by Kate Hewitt
“You don’t have anything to wear home.”
“I have my coat.”
Jaiven’s gaze swept over her, and she saw the heat flare in his eyes. It still amazed her that he actually desired her. If she hadn’t seen and felt the proud evidence she never would have believed it.
But maybe that was just because despite ten years to get over it, not to mention all the self-help books on female empowerment and a PhD in the politics of gender, she still felt as if she didn’t measure up as a woman. As a person.
Thanks to a husband who had informed her she didn’t—and had shown her in ways she couldn’t bear to remember—all too often.
But she wasn’t going to think about Jack now. She’d managed not to think about him for ten years. She’d like to keep that trend going.
“I can’t,” he told her, his voice silky, “allow you to leave here in nothing but that coat.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not safe.”
“I was perfectly safe coming over here.”
“It was early evening, then, and you weren’t trawling the Bronx looking for a cab.”
“I thought you were going to call me a private car.”
“I said I could. But I think I won’t.”
She shook her head, exasperated, and yes, still naked. Still feeling a little embarrassed, now that the flood of confidence-building desire had receded. How repressed was she, that she could not hold a conversation in the nude? It wasn’t even just about body image; it was about herself. Feeling exposed. Bracing herself to be criticized or worse. All those old hang-ups were coming back to haunt her now, and she didn’t like the feeling at all.
“I’ll call myself one then,” she told him. “It’s simpler all around if I go now.”
“Really? Because I think it’s simpler if you stay. I can take you home tomorrow, after I buy you some proper clothes.”
“Buy me clothes?”
“Another one of my fantasies.”
“I can’t imagine shopping is one of your fantasies.”
He smiled and, reaching up with one hand, grabbed her own and tugged her back to the bed. “You’d be surprised.”
She eyed him skeptically. “What about buying a woman clothes appeals to you?” She’d let him pull her onto the bed; she’d even snuggled up next to him and arched like a cat as he smoothed a hand over her body. She was completely spineless. And she felt boneless under his caressing hand, everything in her melting with pleasure.
“Well, let me see…” Jaiven cupped her breast in his palm and Louise squirmed with pleasure. “Seeing you try them on, certainly. Taking them off, definitely. And I’ve never actually had sex in a dressing room before. I think that could be a very interesting experience.”
“In a dressing room?” Louise’s voice ended on a sigh as he bent his head and applied his mouth to her breast. “Is that really a fantasy of yours?”
“It might be now. I have a lot of fantasies when it comes to you, Louise.”
Which seemed incredible, if he really meant it. Maybe it was just the Jaiven Rodriguez version of pillow talk.
And yet, Louise thought before her mind blurred completely, it seemed that flattery would get him everywhere.
Chapter Five
HE’D NEVER HAD a woman stay the night before. He rarely brought women back to his place; the penthouse suite of The Black Book had always suited his purposes admirably.
He was breaking a lot of his rules when it came to Louise Jensen, Jaiven thought ruefully, and not without a small surge of alarm. Rule breaking was dangerous. It could crack open things inside him that made it easier to care, and he couldn’t care. Didn’t want to go down that damaging path. He’d been there before and he’d prefer not to have a return trip, thanks very much.
But he didn’t care about Louise, he decided as he gazed down at her sleeping next to him, her knees nearly brought up to her chest, one hand flung up by her face. He didn’t know her well enough to care about her. They’d had some glorious sex and very little conversation, and that was exactly how he liked it. No danger of falling for someone when you had no idea what was going on in her head.
Except somehow the sex was revealing more of Louise, and maybe even more of himself, than he’d expected, or was comfortable with. Telling someone your fantasies was a little exposing, even if he hadn’t meant it to be. And finding out what Louise’s were…
He didn’t think he’d ever forget the look of panicked determination on her face when she’d thrown open her coat. Or the glare when he’d asked her if she wanted to remove it.
The memory made his mouth twitch in a smile. She’d been magnificent, in all sorts of ways, last night. He hadn’t enjoyed himself, and not just sexually, in a long, long time. He’d actually had fun.
Which made breaking the rules justifiable, in his mind. He was enjoying himself, and he was pretty sure she was too, and yet neither of them were going too deep or engaging emotionally at all.
At least not much.
All right, so he was starting to see how the sex—and the fantasy—was liberating for Louise. How she needed to reclaim her confidence, her boldness and sass. He wondered why and when she’d lost it.
And as for him—she brought up all sorts of feelings in him: protectiveness and admiration and a sense of pride that she needed him, at least for this. But she didn’t really know him, and it needed to stay that way.
Because if she found out…
Well, he just wasn’t going to go there. Ever.
So it was fine, he decided as he smoothed his hand down Louise’s back. She had the softest skin he’d ever touched. Totally fine and completely under control. And he was going to enjoy his time with her to the hilt.
He’d start by waking her up—and he knew just how to do that.
*
Louise woke to Jaiven nuzzling her neck. It was, she decidedly hazily, a very pleasant way to wake up. The next half hour was even more pleasant.
