He’d want to take her to bed tonight. She’d let him, but what did that make her, lucky or the dictionary definition of a slut?
This time would be different. Apart from the setting being the polar opposite. This time she’d have questions and expect answers. Starting with his name and finishing with how in hell she could get to see him again.
8. Knowing
“See a person's means. Observe his motives. Examine that in which he rests.” — Confucius
Outside the Palace Suite, he paused. He half expected her to let him stand at the door all night. He had his own swipe key. But despite how keen he was to see her again, letting himself in would be just wrong. Not that caring about rights and wrongs was high on his agenda. He’d left the agenda well and truly behind.
He pressed the bell and waited. Rested against the doorjamb and closed his eyes, remembering what she felt like in his arms. How her mouth tasted, how she made a criminally hot little gasp when he’d played his fingers inside her that had him straining to keep things from going too far. He’d had enough of that though. If she let him in there’d be no holding back.
He planned a quick seduction, and a long night of making her breathless, of forgetting the world and all the elements of it he needed to control.
If she opened the door.
He heard the slide and click of the lock and straightened up. She was standing in doorway in a simple green dress, her golden hair all tangling down round her shoulders and over her back. A lick of lipstick that wouldn’t last the greeting he wanted to give her.
“God, you’re gorgeous.”
She laughed and waved a hand to usher him in. “You’re not terribly discerning. You’d like me in a towel.”
That made him cough. He’d made it into the lounge room. He turned back to her. “I’d fucking love you in a towel. Is that your opening offer?”
She stopped in the entrance hall. “No!” Hands up, eyes wide. “No. My opening offer is an exchange of pleasantries.”
“Sure. Nice weather. Hot and steamy. It’ll be hot and steamy tomorrow too. Your turn.”
She laughed again. She came into the room and sat on the white sofa, pointed to the single chair next to it. “No. I want us to talk.”
He sat on the sofa beside her. “I don’t have a problem with that. There are things I want to say to you and I want the lights on.”
She stood, stepped up to the big glass coffee table and poured two flutes of champagne. “You’re deliberately trying to provoke me.”
“That’s a distinct possibility.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Lois, you can call me anything you want, but for God’s sake do it over here.” He stroked his hand over the soft white suede. He knew he was acting predatory. Not to would be a lie.
She regarded him over the rim of the flute. “I want to know your name.”
“Do you?”
She took a step further away. She wasn’t going to hand him a glass. “You say that as though it’s a strange request.”
“Not strange. Just unnecessary.”
“You don’t think it’s necessary for me to know your name?”
“My name is irrelevant.”
“You’re not serious?”
He stood, claimed his glass but let her keep her distance. “Look I understand what you’re saying.” He took a sip. Champagne wasn’t his thing, but it was a better fit with his ambitions tonight. More urbane than the sixteen year old single malt Scotch he preferred. “You want to know who I am before you let me inside your body again.”
He saw the shock of his words in the way her shoulders shifted, the flare of her eyes and the parting of her lips. She was taken aback, but she wasn’t shut down. She took a sip. He wanted his tongue to follow where the bubbles led.
“I, ah. Yes, that’s not unreasonable.”
“Just redundant. You already know who I am.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you want to know who I am?”
“Gorgeous, I know who you are.”
“Oh boy.” Said dramatically with an eye-roll that made him laugh. She refilled her glass. Ignored him. “You don’t know anything about me. How old I was when I lost my virginity is, to use your word, irrelevant, to who I am today.”
“You think? I think it’s very relevant. I think you still feel bad about it. About how unfair it was; the double standard. I think you still blame yourself and you’re worried even now about what I think of you because of what you let me do to you last night and what you’re going to let me do to you for the next twenty-four hours.”
She breathed out hard. Put the empty flute down on the table with a sharp crack of glass on glass. She’d guzzled it. This whole deal was out of character for her. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you. You’re the woman whose mother was missing in action. Whose father had no idea what to do with a girl child. Who let her grow up thinking she wasn’t good enough, smart enough, tough enough to make it in the only profession that counted as important to him. Who made sure she did it the hard way so she’d fail quick and it wouldn’t reflect badly on him.”
She glared at him. A thousand pinprick stings in that look. “That’s not true.”
“It’s not?”
“You’re speculating.”
“Maybe,” he conceded, taking another sip, letting her examine him and trying not to get too heated by the way she raked her eyes over his body. “But I know you. You’re driven. You love a challenge, the chase. The very idea you can make a difference turns you on.
“You get high on the job and all you need is the next big story. You don’t care about the things most women care about. Not shopping and fashion; you bought that dress today, when you knew I was coming—you’d be in jeans or your work clothes otherwise. Not marriage and babies. You want your life to mean something, to stand for something and then maybe your father will love you enough.”
He sat forward, watching the expressions ripple across her lovely face: intrigue, resentment, offence. “Am I just speculating?”
She’d turned away as his words hit. She watched the boats on the Huangpu.
