Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  He smiled, as much as spelling out to her that he was happy being single too. Which was great. So was she. Single and in charge of her own destiny. So why did it feel as if her stomach had sunk like a stone?

  Damien took a sip of wine and watched her over the top of the glass, his deep blue eyes smiling, seeing. His mouth stretched into a smile that was built to make a woman just want to give in and surrender. ‘You like me more now, don’t you?’

  She leant her chin on her upturned palm, stared right on back and called his bluff. ‘Infinitely.’

  His eyes narrowed as he watched her for several more seconds before shifting in his chair, stretching out his legs. The air around her knees wafted and her skirt blew up before settling back against her suddenly sensitive skin.

  ‘So do you have a dog?’ he asked.

  ‘I live in an apartment. I’m out a lot. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  He nodded. And she restlessly spun the rounded end of the cork on the end of her pointer finger before it landed on the back of her hand again.

  ‘Okay, I bite,’ Damien said, his dark gaze dropping to her hands. ‘Either you were once a croupier in some dive in Vegas or … nope, that’s the only thing I can come up with for a girl with that kind of hand-eye coordination. Give me a go.’

  She tossed it in the air so it spun, and by the time he’d caught it she sat back swirling his wineglass in her left hand and hers in her right.

  His eyes grew wide. And impressed. They slid up her chest, past her neck, warming every inch of exposed skin along the way until they landed with a heated thud on her eyes. ‘You’re some kind of witch, aren’t you?’

  Laughter tickled her throat. ‘And I’d gone to so much trouble to hide my broomstick out of sight in an alley down the street.’

  Only after taking a decided sip from his glass did she give him back his wine.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with a new kind of smile in his eyes that did violent things to her heart rate.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  He threw the cork in the air, then spent a good thirty seconds trying to flip it across his knuckles but he only succeeded in dropping it again and again. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’

  She grabbed the linen napkin and began folding it into smaller and smaller triangles, using it as an excuse to break eye contact. She thought about lying. She’d certainly done it before: hidden her own inadequacies while frenetically determining those of any otherwise likeable man in her midst.

  She sat back in her chair and pretended to be on the lookout for a waiter. ‘Why is it always the posh places that give such slow service?’

  ‘Chelsea, spill. Or I’ll find a way to make you.’

  She blinked back at him. This guy. Something made her want to tell the truth. Hoping it would bring them closer, or push him further away?

  ‘My father was a grifter.’

  ‘Like a conman?’

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Every once in a while. But more consistently a gambler, always following the next big dream, looking for the next sure thing which would make us rich. And when that failed, as it inevitably did, he would turn to stealing wallets, identities, candy from babies as he moved us from pillar to post and back again.’

  She glanced at Damien and away again to give herself enough time to see if he was looking for the nearest exit. If she were in his shoes that was what she would have been doing. But if anything he was sitting further forward, intrigue adding a further glint to his eyes. No matter which way she thought he’d spin he continued to surprise her.

  She took a much needed deep breath and crossed her feet at the ankles, accidentally brushing the side of her bare foot against his calf. She stilled, wondering if he’d even noticed. When his eyes grew a shade darker and he took his own deep breath she knew he’d noticed all right. Noticed and reacted instantly.

  He lounged a tad more, shifting until his knees came so close to hers she could feel his warmth against her bare skin. And that time she just knew it wasn’t in the least bit accidental.

  ‘So could you steal my wallet?’ he asked.

  Chelsea glanced at the region of his heart where by habit she’d felt the consistency of a flat leather wallet that first day. ‘What makes you think I haven’t already?’

  His eyes grew wide as his hand flew to the spot. He slid his long black leather wallet from its home and let out a long slow breath. Then his eyes shot to hers. Flickered left to right. Dark, searching, mesmerised.

  He slid his wallet back into place, his eyes not leaving hers. Their depths glinted as though reflecting the last gasp of sunlight of the day.

  Her teeth scraped against the edge of her glass. The zing she felt through her jaw at the clash of hard substances was nothing compared with the zing singing through her stomach, ricocheting from surface to surface until she felt as if a truckload of fireworks had gone off inside her belly.

  ‘I’m not sure whether to find you a complete delight or to fear what each encounter with you will bring, Miss London.’

  He reached for his own glass of wine, but merely swirled it beneath his chin as his gaze roamed lazily over her face, her hair, and her breasts, which strained against the tight fabric of her dress as though he’d actually reached out and grazed them with his touch.

  Finally he looked back into her eyes. A smile warming them. Warming her. Challenging her.

  He said, ‘Right now I’m leaning heavily towards delight.’

  Chelsea pressed her knees together. She was the one who ought to be feeling fearful of what each meeting with this man might bring. She who was usually so untouchable was becoming very very touched. And the need to touch and be touched as long as she could handle it was overwhelming. She fought to find a way to relieve the pressure inside her before it exploded into something terribly messy like genuine affection.

  ‘Your turn,’ she said.

  ‘For?’

  ‘A party trick. It’s another family tradition of mine. On the rare occasions we ate out anywhere fancy Kensey and I would always end up trying to outdo one another by performing the strangest acts we could while not drawing attention to ourselves. For example.’ She crossed her eyes and curled her tongue into a tube.

