Considered. Dismissed. “And?”
“And we’re going on a date. Turns out he wants me to go to his sister’s wedding with him!” Finally she let the glee out and the smile stretched her face. In the moonlight her skin was radiant. Simply, elegantly, radiant.
“You’ve been amazing. Above and beyond. Thank you.” She put her head back on the sofa and gazed at the ceiling. “I was just going to give up and then, what do you know? You were right. It wasn’t that he thought I was a hideous waste of space, he just hadn’t thought of me in that way before.”
Not till he opened his eyes properly anyway. “So what’s next?”
Maya blushed. “I guess I’ll go shopping perhaps. Or you could alter another one of my dresses?”
“I thought running a fashion empire did not a tailor make me.”
She had the good grace to slap a hand over her eyes before she replied. “Sorry. Sorry for that and all the other complaining. You were right about the dress, the flirting, everything.”
“Right about all of it hey?” Dom wasn’t sure what put the words in his mouth, but they were there, ready formed, and all he had to do was let them free. “I’ll probably be right about the kiss then too.”
Maya’s head came up off her fists in surprise. “Kiss? Rick didn’t kiss me. What kiss?”
Dom looked her dead in the eye, leant in and pulled her along the sofa towards him in one easy movement. “This one.” He didn’t force it. Just brushed her lips lightly enough with his to feel the way her head followed, how her mouth opened slightly and how she didn’t stiffen at his touch.
She was warmth, soft delight and his need expanded like the heat in his chest. He’d forbidden himself this kiss, put her off limits because she was working with him. But. But he could no more stop himself than the ocean could stop its waves arriving at the beach outside. Yes. That was what it felt like to kiss her, like being in the ocean. She was invigorating, tingling, perfect. But rather than cooling him down, her heat radiated through his every cell, leaving even his fingertips buzzing and wanting more of her. When she pulled back he felt the loss of her warmth like someone had turned the air con up to full frost mode.
“You can’t just go around kissing me like that.”
“Why not?” he growled onto her lips, not letting go of her waist.
“We’re talking about my going on a date with Prince Surfalot—I mean Rick. We’re talking about me dating someone else. You can’t kiss a girl in the middle of that sort of conversation. Look what happens, you made me mess up his name and everything.”
“Exactly,” he said, hardly drawing back at all.
“Exactly?”
You can’t do this. She’s not yours. He searched for a palatable excuse. “Look what I’ve done to you with barely even a touch. You sure you’re date ready? Ready to take on Prince Surfalot in the kissing department? Don’t want to scare the guy off before you’ve even got going. We did say you needed lesson two. Or are you telling me you already know how to kiss the pants off a guy?”
She bit her lip and, man, Dom was ready to take that lip in his own teeth.
“So?”
She sighed. “You know I’m not the world’s best kisser. I didn’t think you’d remind me though. I thought you were supposed to be building me up, getting my romance confidence back in line after, you know, that guy I dated.”
Damn. He’d just joined the long list of idiots who had crushed her confidence. Double damn. The kerthump in his chest must have been his heart cracking at the hurt in her voice.
“Sorry. That’s not what I meant. I shouldn’t have said it like that. Your idiot of an ex had no grounds calling you a bad kisser,” he said more sternly than he meant to.
“Maybe I am though. I don’t have much to measure it by and if he thought so and you agree, then...”
Another kerthump. Man the woman had no idea how great she really was. “Your lips are the softest thing I have ever touched. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re a bad kisser.”
“Oh.” Her face lifted a little, but not enough to restore Dom’s former bluster. Now what?
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes?”
“To the lesson. To kissing.”
Dominic tightened his grip on her waist. Phew. “You just need confidence. And that I can help with.”
“Right. So what do I do? I mean, what would you want in the perfect kiss?”
Better.
“Look him in the eye.” He tipped up her chin to make sure her eyes were level with his. “Don’t try not to blink or anything forced, but search him out, see what you can find.” Gazing into her green eyes, silvered by the moonlight, Dom could only see the quivering of excitement in Maya. There was no reluctance, no uncertainty, she was all trust. All, ready, trembling, trust.