“That’s not all.” He put his glass down and moved to her side. “You’re passionate, intelligent, fucking sexy, and you don’t know how much you affect me.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her towards him. She met his eyes. “You’re alone because you scare most men away, because you won’t pretend, because you tell the truth, because you aren’t their mother, their housekeeper or their whore.” She closed her eyes, her breath was a sigh. “You don’t scare me, Lois.”
Her eyes opened and her head came up. She glared at him like she could see every lie he’d ever told. It almost stopped him.
“But you don’t hesitate to treat me like your whore.” She stepped out of his hold and stalked about the room. “This suite, the flowers, the summons to dinner.” She kept her voice level, she wasn’t angry, but she was pushing back. She owned who she was, but she wasn’t for sale. She was going to throw him out. It was hard to work out if he loved that more than the idea of staying the night with her.
“I meant to treat you like a queen. I meant to make you feel good. I’m rich. The suite, the roses, they’re nothing. If I wanted a whore I could lift an eyebrow in the lobby and I’d have my pick. I’ve had whores, good whores, for years. That’s how I’ve lived. I want you. You’re real to me. I thought you wanted me too.”
She considered him. Such a cool appraisal with those big round eyes. He kept still and let her make the next move. Not that leaving was an option; now that he’d seen the strength in her, been reminded of her composure, and comfort with own skin.
“You meant to buy me.”
A statement of fact so obviously true he had to laugh.
“You think it’s funny?”
“I think it’s practical.”
“Mercenary.”
“See, you do know me.”
“You should leave.”
>
“I should, for more reasons than you can know. I need something first.”
She looked around as though trying to figure out what the object in that sentence was. “It’s all yours. Take whatever you want.”
He felt the kick in that invitation in the soles of his feet, in the tension in his shoulders and the coil in his guts. They were standing close, but not close enough for him to touch her without his sudden movement giving her a reason to shift away. If he touched her the way he wanted to, all pretence of polite civility would be yesterday’s exchange rate, and he couldn’t touch her unless she wanted it too without it making him a complete brute.
Fuck that.
He jerked her to him and she braced a hand on his chest to hold him away. He wanted to eat the wet shimmer of pink off her lips. He kept his grip on her arm light. She didn’t push, she didn’t struggle, but her breath was coming in shallow and fast.
Ah fuck. He let go with a grunt and stepped back. It wasn’t going to stop at one kiss. Better to get out now. He was across the room, frustration an ache in his chest before she spoke.
“Don’t go.”
He bit down on his back teeth, ground the words out. “Don’t ask me to stay out of misplaced guilt. You can keep the suite. It’s a comp from the hotel. I thought you’d enjoy it. It was going to go empty.”
“Is that the truth?”
“It’s the truth.”
“So stay.”
He took a couple of steps back towards her. Her expression gave nothing away. She’d be a shit hot poker player. “Why am I staying?”
“Because I don’t care what your name is, and I want you to.”
God, he might expire in those eyes, at the touch of her warm soft skin. “I’m not just staying for dinner.”
She wasn’t smiling, but she reached up and undid a button at the neck of the dress. “I don’t intend wearing this all night.”
He saw cleavage, the edge of a plain black bra. He saw the night spread out as a feast of pleasure. “Is that a dare?”
Now she laughed. “No, it’s a fact.”
“I need to know another fact.”
“You don’t get my name unless I get yours.”
“No names. No recrimination. No regrets.”
“Spoken like a gun runner.”
He huffed a laugh. “I’m not a pirate. I need to know where you draw the line. What’s too much?”
“Are you clean?”
“Right.” He grinned. There was no bullshit to this girl. “Yes. I have to be to use the services of a very fine pleasure house.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and toggled the screen, used the Wi-Fi in the room to print the report. It identified him by number for privacy reasons, but it’d have to do.
She spun around looking for the source of the whirring, walked across to the desk in the corner and picked up the print out. “Very efficient.” Her eyes went down. “But hardly current.”
“It’s current. It’s been a while.” She didn’t hide her surprise. “Are you on birth control?”
“Yes. Pills in the drawer by the bed.”
Roadblocks cleared, he was starting to feel light-headed. “What can’t I do to you?”
She closed her eyes, swayed slightly. This was getting to her too. “Don’t hurt me.”
Fuck, that gave him a lot of room to play in. And hurting her was the furthest thing from his mind. He wanted to make her scream, but not from pain. He knew men who got off on that, women who craved it. Not him. Life was painful enough. True pleasure too infrequent.
He moved to the bedroom doorway. No more hesitation. He was insensible to anything but his lust now. He wanted her writhing under him on the big bed, the city spread out behind her. He pulled his polo shirt over his head, and tossed it on the sofa. His body wasn’t pretty, but he was in good shape. Her eyes popped at the full view of the scar on his pec, the thick burn mark across his ribs and the tattoo banding his bicep.
“We eat later.”