  Sabotage, her sister would have called it. Chelsea liked to think it was better to know the measure of a man as soon as possible. When she uncrossed them Damien was still watching her with such a look of honest fascination she had to scrape her tongue back through her teeth to stop the tingling.

  ‘I have something you might like.’ His voice had dropped low and deep. Enough for the sound to create skitters of awareness across her arms. ‘We have to go uncaught? That’s the rule?’

  Chelsea’s feet and hands cooled as all the blood inside her seemed to rush to her cheeks. To the vertical dip between her breasts. And lower.

  She nodded.

  ‘Right. Then I’m going to need a drink.’ He turned his wineglass so that the exact spot from which she had earlier drunk was facing him. He brought it to his lips and took a sip, letting his mouth rest around the lip of the glass a mite longer than entirely necessary.

  Her lips tingled as though his were pressed just as surely and closely against her own. His breath tickling her tongue rather than creating minuscule waves in his glass.

  The upholstered booth seat beneath her suddenly felt as though it were tipping. And when he unbuttoned his jacket, and loosened his tie, then dropped his hands beneath the table and leant forward so that she could see the splash of navy surrounding each of his ocean-blue eyes she clung onto the edge of the table to stop herself from swaying under his gaze.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  ‘Am I meant to be involved in this somehow?’

  ‘Mmm, that’s the general plan.’

  ‘What do I need to do?’

  ‘Keep very very still. And if you give us away then you lose, and I win, right?’ She nodded.

  And in the next instant the back of his knuckles grazed gently
across her knees.

  Chelsea’s bare toes dug into the carpeted floor. Her fingers gripped the table so hard her knuckles were turning white. ‘What is it exactly that you are thinking of doing?’

  ‘Believe me when I say this game will be that much more fun if we left that a surprise.’

  When she didn’t flinch, or protest, the knuckles made a return journey, this time brushing across her knees and around the outside until his thumbs ran over the top of her kneecaps and just beneath the hem of her skirt. And she kept her mouth shut tight.

  When he touched her for a third time Chelsea glanced quickly around the restaurant, but it was dark, and the table positioned just so. Unless someone came leaping out from behind the Ficus…

  Damien’s thumb ran back and forth beneath her skirt and she drew in a shuddering breath. And when his hands wrapped around the outside of her thighs and began sliding up her legs, she wasn’t sure when she ever might find the chance to breathe again.

  He smiled. Though it was more of a tilt of the lips, a deepening of the creases below his cheeks, and a change in the colour of his eyes. But in that smile she saw arrogance, confidence, and purpose. Damien Halliburton knew just what kind of power he had over her.

  Her head protested. But it was too late. Nothing could have prepared her for the mass of sensation that spread like wildfire through her whole body when his hands slid over the tops of her thighs, his thumbs delved into the gap between and gently, but insistently, pressed her legs apart.

  She let her eyes flutter closed. He was so supremely sure of his effect on her, while the only times in recent history she’d had a male get this close was when she’d had to straddle the Kellets’ Great Dane to hold it in place while Phyllis clipped its nails.

  She squeezed her eyes tighter. That’s it, you idiot, she said to herself. You are in the middle of the sexiest moment of your entire life and you are doing your best to diminish it. To distance yourself. Well, not this time.

  This time it felt too good. This time it had been building and building and unless she let it come to its natural conclusion she knew she would never forgive herself. This time she slowly uncrossed her ankles, released her death grip on the table and let the pressure of his thumbs guide her knees inches apart.

  Her pulse pounded beneath her skin, which felt so hot it almost hurt to move. Her head suddenly felt loose upon her neck. And a trickle of perspiration made a slow, hot trail down her spine.

  Ambient sounds of the restaurant served as a cushion to her senses: the soft murmur of voices, the whisper of footsteps on expensive carpet, the chime of cutlery against dinner plates. And above it all, like a pulse throbbing across her skin, were Damien’s deep intakes and slow releases of breath, evidence that beneath his self-assurance he was as affected as she was.

  He twisted his hands until his fingers were splayed atop her thighs. He tightened his grip, digging into the tense muscle for a brief second before his left hand disappeared. She almost cried out for the sudden erasure of half her pleasure.

  Until his right hand continued its journey, circling her thigh until it dived between the two. Her legs spasmed. Clutching at his hand. But it wasn’t to be deterred. The backs of his knuckles grazed one inner thigh, while the pads of his fingers dug into the soft flesh of the other. Then slowed imperceptibly until he came to a stop at the edge of her cotton briefs.

  ‘Chelsea,’ he said, his deep voice seeming to come to her from a mile away.

  ‘Yes,’ she managed to breathe out. Yes, yes, yes!

  ‘Is this the kind of thing you had in mind?’ His fingers teased at the edge of her panties, brushing ever so lightly around the hem.

  Since the moment I laid eyes on you, she thought.

  She began to tremble. Her hands shot to grip onto the padded bench. Her toes dug harder into the soft carpet. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, which felt as if they were burning up. ‘So far so good.’

