And he had the strangest sensation, as Lauren went and settled herself into one of them, that he had anticipated this moment. It was almost as if the chair had been waiting for her all this time.
He shook that off, not sure where such a fanciful notion had come from. But very sure that he didn’t like it. At all.
He dropped into the chair opposite hers, and lounged there, doing absolutely nothing at all to accommodate her when he let his long legs take over the space between them. He watched her swallow, as if her throat was dry, and he could have offered her a drink.
But he didn’t.
“I thought you intended to convince me to do your bidding,” he said after a moment, when the air between them seemed to get thick. Fraught. Filled with premonition and meaning, when he wanted neither. “Perhaps things are different where you’re from, but I would not begin an attempt at persuasion by insulting the very person I most wanted to come around to my way of thinking. Your mileage may vary, of course.”
She blinked at him, and it was almost as if she’d forgotten why they were there. She shrugged out of that wrap at last, then folded her hands in her lap, and Dominik let his gaze fall all over her. Greedily. As if he’d never seen a woman before in all his days.
She was sweet and stacked, curvy in all the right places. Her hair gleamed like gold in the firelight, the sleek ponytail at her nape pulled forward over one shoulder. There was a hint of real gold at her throat, precisely where he wanted to use his teeth—gently, so gently, until she shuddered. Her breasts begged for a man’s hands and his face between them, and it would take so little. He could shift forward, onto his knees, and take her in hand that easily.
He entertained a few delicious images of himself doing just that.
And she didn’t exactly help matters when she pulled that plump lower lip of hers between her teeth, the way he’d like to do.
But Dominik merely sank deeper into his chair, propped his head up with his fist, and ignored the demands of the hardest, greediest part of him as he gazed at her.
“I would be delighted to persuade you,” she said, and did he imagine a certain huskiness in her voice? He didn’t think he did. “I expected to walk in here and find you living on a pallet on the floor. But you clearly like your creature comforts. That tells me that while you might like your solitude, you aren’t exactly hiding from the world. Or not completely. So what would it take to convince you to step back into it?”
“You have yet to explain to me why that is something I should want, much less consider doing.”
“You could buy a hundred cabins and litter them about all the forests of Europe, for a start.”
He lifted one shoulder, then let it fall. “I already have a cabin.”
And properties across the globe, but he didn’t mention that.
“You could outfit this cabin in style,” she suggested brightly. “Make it modern and accessible. Imagine the opportunities!”
“I never claimed to live off the grid, did I? I believe you are the one who seems to think this cabin belongs in the Stone Age. I assure you, I have as much access to the modern world as I require.”
Not to mention his other little shack that wasn’t a shack at all, set farther up the mountainside and outfitted with the very latest in satellite technology. But that was yet another thing that could remain his little secret.
“You could buy yourself anything you wanted.”
“All you have to offer me is money,” he said after a moment. “I already told you, I have my own. But the fact that you continue to focus on it tells me a great deal about you, I think. Does this brother of mine not pay you well?”
She stiffened at that, and a crease appeared between her brows. “Mr. Combe has always been remarkably generous to me.”
He found the color on her cheeks...interesting. “I cannot tell if that means he does or does not pay you what you deserve. What’s the going rate for the kind of loyalty that would lead a woman clearly uncomfortable with the outdoors to march off into the forest primeval, deep into the very lair of a dangerous stranger?”
Her chin tipped up at that, which he should not have found as fascinating as he did. “I fail to see how my salary is your business.”
“You have made anything and everything my business by delivering yourself to my door.” And if he was overly intrigued by her, to the point his fingers itched with the need to touch her all over that curvy body until she sounded significantly less cool, that was his burden to carry. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”
The color on her cheeks darkened. The crease between her brows deepened. And it shouldn’t have been possible to sit any straighter in that chair, but she managed it.
“I have already told you why I’m here, Mr. James.”
“I’m sure they told you in the village that I come in at least once a week for supplies. You could have waited for me there, surrounded by creature comforts and room service. There was no need at all to walk through the woods to find me, particularly not in those shoes.”
She looked almost smug then. As if he’d failed some kind of test.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with my shoes,” she said, and crossed her legs, which had the immediate effect of drawing his attention to the shoes in question. Just as she’d intended, he assumed. “I find them remarkably comfortable, actually.”
“That you find them comfortable, or want me to think you do, doesn’t mean they are. And it certainly doesn’t make them practical for a brisk hike on a dirt path.”
That gaze of hers was the color of a sweet, sticky dessert, and he wanted to indulge. Oh, how he wanted to indulge. Especially when her eyes flashed at him, once again letting him know that she felt superior to him.
Little did she know, he found that entertaining.
Even as it made him harder.
“In my experience, anyone who is concerned with the practicality of my footwear is casting about in desperation for some way to discount what I have to say,” she told him. “Focus on my shoes and we can make sweeping generalizations about what sort of person I am, correct? Here’s a little secret. I like pretty shoes. They don’t say anything about me except that.”
