She’d gone back to rummaging through her purse. Correction. Checking her phone. He moved the fall of her hair behind her shoulder and discovered her scowling at the small screen. “I’m taking it as a signal I need to ask a few questions, so this next round, when you scream my name, you’re not polluting that beautiful mouth with a lie.”
That got her attention. She raised her head and looked at him—a distinctly hopeful look. “Next round?”
“We said ‘all night.’” He leaned in and nibbled the curve of her neck, and got a shiver and a giggle in return. Yep, definitely ticklish. She was sensitive as hell. Everywhere. And she enjoyed being kissed. Touched. Stimulated. She’d soaked up all of it like a flower soaked up sunlight. There had been nothing contrived about her responses, until the moment of truth—or deceit, in her case. His instincts told him her head had gotten in the way, not her body. The electronic mood-killer in her hand hadn’t helped, either. “I’ve got plenty of time. You?”
She glanced at the screen of her phone again and then flashed it at him to show him the clock. “Hours.”
“Awesome.” He licked the skin he’d just tickled and ran his palm along the inside of her thigh. “I’m sure you have all kinds of responsibilities back in Siberia you need to monitor, but maybe for the next few hours you can turn the phone off? I won’t tell anyone.”
Her head tilted to the side, giving him access to her neck, and her knee inched closer to his, giving him access to a second chance. “Me, either,” she said, and pressed the button to power it down. When the screen went black, she dropped the phone into her purse.
Better already. He leaned in, biting her earlobe while stroking his way up her thigh. She let out a breathy moan and scooted to the edge of the seat.
He stilled his hand. “You like to be touched?” He already knew she did, but he wanted to hear her say it. Hell yes, he’d taken this personally.
“I have kind of a thing for—” She broke off when he lifted the purse from her lap and tossed it on the side table. “For hands. I noticed yours at the bar.”
His hands? Women occasionally complimented him on how he used his hands, but the look of them? Never. “What did you notice about them?”
She took one in both of hers. “They’re big.” She turned his hand palm side up and traced a line from the tip of his middle finger to his wrist. “Long fingers. Wide palm.” She turned it over and ran her thumb along a raised extensor tendon. “Strong and deliberate. As soon as I saw these hands, I wanted them on me. Touching me however they saw fit. I just wanted to feel.”
She wanted to be held. Handled. She might have fed him a line about her identity, and his, for that matter, but this right here wasn’t a line. He turned his hand over so it covered hers and closed his fingers. “That’s convenient, because the first time I saw you, I wanted my hands on you.” He slipped one arm around her shoulders, the other under her legs, and hauled her onto his lap.
She relaxed against him and lifted her face toward his. “Did you?”
In answer, he glided his palm up her ribs until he covered her breast. She arched into his touch. He kneaded and squeezed, increasing the intensity until she couldn’t keep still. “What do you think?”
Black lashes shielded her eyes. She turned in his arms until her head lolled against his collarbone. “I can’t think.”
He flexed his shoulder to bring her lips closer and claimed her mouth. At the same time, he eased his hand into the juncture of her thighs and cupped her. She rocked into his touch with increasing impatience, but he didn’t move, didn’t accept the unspoken invitation to part those velvety folds and delve inside. “How else do you like to be held? Tell me what you want.”
“I want you.”
“Be specific.”
“You’re so mean,” she breathed. “Are you going to make me beg?”
He ran his finger along the soft seam. “I’m just trying to keep you honest. Where would you like me to touch you next? Is your clit pouting for attention, or would you prefer I slide two fingers inside this poor, deprived pussy?”
“I want…oh God, I want—” A buzz interrupted her heartfelt request. He stilled. Fuck.
“I turned it off,” she nearly shouted, to God, or fate, or Apple. “Why is the damn thing still alive?”
He kissed the corner of her mouth, her cheek, and slowly released her breast. “It’s mine. I’m sorry. I have to check it.”
