point during the main course, Kam returned his hand to his own lap, but she was still highly self-conscious of the warm, tingling patch of skin on her thigh where it had rested.
By the time coffee and dessert came around, she realized she’d been foolish for feeling the need to bail Kam out of a crisis. He clearly was not uncomfortable with what he’d asked, and why should he be? If the issue of availability of his product to the majority of people was important to him, then clearly it was relevant for discussion. She wasn’t here to make sure he sold his products to the Gersbachs or any of the representatives from luxury watchmakers, but to assist him while he explored whether this was a transaction he wanted to undertake or not.
Elise arrived at their table during dessert, pleasantly distracting Lin from her concerns. They all thanked her for the wonderful meal. Lucien’s wife wore her chef’s smock, her lovely face radiant either from the heat of the kitchen or good spirits or both. After repeating a request for Kam to stay with Lucien and her, and being politely refused yet again, she shrugged good-naturedly, clearly recognizing a losing battle.
“He doesn’t even want to stay at our hotel, why should he want to stay with us at our home?” Elise jabbed Kam fondly, grinning at Lin.
“Oh . . . that’s my fault,” Lin blurted guiltily. “I thought he might be more comfortable near Noble Tower.”
Elise waved her hand with matter-of-fact elegance. “Nonsense. I was just teasing him. Kam knows it. He’s not comfortable in most places in the city.” Lin glanced at Kam, worried Elise’s frankness had embarrassed him. Instead, Kam wore a sheepish grin. Lin really should talk to Lucien’s irrepressible wife about her handling of Kam sometime.
Elise beamed at the entire table in with that patentable Elise charm. “But we’ll get Kam wherever he wants to go eventually,” she told Brigit with a confidential, signi
ficant nod. She winked at Otto Gersbach. Otto blinked as if targeted by a stun gun. “Because he’s brilliant, but more importantly, he’s family. And family is very important to us,” Elise said simply, blessing them with one last smile before she bid them good night.
Otto muttered unintelligibly under his breath after Elise left them; the only phrase Lin caught was that charming, golden ray of sunshine. Lin was having trouble disguising her smile. So was Kam, she noticed when they shared a glance of amusement. By the time they finished their dessert, Lin was feeling much more at ease.
“The showing must be over. There’s Lucien, Ian, and Francesca,” Kam observed for Lin’s ears only as the waiter returned with their receipt for the bill. Lin had already noticed the subtle shift in the atmosphere, and knew Ian had entered the room. The energy of a place always amplified when he arrived. She’d been keyed in to Ian’s movements, his desires . . . his very presence for so long now. Of course she sensed it not only in herself, but also in others around her. A youngish-looking man standing at the periphery of the restaurant aimed a camera at Ian, who was escorting Francesca to their table. Lucien grabbed his wrist swiftly, forcing the camera downward. Lin saw Lucien utter a few quiet words to the would-be photographer, and the young man blanched. He walked out of the restaurant of his own volition. She gave a tiny sigh of relief. Lucien was an accomplished pro at keeping his patrons’ experience private and comfortable while they were in his establishments.
She felt Kam’s gaze on her profile and met his stare. “You don’t miss much when it comes to Ian, do you?” he said, his gaze piercing, his voice a low rumble.
“It’s my job.”
His eyebrows went up in an expression that might have been interpreted as politely interested or subtly sarcastic. Lin couldn’t say which. “Do you need to go and speak with him?” he asked.
Lin Soong and her work are practically synonymous.
His question had made his statement from earlier today spring into her brain.