  He laughed, the sound vibrating through his arm and into his hand. Until her legs eased further apart. Just enough to give him all the access he desired.

  Then, with no more finessing, one finger slipped behind the cotton barrier, then two. And her whole body shook with such a tremendous release of tension; hours’ worth, weeks, years, a lifetime worth of holding everything close to her chest lest someone take what little she had away from her.

  This trick, this game, was no longer anything of the sort. As with her eyes closed tight, her knees shoulder-width apart, and her usual abundance of common sense having taken leave on another planet, she put every ounce of faith she had in her body not to let them get caught. And to let this man continue bestowing gift upon gift upon her every second his desire for her grew.

  He touched her gently, deftly, as if he knew her. As if he knew exactly how far to go. When to apply pressure and when to pull away. A warm, melting weight made her body feel heavy. Pulling everything inwards towards his barely there contact.

  Her breaths began to hitch in her throat. Her surroundings swarmed in on her. ‘I can’t,’ she said, her voice a desperate plea.

  ‘Yes, you bloody well can.’ His voice became little more than a growl, and it only made her hotter still. ‘You have no idea how much I want shove this table aside and lunge at you and sink my teeth into that spot where your neck meets your shoulder. I have truly never seen anything so gorgeous in my entire life. The only way to stop that kind of racket from happening is to give in and let me do this instead.’

  With that he pushed her panties aside so that his whole hand could cup her, his every finger could move with her as she moved with him. As she tried so hard to keep still while instinct took over and she gave into it as he’d told her to do. She slid forward, let her head press against the back of the seat, and trusted him.

  And in that moment she knew that even if she lost this round, she won.

  It was enough for the last shreds of her self-control to fade away like a mirage in the far distance of her subconscious. She bit her lip to stop from making any sound as every warm, delicate sensation built to a tremendous crescendo before everything turned a blinding white and she dissolved into a million tiny little pieces.

  It felt like hours later when his hand tidied her panties before sliding away. When her breathing returned to normal. When she could see more than a swirl of colours behind her eyelids.

  ‘Are you ready to choose your orders, sir?’ a male voice called from somewhere to Chelsea’s left.

  Her eyes flung open to find Damien leaning back in his chair, cool as you please. ‘Are you ready, Chels?’ he asked.

  He smiled at her then, a smile that would have seemed to any onlooker as though he was politeness himself. But she saw the pulse in his neck throb and his fingers clench the menu.

  She pressed her knees back together and brought herself fully upright. It took for her to lick her lips and blink about a dozen times to collect herself into a position where she could find a word to say, but she got there in the end.

  ‘Steak,’ she said, ignoring her menu. ‘I was promised steak.’

  ‘Twice over,’ Damien said, closing the menu and passing it to the waiter. ‘I’ll have mine rare.’

  ‘How would you like yours cooked, ma’am?’

  ‘Well done for me. To the point of being dangerously dark. Tell the chef to take all the time he needs to cook it.’

  The waiter glanced up at her, then at Damien, the slightest of frowns as he tried to decipher what he was missing in the conversation. But when they continued making eyes at one another across the table he figured it was better left unknown. ‘Very good,’ he said, then walked away.

  Chelsea tugged her skirt back into place with one hand and reached for a glass of water with the other. She took a long sip, not quite knowing where to look. But when her eyes eventually found Damien’s, what she saw there eased her mind.

  His eyes were the colour of a starless midnight sky. His hair ruffled as though he’d just run frustrated fingers through it. He wante
d her even more. And she had the distinct impression this wasn’t even close to being as good as it was going to get.

  She had to take a deep breath before throwing him a quick, ‘So what’s the party trick? I’m still waiting.’

  And with that he burst into laughter. Loud, rolling waves that took the slow burn lingering in her limbs and blew them into the beginnings of a wildfire.

  ‘I’m going to freshen up,’ he said, sliding out from behind the table. But before he left he leaned down to kiss her. Holding her chin with enough force that as his mouth moved over hers she melted in his hold. Their tongues slid past one another. Their body heat intermingled.

  He pulled away looking down into her eyes. ‘Delight,’ he said. ‘An unmitigated delight.’

  Then he was gone, easing past the Ficus and through the labyrinthine tables and out of sight.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  By the time dessert was almost over Damien cleared his throat and Chelsea glanced up at him, playing with the last strawberry, pushing it around with her fork and drowning in his dark eyes and chiselled jaw line.

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin, then said, ‘Well, I for one think this has been a remarkable first date. What do you say to a second?’

  His words hit somewhere deep inside her like a flaming arrow shot from point-blank range. It was enough for her to put her fork down, sit back in her chair, and fold her arms.

  ‘I’m undecided,’ she said. ‘Though they do say it’s the last five pages of a book that sell the next one.’

  ‘Talk about putting pressure on a guy,’ he joked, but for a moment he seemed genuinely surprised that she was keeping her options open. But he recovered remarkably quickly and said, ‘Time to turn the spotlight, I think. I’ve told you far more about my screwball family than you could ever want to know, so now it’s your turn. What’s your family like, apart from felonious?’