“Now?” She rolled her hips in a nonverbal demand.
If it had been anyone but the hospital, he would have ignored it. But it was the hospital, and he’d had two especially tricky patients come through the ER this afternoon, either one of which could have given rise to this call. He smoothed his thumb along the velvety strip, reluctant to stop touching her. “Just a check.”
She gave a long-suffering sigh, but shifted off his lap. He leaned forward to snag his phone out of the pile of clothes he’d abandoned less than thirty minutes ago. The message confirmed his worst suspicions. Family members of one of the patients he’d admitted had arrived. The patient was an eighty-six-year-old female suffering from complications of dementia, and not likely to regain consciousness. They had questions, and he was the best source of information about her condition upon arrival.
No, he wasn’t on call, but he could be there in thirty minutes. The right thing to do was go in and offer whatever information he could to help the woman’s family come to terms with a difficult situation.
“You really are going to make me beg, aren’t you?” He looked over to find her staring at him with a pained smile on her face. “NASA emergency?”
“I hate to say it, Czarina, but I have to go.” Forcing himself to his feet, he added a lame, “I’m sorry,” and reached for his pants. He was sorry. Walking away from her was harder than he expected. Some of that was his ego, which balked at not delivering on the screaming orgasms, but some of the sorry stemmed from the fact that he’d had a good time. She was an entertaining bundle of contradictions. Bluntly up-front about what she wanted, but not above resorting to bald-faced lies to get it. A woman game for an anonymous night of fun with a guy she’d never see again, who preferred to fake an orgasm rather than wound his pride…or admit she needed more to get her there. Somehow she managed to be sweet despite the subterfuge, even when he’d called her on her bullshit.
As if to prove his impression, she reclined against the chaise. “It’s okay. I understand.”
It wasn’t okay. It sucked, and she didn’t really understand, because she didn’t know any of the underlying details. But instead of having a completely justified meltdown over him leaving her hanging, or demanding to know why, she simply trusted he had his reasons. She snuggled onto her side to watch him dress, unaware of what a temptation she made with one leg draped over the other and her cheek resting on her folded hands. The position turned her body into a study of curves and shadows. So fucking sexy. Sexier still because it wasn’t the least bit contrived. She was just trying to get comfortable. Probably counting down the seconds until he left and she could take matters into her own hands.
The thought sparked a flare of something hot and sharp in his gut. Not lust—at least not completely. He wanted that orgasm. Wanted to be the one to give it to her. Wanted to witness it. He pulled on his pants, ruthlessly shoving his evolving hard-on to the side so he could fasten them. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“If you don’t usually come during intercourse, why were you so dead set on getting down to it, first thing?”
A blush spread across her cheeks. He was a prick for making her uncomfortable, but she looked so adorable all pink and flustered, he couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry. He picked up his shirt and then sat down next to her on the chaise.
“That was your fault.”
“Mine? I’m not the one who asked someone to take his big dick and use it to give me a soul-deep, hurts-so-good, cry-for-mercy orgasm.”
“No, but you’re the one with the b
ig dick.” She pushed herself into a sitting position and crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t explain it without sounding stupid, but when you stripped down… No.” She shook her head. “Before then. Maybe even as early as when I first saw you in the bar—I got really hot watching you. The way you moved. Your voice. You gave me this restless feeling, like an ache, in here.” She ran her hand low over her abdomen. “Instead of backing off as we talked, it got stronger. Heavier and…emptier. I’m not sure a guy would understand.”
Maybe not the empty part, but he understood all about heavy and aching. This conversation was bringing him a whole new level of understanding. He didn’t dare touch her, but he nodded.
“Anyway,” she recrossed her arms and went on, “this kind of ache is hard to reach. I mean…” She stared at her toes. “I have my ways for easing it, but it’s like tickling yourself, you know? You can run your fingers over the soles of your feet, and you’ll feel a little tingle, but you’ll never lose control like you can if someone else does it.”