They faced off, a mass of expensive furniture between them, but she was already inside all of his senses. His fingers tingled. He could smell the roses, but knew she’d smell of vanilla, her own scent, not bottled perfume. There was something easy listening playing on the stereo but it was the wrong mood. It should’ve been the organised chaos of heavy metal to match the thumping of his heart. This wasn’t going to be a delicate moment. It wasn’t going to be forgettable. It was Jimi Hendrix or Nine Inch Nails.
The anticipation of stripping her naked and tasting her skin was making it hard to stand still. But the way she was looking at him, like she knew this was her last chance to change her mind, kept him fastened to the plush pile.
She moved, skirting around the sofa, stopping just out of reach. “What if I hurt you?”
“Not possible.”
“I don’t mean physically.”
Could she hurt him in other ways? Had any woman truly hurt him? Only Jiao came close, but that was absence, not hurt—a habit lost, not another permanent scar.
“Not possible.”
“Cocky.”
He grinned. It was the perfect description.
“Arrogant.”
Now she was really warming up. “You know me.”
“Not all of you.”
He unlatched his belt, popped the button on his chinos. “I’m not stopping you trying.”
Her hand came up to the buttons on her dress.
“Leave that for me. Come here,” his voice crackled like he’d been on a three day bender.
“Didn’t anyone teach you ‘please’?”
“It didn’t stick.”
He brought his hand up and curled his fingers in a come here gesture. Her gaze went to his hand, she flushed. Was she remembering what he’d done with those fingers inside her? Was she as aroused as he was? He could be on her in less time than it took to swallow. Instead he turned and walked through the doorway into the bedroom.
9. Liar
“They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” — Confucius
He was a pirate. He was a gun runner. He was an opium pusher and a slave master. He was everything in a man Darcy normally avoided. Arrogant didn’t come close to describing him. Cocky was an endearment. But she could hardly breathe from the excitement of hearing the thud of his shoes hitting the floor in the bedroom, and the sound his zip made as he ripped it down.
He expected her to come to him, but he was letting her choose.
Hell—no he wasn’t.
He’d wound her up like a toy programmed to respond to his commands. Knowing that should’ve made her feel sick. She didn’t hand her independence to anyone.
She heard a drawer open and close. He’d checked for her slide of pills.
He’d lied.
He had to know her name. She’d told him where she worked. He’d have used that. Figured out the rest. A man this used to being in control wouldn’t risk not knowing who he’d put up in his complimentary suite.
She went to the doorway of the bedroom. The quilt was puddled in a cloud on the floor. His pants were draped over the arm of a chair. He was propped up on the pillows, in the middle of the bed where she’d slept last night, the sheet pooled around his waist. She couldn’t look away from the straight line of his broad shoulders, the hard ridge of muscle in his chest that fell to ripples down his abdomen.
The two bedside lights blazed and he looked at her with pure expectation in his eyes.
“You’re a liar.”
He didn’t expect that, but only a flick of his chin gave it away. “Everyone lies, gorgeous. What do you think I lied about?”
“You know my name.”
“I know a whole hell of a lot more dangerous information about you than your name. I know what you look like when you come. Like you could fly.”
He spoke like a poet, like a lawyer. Like a man who knew the measure of words, not one who’d struggled to learn to read. He didn’t deny it. He was a liar and God knows what else, but
she couldn’t wait to crawl across the wide expanse of bed and have his hands on her.
“I didn’t lie to you about anything that can hurt you, gorgeous.”
“What did you lie about?”
“I’m a gun runner.”
“I’m serious.”
“No lie, you’re beautiful.”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Not from where I’m sitting. Are you going to let a little thing like me being untrustworthy stop me from making love to you?”
“I should.”
“You won’t.”
“Are you always so sure of yourself, of what other people will do?”
He didn’t answer, but a lopsided grin spread across his face.
“I think I hate you.”
“Not yet you don’t. Come here now.”
“It’s too bright.”
“I told you I wanted to see you.”
“You gave me darkness last night.”
“That was last night. I’m a liar and I’m inconsistent.”
“I need my head read being here with you.”
He sat forward, braced on his hand, the muscles in his forearms bunching. “Do you want me to go?”
Darcy’s tongue was cement rendered to her palette. She forced a tight instruction out. “Stop.” She could do this if she knew he’d listen. If she had some control of her own.
He sat back, stretched his arms out along the line of pillows with a lazy grin of triumph fixed on his face.
She moved to the side of the bed. “Arms behind your head.”
He laughed, voice thick and smooth like heavy satin, but complied, lacing both hands behind his head, and slumping down on the pillows.
“Is it a problem I’m giving the orders?”
“It’s an unexpected pleasure.”
“I want to touch you. I don’t want you to move.”
“And what do I get for being so co-operative?”
“Me.”
“Gorgeous, I’ve had you since the virgin chicken.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“That’s why you’re wet for me. Strip.”
Detained Page 6