Dominik grinned, taking his time with it and enjoying it when she swallowed. Hard.
“Let me hasten to assure you that I’m in no way desperate. And I would love nothing more than to discount what you say, but you have said very little.” He held her gaze. “Make your case, if you can. Explain to me why I should leave the comfort of my home to embrace this family who have ignored me for a lifetime already. I’m assuming it would be convenient for them in some way. But you’ll understand that’s not a compelling argument for me.”
“I already told you. The paparazzi—”
He shook his head. “I think we both know that it is not I who would dislike it if your reporters found me here. I am perfectly content to deal with trespassers in my own way.” He could see by the way her lips pressed together that she was imagining exactly how he might handle trespassers, and grinned wider. “But this rich boss of yours would not care for the exposure, I imagine. Is that not why you have made your way here, after searching for me so diligently? To convince me that his sudden, surpassing concern for my privacy is a genuine display of heretofore unknown brotherly love rather than his own self-interest?”
“Mr. Combe was unaware that he had a brother until recently,” she replied, but her voice had gone cool. Careful, perhaps. “If anything should convince you about his intentions, it should be the fact that he reached out to find you as soon as he knew you existed.”
“I must remember to applaud.”
She didn’t sigh or roll her eyes at that, though the tightness of her smile suggested both nonetheless. “Mr. Combe—”
“Little red. Please. What did you imagine I meant when I asked you to convince me? I’ve a
lready had my mouth on you. Do you really think I invited you in here for a lecture?”
He didn’t know what he expected. Outrage, perhaps. Righteous indignation, then a huffy flounce out of the cabin and out of his life. That was what he wanted, he assured himself.
Because her being here was an intrusion. He’d invited her in to make certain she’d never come back.
Of course you did, a sardonic voice inside him chimed in.
But Lauren wasn’t flouncing away in high dudgeon. Instead, she stared back at him with a dumbfounded expression on her face. Not as if she was offended by his suggestion. But more as if...such a thing had never occurred to her.
“I beg your pardon. Is this some kind of cultural divide I’m unfamiliar with? Or do you simply inject sex into conversations whenever you get bored?”
“Whenever possible.”
She laughed, and what surprised him was that it sounded real. Not part of this game at all.
“You’re wasting your time with me.” Her smile was bland. But there was a challenge in her gaze, he thought. “I regret to tell you, as I have told every man before you who imagined they could get to my boss through me, that I have no sexual impulses.”
If she had pulled a grenade out of her pocket and lobbed it onto the floor between them, Dominik could not have been more surprised.
He could not possibly have heard her correctly. “What did you just say?”
There before him, his very own Little Red Riding Hood...relaxed back against the leather of her armchair. Something he also would have thought impossible moments before. And when she smiled, she looked like nothing so much as an oversatisfied cat.
“I’m not a sexual person,” she told him, and Dominik was sure he wasn’t mistaking the relish in her voice. It was at odds with the sheen of something a whole lot like vulnerability in her gaze, reminding him of how she’d melted into his kiss. “It’s a spectrum, isn’t it? Some people’s whole lives are completely taken over by the endless drive for sex, but not me. I’ve never understood all the fuss, to be honest.”
He was half convinced he’d gone slack-jawed in astonishment, but he couldn’t seem to snap out of it long enough to check. Not when she was sitting there talking such absolute nonsense with an expression that suggested to him that she, at least, believed every word she was saying.
Or, if he looked closer, wanted to believe it, anyway.
“You are aware that a kiss is a sexual act, are you not?”
“I’ve kissed before,” Lauren said, and even shook her head at him, wrinkling up her nose as if he was...silly. Him. Silly. “I experimented with kissing when I was at university. As you do. That’s how I know that it isn’t for me.”
“You experimented,” he repeated as if that would make sense of what she was saying with such astonishing confidence—though, again, when he looked closer he was almost sure it was an act. Did he merely want it to be? “With kissing.”
“As I said, there are all sorts. Not everyone is consumed with the urge to flail about naked. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but some of us have other things to think about.” Her expression turned virtuous and Dominik was sure, then, that while she might believe what she was saying, he’d...rocked her foundations. She was overselling it. “More important things.”
“And what, dare I ask, is it that consumes your thoughts if not...flailing?”
“You’ve made quite a few references to my being at Mr. Combe’s bidding, but I take my job very seriously. It requires dedication. Focus and energy. I couldn’t possibly siphon all of that off into all that trawling about from pub to pub every night, all to...”
“Flail. Naked.”
“Exactly.”
Dominik knew two things then as surely as he knew himself, his own capabilities and the fact she was lying about her own sexuality. One, if he wasn’t misunderstanding what she was telling him, his sharp, majestically shoed and caramel-eyed blonde was a virgin. And two, that possibility made him hard.