Hell. “You’re sure you’re okay with this. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Shut up and keep going. Unless you don’t want to?”
Well now he couldn’t stop, could he? “Seeing as this is a first kiss, or at least, your first with meaning, you want to take your time. Make it something you could tell the grandkiddies about. Let your desire flare up so he can see it, open your lips a little, touch him on the cheek.” As he talked, he went through the actions, his fingers tracing the line of her jaw then resting lightly on the hollow beneath her ear. “You don’t want to milk the moment, but you should make him want to kiss you so bad that by the time you close in, he’s entirely yours.”
Watching Maya respond to his treatise did things to Dominic he’d thought he was immune to after his last failed romance. His heart wasn’t supposed to pick up tempo. And it certainly wasn’t supposed to send shivers down his hair follicles to goose his skin. But as her pupils broadened, and her breath hitched, he felt a stirring in his groin that was reassuring. It was almost a relief. Simple lust he could deal with.
“The most important part is you have to want that kiss with your whole body,” he said, relishing the way she moved against his thigh when he said body.
She bit her lip and a fluttering, panting sigh came out through her ready parted mouth.
“Do you want it Maya?”
She nodded.
“Are you sure?”
He waited to see if she’d take the initiative. If she’d dive in and kiss him like every inch of his body was hoping she would, but she didn’t. She held still. Shivering a little in his arms, he could feel the quickened pace of her breath, maybe even her pulse, but she made no move to change places and become the teacher in her own lesson.
“Do you think you can show me how much you want it?”
She shook her head and he raised an eyebrow at her. “This is a participatory lesson sweet cheeks. Contribution is mandatory.”
“I’m afraid if I show you I won’t be able to be slow, like you said.”
Oh but she was too much. Too sweet. Too cute. Too delicious. “Are you afraid you’ll lose control?”
Maya nodded and Dominic smiled. “That’s not a bad thing.”
Again with the biting on her lip. If he wasn’t careful he was going to have to sit on his hands.
Through every sentence, every breath, she’d held his eyes like a good student. Now he dropped his eyes to her mouth and when he flicked back again, there it was; pure, ready need, painted fresh in her beautiful face.
“So what are you going to do next?”
“Now?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Right now.”
“I can’t think about anything except kissing you right now.”
“And you’re just going to sit there and do nothing about it?”
She didn’t respond, but put a hand to his chin. Letting Maya pull him down to her he covered her mouth with his. Her lips were warm, her mouth delicious. Every inch of him felt the kiss: through his blood, over his skin, searing into his brain as the softest, most perfect thing he could remember.
And then as if a switch flicked, everything change
d. She was not soft. She was not gentle. As if they’d unleashed a hunger that had been starved for days, both of them fell into each other. Hands, lips, fingers, everything seemed entwined and hot, ready and willing to be lost in the other.
Easing her mouth open Dominic sought out her tongue with his and rather than being lost and chaste, Maya responded eagerly, letting a little moan free from the back of her throat. She fit so well against his body. So well in his mouth. Dom threaded a hand through the short curls at the back of her neck and drew her even closer. So. Good.
It took everything he had not to slip his other hand down the front of her throat and ease the short sleeves of her dress off her shoulder. He wanted everything that lay under the dress he’d re-tailored. He wanted—he wanted her.
Coming up for air she drew back and put a hand to his chest.
No. Not yet. He wasn’t ready to stop. Not by a long way. But this was a lesson and he was supposed to be the teacher.
“Thanks,” she said with more self-control than he’d grant himself.
He swallowed to make sure that his voice wouldn’t shake with the brute will-power he’d was using to hold himself back. “Thanks for what?”
“For the lesson. It was—no, I’m not going to say anything like that. I don’t need you thinking I’m cheesy as well as pathetic.”
“I think you’re anything but pathetic.” He managed even thought his body was screaming for her to shut up and keep kissing him. Dom took a breath and tucked a stray short curl behind her ear.