He nodded. “Your mind anticipates the stimuli and suppresses the response.”
“Exactly. It’s pretty hard to get swept away in my own arms. Especially lately.”
Now he did touch her, just the tip of his finger along one rigid shoulder. “What’s up lately?”
“Stress.” She relaxed her shoulders and laughed. “Siberia’s been a shit-storm. Part of the reason for this trip was to get away from all that, but the sources of my stress are proving surprisingly persistent. Tonight, the idea of handing myself over and letting someone fill me until there wasn’t room for anything else sounded like the perfect way of escaping for a few hours. I thought that might work. I might be able to block everything else out and just lose myself in the moment. No complications. No messy reality to ruin things. I wanted to give it a shot.”
She was a woman on vacation, not a patient in his ER. Her stress-induced inability to climax wasn’t his to diagnose, but damn if he didn’t want to solve this for her. Badly. “How long are you in town?” Holy shit. Where had that come from?
Her gaze flickered to his. After a brief silence, during which he could practically hear her debating whether to tell him the truth, she said, “I leave Sunday morning.”
Six days. Not even a week. Plenty of time to work on her little stress problem, and send her home to—ha-ha—Siberia with a smile on her face. He tugged his shirt on. “Give me six days, and I’ll give you the soul-deep, hurts-so-good, pray-for-mercy orgasm you’re craving. Guaranteed.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Guaranteed? You’re awfully sure of yourself, sir.”
“So sure, I’m willing to make you a bet. After you’re done praying for mercy, Czarina, you’re going to tell me your real name. Those are the stakes.” Okay. So that was new data. Apparently he wasn’t cool with fake orgasms or fake names.
“I tell you my name if you win?” She pulled her knees up to her chest and draped her arms around them. “What do I get if I win?”
“In this situation, if you win, you lose—which is not going to happen—but for the sake of parity, if I haven’t fucked the ache out of your hard-to-reach spots by the end of this week, we keep names out of it.”
He watched her face, looking for a clue to her thoughts. She dragged her lower lip through her teeth. “One caveat.”
Inside, he pumped a fist. Outwardly, he smiled. “Name it.”
“I can only give you five dates. I have plans Saturday night.”
“Fine.” Disappointing, actually. He had plans for Saturday night, too, but he’d have canceled his blind date in an instant if she’d been free, though he couldn’t explain why. Five dates would be four more than he needed, not to mention four more than he’d felt compelled to spend with anyone in a long time. “I have a caveat, too.”
She rested her chin on her knees. “Name it.”
He brought his face close to hers while he sneaked a hand into the space between her heels and her backside. “For the next five days, nobody touches this”—he stroked a finger along the silky path he was placing off-limits—“except me.”
“Ohh…kaaay.” She pressed her forehead to her knees for a long beat and then raised her head. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”
He brought another finger into play. Her lips parted, and her pupils expanded. Hell, he was going to give her the best vacation of her life. “None of this.”
The blush made an encore appearance, extra bright this time. “N-not a problem.”
“This rule applies to you, too, Czarina. Understand? No touching yourself here, or here, or even here.”
Her eyelids fluttered. She licked her lips. “I…Lord…how would you know if I cheated?”
He closed his mouth over hers and kissed her damp lips at the same time he closed his thumb and forefinger over the bundle of nerves Mother Nature had designed to help her enjoy sex. Want it. Need it. “I’ll know.” He squeezed firmly enough to make her gasp and clutch his shoulders. “I know exactly how ripe and ready this little clit is. Over the next five days it’s only going to get riper, and readier, unless you sneak in some relief behind my back. So here’s the deal, Czarina. For the next five days, all this is mine.”
Chapter Four
“I called last night. You didn’t answer. Where were you?”
Arden stepped to the side of the palm-lined path leading to the main entrance of the resort to let a young Japanese couple pass. They walked arm in arm, smiling and whispering to each other, lost in their own world.