In fact, pleasant didn’t even begin to cover it, she thought when they finally made it downstairs in search of some breakfast. Sex with Jaiven was unbelievable. Incredible. Addictive.
It was going to be hard to give up, she acknowledged, whenever that happened. Probably pretty soon, judging by Jaiven’s track record. She doubted he’d been with a woman for longer than a week. They’d had three days, if she just counted the times when they’d seen each other. That meant possibly just four more encounters. Four more fantasies, if she could think of that many. Maybe Jaiven had something up his sleeve, or maybe he was bored with her already.
He hadn’t been bored a few moments ago, but he’d rolled away from her pretty darn quick and said he was starving.
Now she slid onto a high bar stool as Jaiven moved around the breakfast bar to a state-of-the-art kitchen that looked as if it saw little use.
“I hope you like eggs,” he said as he rummaged through the fridge.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only thing I make.”
“You’re going to cook me breakfast?” She was, stupidly of course, touched.
He poked his head around the stainless steel door of the refrigerator. “I did promise you breakfast.”
A smile tugged at her mouth. “Coffee and a bagel, I thought.”
“I’m out of bagels, but you can have toast with your eggs.”
“You’re too kind,” she teased, and hooked her bare feet around the rungs of the stool, propping her chin in her hands as she watched him cook. She wore one of his T-shirts that came to midthigh; he wore only a pair of navy boxer briefs, leaving the rest of him quite gloriously bare. She’d had ample time to explore his body over their past few encounters, and besides the tattoo and the once-broken nose she’d seen a long, puckered scar along his abdomen. It added to his rough, rugged sexiness, but now she wondered about it. About him.
“So how did you get that scar?”
He glanced down at his middle as if checking it was still there. “This? Reall
y bad shaving accident.”
She chuckled, shaking her head. “Seriously.”
“You’re always so serious.”
“It’s a serious scar.”
He shrugged, his broad back to her as he cracked eggs into a bowl. “Stupid accident, that’s all.”
She heard the faint note of repression in his voice even though he spoke casually, or tried to. Okay, so he didn’t want to talk about his scar. Apparently even that was too personal. Too emotional, maybe. It made her wonder all the more, which of course was both dangerous and stupid. She shouldn’t have engaged him in conversation at all, she supposed, but you couldn’t have sex while making breakfast, and she wanted to talk. She wanted to get to know him just a little, whether that was stupid or not.
“I have a scar,” she said suddenly, and then wondered why on earth she’d mentioned such a thing. She certainly didn’t want to talk about that.
“I know you do,” he answered. He turned back to her with a glint in his eyes as he tossed the eggshells into the trash. “It’s tiny, though, right by your eyebrow.”
She felt as if he’d suddenly swung a magnifying glass onto her. “I didn’t think you’d have noticed.”
“I’ve noticed everything about your body, Louise.” He stirred the eggs and then poured them into the frying pan heating on the stove. “So how did you get it?”
She swallowed, kept her gaze steady, her voice light, or as light as she could make it. “Like you, really. A stupid accident.” At least that’s what she’d told the nurse in the ER. And she’d believed her. Louise wished she hadn’t. Maybe she would have got out earlier, if the nurse had said something. Offered her an escape.
Or maybe she wouldn’t have, because she’d been that stupid. That desperate to be loved.
In any case, she couldn’t really blame anyone but herself, for staying as long as she had.
“We’re both pretty clumsy, I guess,” Jaiven said lightly, and she felt a weird mix of disappointment and relief that he wasn’t going to press. She had no intention of telling him anything about Jack or her marriage, so why even one tiny part of herself wanted him to ask she had no idea.
At any rate, it was clear Jaiven wasn’t going to ask. Didn’t want to know. Which was fine. This was his line in the sand. Breakfast and banter, but that was it.
Good. She was totally on board with that. She really was.
Or so she kept telling herself.
“Eat up,” Jaiven said, and slid a plate piled high with fluffy scrambled eggs and two pieces of toast toward her. He held his own aloft, leaning against the counter as he started to eat.
*
So they both had stupid scars. Jaiven watched Louise dig into her eggs and wondered how she’d really got hers. Not that he intended to ask again. And he had no intention either of saying anything more about his. Stupid accident was one way of looking at it. The worst mistake of his life was another.
Nope, definitely not going there with Louise.
“So, clothes,” he said as he finished his eggs. “We need to get you some. Although generally speaking, I prefer you without.”
“Sadly I can’t go to work butt naked.”
“Couldn’t that be some kind of feminist stance?”
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe back in the bra burning days. Although naked women in the workplace seems like more of a chauvinistic stance, if you ask me.”
“We’d never get any work done then.”
“There’s that, too. And accidents with things like staplers could be really unpleasant.”
He laughed, loving how quick she was with the comebacks. “So we’ll buy you some clothes.”
“I don’t think so. I’m not trawling the shops in a trench coat, thanks very much.”
“Dare you.”
“Nope.”
“Fine, we’ll swing by your place first, if you want to be boring. But shopping with you is my fantasy, so that’s nonnegotiable.”
“I didn’t realize we’d actually worked out a deal that we had to indulge every single one of each other’s fantasies.”