She didn’t move towards his hand, didn’t move in to kiss him again like he hoped. He straightened a little. “That’s it?”
“Well I don’t want to take advantage.”
She was worried about taking advantage. If he hadn’t been so strung out, Dom would have laughed. “There’s no point in doing anything half assed. If you’re going to do this, you may as well do it right.”
This biting her lip thing was driving him crazy. Almost without thinking, his finger went to her lip and tugged it away from her teeth.
“I know I’m not your usual type. You don’t have to keep kissing me because you feel sorry for me. I’m starting to get it.”
“You think I want you to stop?” The heat that had begun pooling in his groin when he started all this lesson talk might as well have had a liter of petrol poured onto it and a flame added. If she didn’t notice the huge erection that had tented his pants, the woman needed glasses.
“You don’t?”
Dom grinned and wrapping both hands around her waist, scooped her up and onto his lap so she straddled him. “Does it feel like I want you to stop?”
“Oh.”
This time her kisses stole the last vestiges of his will-power away and Dom let his hands rake down the length of her bared back. What a stroke of genius cutting all that useless fabric away from such a delicious woman. He slipped his thumbs under the shorn hem so that his whole hands cupped the warm skin of her lower back. He kissed a trail down her neck and she threw her head back, arching against his erection with perfect timing.
Must. Not. Ever. Stop.
Sliding his hands up the sides of her torso, the pads of his thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts, bra-less with such a revealing dress. She whimpered.
Too. Many. Clothes.
The phone trilled into the moonlit room and Dom would have pulled it from the socket and thrown it into the ocean if it hadn’t meant taking his hands off Maya. “Leave it.”
It rang and rang, and Dominic felt Maya’s concentration wavering. Disentangling a hand from her dress, he cupped her face and pulled her towards him.
The phone rang out, but almost immediately started up again.
“Maybe you should get it. It might be important,” she said.
Not nearly as important as this. Trying hard to keep the growl out of his voice, Dom leant over and grabbed the handset perched on the small table beside the sofa.
Oh. Crap. The voice of his ex on the phone was like a bucket of ice water.
“Did you not get my messages? I’ve been calling you all day.”
Dom looked at Maya. His annoyance must have read on his face because she started untangling herself from his lap and pulling her dress back into some semblance of order. Crap again. “No. I had my phone on silent. I’ve been in meetings. I’m going to have to call you back. No one’s died have they?” he gave her a split second to respond, then was satisfied it wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait. “Okay. Good. Speak soon.” He hung up. “Maya.”
She looked at him, wide eyed, the full implication of what had just passed between them clear in her face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey.” He was at her side in an instant. “Don’t be sorry. I’ve made it my policy to never worry about regrets. Live life and all that.” Whether what had just happened was a good idea or not, it had happened, so now he would deal with it.
“But that’s not what I do. I make plans. I follow them. Then I don’t have to worry about having regrets in the first place.”
“Life isn’t all about having the perfect plan.”
She paused and he thought, just for a moment, she might fall into him again and his heart stuttered a little. Excited? Enthralled? Maybe.
Maya looked past him and he saw the contrition in her face, the dismay at letting herself lose control obvious in the lines around her mouth. He wanted to put a hand to her cheek to smooth the hurt away. But that would only freak her out more.
“You probably have work to do.” Maya said tentatively and she was right. He did. He thought about his ex, Giselle. Hanging up on her was never a good idea. She might be colder than steak in a freezer, but she was smart. And she still worked for him.
He stood. There was never going to be anything real between him and Maya, not when she was in love with someone else. She would be leaving to go back to the States at the end of the month anyway. His body was still clanging with desire but he forced himself to ignore it. He wasn’t going to pursue her. Time to back off and get back to work.
Chapter Eight
Oh. My. God. “I shouldn’t have got carried away like that.” Maya could barely look at Dominic.
“It’s me who should be apologizing.”
His voice wasn’t quite flippant, but it certainly didn’t reflect her awkwardness. “But it was supposed to be a lesson. I totally took it to the next level.”