Meanwhile, she stood in the middle of what had, until recently, been an upscale singles paradise, getting the third degree via phone from her father. There was something wrong with this picture. She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and squinted at the gently swaying palms. Very wrong.
“I turned in early.” True, though not technically the reason she’d ignored his calls.
“It was barely nine your time.”
She refused to argue this. In her younger years, Luc had been too busy overseeing his empire to be bothered with her comings and goings. Now that he had the time, and—inexplicably—the inclination, she was way past the age of feeling compelled to account to a parent for every moment of her day. “Dad, what do you want?”
“Kindly remind your mother to refrain from using the corporate account for her personal travel. Attending a tennis tournament in Palm Springs is not a business expense.”
Arden sighed. “I think it was a golf tournament, actually.” Acting as go-between for her mother and father was another source of stress, though this one she should have been used to. Luc and Sonja got along better if they stayed out of each other’s ways, and she’d been recruited to the role of enabler a long time ago. Rafe did many things well, but he wasn’t going to manage their parents’ dysfunctional relationship. That chore landed primarily on her.
Her father greeted the reply with silence, and of course, she relented. “All right. I’ll remind her next time I speak with her.”
“Thank you. Now, I also have some questions about the amenities you recommended for the standard guest suites. Do you have a copy of the list?”
“Not in front of me, no.” She hadn’t “recommended” anything. She’d sent a request for a purchase order to St. Sebastian’s accounting office. After negotiating long-distance for the better part of a month with a Maui-based cosmetics company, and meeting with the management in person today, she’d finalized a deal that would stock every guest suite at the resort with luxurious, locally produced body and bath products. “And I’m on my way out for a few hours, so my time is limited. Are your questions quick?”
“The shampoo—”
“It’s not shampoo.” And this was a perfect example of why selecting guest room amenities was not something they did by committee. Choosing these products was her job. She did it well, and stayed on budget…mostly. “It’s a ninety-nine point eight percent natural, environmentally sound, specially blended hair cleansing product.”
&
nbsp; “Pardon me. It’s also ten dollars per one-ounce bottle. Too much to spend on something that ends up down a drain. Shall we replace the toilet paper with dollar bills and let our guests flush them down the toilet?”
An ominous pressure settled across her forehead. The cost would have been higher had she not negotiated a volume discount. He should be commending her on the coup of securing such an exclusive product line at an advantageous price. “A standard room costs seven hundred dollars a night. At that level, guests expect luxury in every detail of their experience. If the shampoo reminds them of something they can get off a drugstore shelf at home, they start to wonder why they didn’t stay at the Four Seasons.”
Hopefully the possibility of comparing unfavorably with the competition would quiet her father, because the company in question had already committed to increase production and create co-branded product packaging based on her order. She shouldn’t even be having this conversation. The only person entitled to question her choices at this point was Rafe.
“We have verified the necessity of this expense?”
“Of course.” The pressure decided to nest at the back of her head, a dull, heavy dragon with restless talons. She walked through the lobby to the front entrance and spied Mr. Skyrider parked under the pillared carport, behind the wheel of a convertible black Jeep Wrangler. Dark sunglasses sat atop windblown hair. He looked up from his phone at that moment, and… Howdy stranger. Come here often? He was clean-shaven. Her lips tingled with a sudden, almost unmanageable urge to trail along his smooth jaw. She took a deep breath, and her headache subsided. “Dad, I’ve got to go.”
“I have more questions, and another item I need you to relay your mother —”
“Later.” She disconnected, and then, with Rider’s eyes still on her—one brow lifted in silent challenge—she deliberately powered down the phone.
“Drama in Siberia?” he asked as the valet helped her into the car.
She rolled her eyes and tossed the phone into her tote bag like she was dropping a mic. “Always.”
Compromised in Paradise (Compromise Me) Page 4