“It’s no fun if you get to pick and choose,” he answered. “Let me remind you, I’m talking about buying you a dress.”
“I know.” She placed her plate on the granite counter, the clatter loud in the ensuing silence. Her forehead furrowed, a frown turning down the corners of her lush mouth. “But maybe this is all getting a little much, Jaiven.”
“A little much? I haven’t bought you anything yet.”
She met his gaze steadily, somberly. He could see the almost-silvery glint in her hazel eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.” At least he didn’t want to. He couldn’t believe he was getting the this-is-all-too-intense-for-me smackdown. He should be giving that talk, not her, and in any case all he was talking about was a stupid dress.
“This is beyond what you proposed to and I agreed to,” she continued. “If this thing is going to work, we need to stay within the original parameters.” She was still giving him that steady, schoolteacher stare, which made him feel as if he was in eighth grade again.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, Rodriguez.
Not this time. Not with her. “Did I mention the part about my fantasy where we have sex in a dressing room? Because I’d say that’s definitely within the parameters.”
She sighed and shook her head, but he could tell she was weakening. And he needed her to weaken, needed whatever this thing was between them to be on his terms. Not hers.
Too bad he wasn’t sure anymore just what his terms were.
*
Louise knew she should keep saying no. Keep this on the terms they’d agreed to, which were—what? No messy emotions, no actual intimacy?
Did going shopping together really violate those terms?
She wanted to say no, because she wanted to let him buy her a dress, and it had nothing to do with new clothes or even the possibility of more sex. She just wanted to spend time with him.
Which brought her back to those terms. This little trip might have more emotional import than she was comfortable with.
Unless she recognized that, and kept it from happening. Was she that strong? That smart?
Yes, Louise decided, she damned well was.
“Fine. You can buy me one dress.” She held up a single finger. “But I have a meeting up at the university at three, so we’re keeping this short.”
Jaiven’s teeth flashed in a blindingly white grin. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
Fifteen minutes later they were in a private hire car speeding towards the Upper West Side, Louise once again wearing the nefarious trench coat.
“I’m surprised a rich guy like you doesn’t have his own limo,” she said as they crossed into Manhattan, the sun glinting off the buildings lining Park Avenue, turning them to gold. “Or a fleet of limos, considering your business.”
“I prefer to keep a low profile. Parking a limo in my neighborhood would destroy my street cred.”
“Why do you live in that neighborhood?” Louise asked. “Not that I have anything against the Bronx.”
“Yeah, right.” Jaiven shook his head, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Had you even been to the Bronx before tonight?”
“I’ve been to the Bronx Zoo.”
“Uh-huh.”
She shrugged, enjoying the banter. “All right, you have a point. In ten years I think I’ve been to the Bronx maybe three times. But I’ve driven through it loads of times.”
“Right, on the Cross Bronx Expressway. Not exactly exploring the neighborhood.”
“Your neighborhood,” Louise pointed out, “isn’t on the recommended tourist sites of New York.”
“Far from it,” he agreed with a shrug of those broad shoulders. Just that little twitch of muscle had her remembering how it felt to slide her hands along his bare, satiny skin.
“So why do you live there?” She really was curious; she wanted to know this man. Even if she wasn’t
supposed to. Even if went against all the terms she’d just thrown at him.
“Because I grew up there,” he answered shortly. He turned his head away from her to look out the window, and it felt like both a physical and emotional withdrawal.
Fair enough, Louise told herself. Even seemingly innocuous questions could be too much, and that was fine. That was how they both wanted it.
They drove to her apartment first; Jaiven waited in the car while she hurried up, changed quickly into jeans and a sweater.
As she slid back into the car, where Jaiven was scrolling through his emails on his phone, she had a jolt of realization at how normal this seemed. Almost as if they were a couple.
Whoa. So not happening.
Jaiven directed the driver to a block of upscale boutiques on Fifth Avenue, and within a few minutes Louise found herself seated on a plush sofa of white leather, Jaiven sprawled lazily next to her, a glass of champagne in hand as the sales assistant began to bring out the dresses.
Louise gazed at the sumptuous fabrics, the bright colors, in both amazement and a little trepidation. “You realize,” she said, turning to Jaiven, “that these are not the kinds of things I usually wear?”
“I realize.”
“So, why did you have them brought out?”
“Because I want to see you in them.”
She frowned, an instinctive unease creeping along her spine. “Don’t tell me what to wear, Jaiven.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Are you telling me you don’t like these clothes?”
“Do you see me wearing that kind of thing?” she snapped back, nettled and not sure why. The dresses were gorgeous.
He leaned forward, golden eyes glinting, his mouth curving into a small, knowing, sexy smile. “I see you wearing red lace lingerie and fire-engine red stilettos. I think you like these kinds of clothes, Louise, but you don’t want to admit it.” He held her shocked gaze for a moment, then settled back against the sofa. “But by all means, we can ask the sales assistant to bring a pantsuit in—what? Gray? Or brown?”
A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. “It would be a crime against humanity,” she admitted, “to buy a boring gray pantsuit in a shop like this.”