“Give yourself a break. I told you you needed to practice kissing the pants off a guy and you took me at my word. Full marks and a gold star for effort.”
He was okay about it. That was good wasn’t it? That he wasn’t all strung up and about to burst a blood vessel over accidentally making out with an employee? Making out hard. Maya tried to calm the incessant beating of her heart and stop the impulse to hide her face in her hands.
“Hey, it’ll be okay. We’re both grown-ups, we can deal with a little thing like a kiss gone wild.”
But what if she didn’t want it to stop? What if that kiss was the best of her life? Ever. Finally she allowed herself a glance at Dominic. Bad idea. His intense focus on her made her very toes—tingle! Gah. You, girlfriend, are a sap. How could he be so perfectly self-assured? She shut her eyes a moment. Could it be all an act? Or was he really just okay with all of this? Hell, maybe he’d done it all before.
When she opened her eyes again he was still there but he wasn’t looking directly at her. Phew. The kiss was good. Too good to be a fluke. Too good to contemplate never experiencing again. Maya watched the moonlight coat his side profile. He’d been so kind to her. The dresses, the coaching, the gentle compliments and faith that she was the best of the best at what she did.
Coaching. That was what this was remember? He knew she was after Rick, that she had a plan mapped out all ready to go. She wasn’t after hot-mess-lust and crazy energy. She wanted stability. Security. A safe, sensible life.
All this was just a favor. No wonder Dominic was okay about it all. He’d be walking away soon with the
satisfaction of a job well done. But it didn’t feel like a favor. No, and he hadn’t seemed to want that kiss to stop any more than she had. If the phone hadn’t rung—Maya closed her eyes again at the thought.
“Hey, that’s either an awfully long blink, or you’re doing that little kid thing of pretending no one can see you if you can’t see them.”
And he was going to be all sweet and funny too? No. It didn’t matter. Dominic was never going to be the man she ended up with. All that would happen if she let herself get deeper embroiled with him was she’d get hurt. Again. She needed safe. She wanted safe. All her life she’d been working towards being with a man like Rick. That was her plan and this was not the time to change it. “I think I better hit the hay.” She stood up before he could do anything like touch her and send the quivering mess of her insides into full jelly mode. “I’ll have one on one meetings with Holokai and the others set up for tomorrow. Thanks again for letting me stay. I’ll sort everything out with the hotel in the morning.” Without waiting for his reply, she escaped to her new bedroom, closed the door and threw herself onto the bed.
Her dreams were in over-saturated color. The reds of a Warhol soup can, the yellows of a Keith Haring action man. But the central figures were no more pop art motifs than they were soft and gentle. Rick and Dominic sat on deck chairs overlooking an empty beach.
Rick beckoned to her and she felt the sand under her toes, heard the rush of the ocean waves as she walked towards him. His shirt was off and with the sun both setting and rising, a golden glow surrounded him as if he were oiled and made of something other than flesh. Something Michelangelo would have envisaged and relished bringing to life.
“Maya.” She turned and Dominic put out a hand to her. He too was shirtless and his chest, oh man, broad and toned and delicious, his chest was Matthew McConnaghey on a fine, surf soaked day. But rather than him seeming impossible or out of her league, the sun on his skin made him warm. Probably helped by his welcoming smile.
Both men had their attention firmly focused on her. Rick was every inch the surf star that she’d built his brand up to be. Even more than in real life, he was a surfette fantasy made real, with the body, the tan and the self-composed grin to match. But she knew that under all that, the man was gentle and caring, would look after her as they built a life together. She knew all that. Didn’t she? Her dream-self tried staring at him to see if his future would reveal itself. To see if his new interest in her was skin-deep or ran to the full extent of her own imaginings. He stayed solid. Steady. Safe. No flicker of what might lie in store. Behind him houses built themselves up on the sandy beach, defying gravity and reason. He gestured to them and she realized he’d built her a home.
Making over Maya (Hot Tide Book 2) Page 10