Very nearly desperately so.
Because he already knew how she tasted. He’d heard the noises she’d made when he kissed her, and no matter what she told herself and was trying to tell him now, he did not believe that she had been unaffected.
He knew otherwise, in fact, as surely as he knew his own name.
“I can see how you’re looking at me,” Lauren said. She was still entirely too relaxed, to his way of thinking, leaning back in the leather chair as if she owned it. Clearly certain that she was in total control of this conversation. And him. “I don’t understand why men take this as such a challenge.”
Dominik’s mouth curved. “Do you not?”
It was her turn to shrug. “I’m perfectly comfortable with who I am.”
“Obviously.” He settled back against his chair until he mirrored her. And for a long moment, every second of which he could feel in the place where he was hardest, he simply...studied her. Until her smile faded and she looked a whole lot less certain. “For reference, little red, people who are perfectly comfortable with themselves rarely mentioned their sexuality at all, much less bludgeon others over the head with it.”
“Oh, I see.” Her smile was bland again, and this time, distinctly pitying besides, though he could see the uncertainty she tried to hide. “You’re upset because you think I’m saying this because I didn’t like your kiss. Don’t worry, Mr. James. I don’t like any kissing. Not just yours.”
“Of the two of us sitting here, Lauren,” he said, enjoying the taste of her name in his mouth and the faint tremor in her sweet lower lip that told him the truths she couldn’t, “I am the one who is actually comfortable with himself. Not to mention fully aware. I know exactly how much you liked my kiss without you needing to tell me all these stories.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Her chin tipped up again, her eyes flashing as if that could hide the glint of doubt there. “I’ve seen this a thousand times before, you know. First, you will proposition me. Then you’ll throw a temper tantrum when I decline your kind offer to see what I’m missing, with you as selfless guide. It’s always the same old story.”
“Is it? Why don’t you tell it to me?”
She waved that hand of hers again. “You will want to kiss me, certain that a mere touch of your lips will awaken me to the joys of the flesh. It won’t work, it’s already failed to awaken me to anything, but you won’t believe me. I can see you already don’t believe me.” She had the gall to try to look bored. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather fast-forward straight through that same old song and dance. It’s tedious.”
“If you insist.” He found himself stroking his jaw with his fingers, because he knew that if he reached over to put them on her, she would take it as evidence of this theory of hers. This song and dance. No matter how much she liked it. “And what is on the other side? Once we’re finished with all this fast-forwarding?”
“Why, business, of course. What else?”
“But in this case, little red, your business and mine are the same. Aren’t you here to tempt me out of my humble cabin and into the great, wide world?”
“I am. All you need to do is name your price.”
And Dominik was not an impulsive man. Not anymore. He had learned his lesson, time and again, in his misspent youth.
But there was something about this woman that got to him. She was still smiling at him in that pitying way when he’d already tasted her. When he knew better. He couldn’t tell if she was lying to herself as well as him, but try as he might, he couldn’t think of a single good reason to deny himself.
Not when Lauren Clarke was the most entertainment he’d had in ages.
And Dominik was no longer in the army. He no longer ran his security company. If he wanted to live his life in pursuit of his own amusement, he could now.
Even if it meant involving himself with the b
lood relations he had located when he was still in the army, but had never seen any reason to contact.
Because like hell would he go begging for scraps.
“You must let me kiss you whenever I wish,” he said, keeping his voice mild so she wouldn’t see that driving need for her inside him, greedy and focused. “That’s it. That is my price. Agree and I will go wherever you wish for me to go and do whatever you wish me to do.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He could tell she thought he was kidding, because she didn’t bother to sit up straight. Her cheeks didn’t flush, and she was still smiling at him as if he was a fool. He felt like one. But that didn’t make him want to take back what he’d said.
Especially when he could see the truth all over her, where she couldn’t smile it away.
“This fairy tale obsession of yours has gone too far, I think. Let’s return to the real world, which I understand is hard out here in an enchanted cottage in the deep, dark woods.”
“The first thing you will learn about me is that I’m never ridiculous,” Dominik told her, his voice low. “And when I make a promise, I keep it. Will you? You must let me kiss you whenever I like. However I like. This is a simple request, surely. Particularly for a person such as you who doesn’t care one way or the other about kissing.”
“I already told you, I know how this goes.” She’d lost that smile, and was frowning at him then. “You say kissing, but that’s not what you mean. It always goes further. There’s always a hand.”
“I do have a hand, yes. Two, in fact. You’ve caught me.”
“One way or another it always leads back to the same discussion. When we can just have it now.” She shook her head. “I’m just not sexual. That’s the beginning and the end of it.”
“Marvelous. Neither am I, by your definition.” Dominik gazed at her, and hoped he didn’t look as wolfish as he felt. “Let’s be nonsexual together.”
Untamed Billionaire's Innocent Bride Page 4