‘Oh, God.’ She arched into his hold, her fingers threaded through his hair. ‘I need you,’ she said on a rushed breath, her fingers fumbling as they moved to his belt buckle.
Knowing he should stop, but unable to, Sam gathered the yards of fabric between them and skimmed his hands along her thighs. A tiny, flimsy scrap of silk was all that separated him from paradise and with one tug it gave, falling to the ground between them.
A low growl radiated up from his chest as his fingers found her soft and wet. He wanted to drop to his knees and taste the sweet honey coating his fingers but she was already rising against him.
‘More, please, I want more.’
He caught her mouth and propped her against the wall. Part of his brain tried to kick in, tried to remind him that he was a civilised man who did not have sex with women outside at important parties, but the hot throb of her body shredded his sanity and made a mockery of his self-control.
All he could think about was replacing his fingers with his throbbing shaft and making her his. Something she obviously wanted just as badly because she was tearing at the zip on his trousers and then he was free and she was open and ready, her thighs cradling his hips intimately against his body.
That first contact of his flesh against hers gave him pause because he didn’t have a condom on him. Cursing himself for his lack of preparation he was about to tell her when her lips cruised down the line of his neck and she bit the tendon between his neck and shoulder.
A shiver went through him, a groan dragged from deep inside as he forgot all about reason and responsibility and gave into a need that was stronger than he was, entering her on one hard, perfect thrust.
She was so tight. So snug... His body tensed as he fought to control his most basic urge to possess her.
‘Relax for me, angel, and this will go easier.’
Sweat beaded his forehead but before he could fully process that there was something untutored to her movements Ruby angled her body upwards and took him deeper, scattering his thoughts.
‘Slowly,’ he urged, holding her hips steady between his hands. ‘That’s it, let me all the way in.’ He groaned as her silken muscles rippled around him, holding him tight. Careful not to crush her, Sam placed a hand against the wall to support them both, his legs shaking as he strove to hold off his own release until he felt hers first.
‘Oh, God.’ She clutched at him, her little nails scoring the nape of his neck. ‘I...I...’ Her body squeezed his, small lake-like ripples pulling him in deeper and harder as her body sought, and found, the ultimate release.
As soon as he felt her peak Sam let go, moving inside her with controlled power as his own climax raced through him like never before.
He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, their bodies joined in the most fundamental way, their lungs heaving. Gradually he became aware of their surroundings: the way his shirt stuck to the damp skin on his back, a cicada making a racket in a nearby bush, the low throb of the music coming from far inside the house.
He lifted his head from where it was buried against Ruby’s sweetly curved neck, his legs so weak he had to fight to hold them both upright. He felt her shift against him and the enormity of what they had just done, of how out of control he had been, hit him hard.
He cursed softly and lowered her to the ground. He didn’t regret many things in his life but taking Ruby with all the finesse of an untried schoolboy just might turn out to be one of them. He wanted nothing more than to wrap her up and take her home so that he could do that all over again. In a bed this time. ‘Are you okay?’ he prompted softly, knowing that he felt as dazed as she looked.
‘Water.’ She blinked up at him, her mask slightly askew from his fingers. He wanted to rip it off, yank off the wig and let all her long, golden hair tumble free. ‘I’m so thirsty,’ she croaked. ‘Do you mind?’
Sam raked his hair back from his forehead. No, of course he didn’t mind getting her a glass of water, but first he wanted to apologise, tell her he hadn’t meant for things to go that far. At least not outdoors, at a party of all places! He cursed inwardly again. ‘Sure, water.’ The apology could wait. ‘Just...stay put until I get back.’ Hesitating, he glanced down at her, his brows pulling together as he took in her trembling mouth. ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’
She nodded, fussing with her voluminous skirts so that she wouldn’t have to look at him.
Leaving his jacket on the ground Sam strode back the way they had come, blinking as he rounded a corner and his eyes met the brighter lights of the terrace, small clusters of partygoers thankfully ignoring him as he stalked inside.
Quickly fetching a glass of water, he rehearsed a short speech in his head on his way back, trying to come up with some plausible explanation for what had just happened between them, only to find the place he had left her empty.
Worried, he spun around, searching out the shadowy garden for any sign of lavender silk. It took him a full minute to realise that she wasn’t there. Then another to realise that she’d done a runner. Worry gave way to guilt that he’d taken things so far with her, and finally to fury that she wasn’t still waiting where he’d left her.
Did she do this kind of thing all the time? Pick up a man, have unforgettable sex with him and then ditch him when his back was turned? Was that why she had insisted that they keep things anonymous?
Jaw clenched, Sam yanked off his mask and tossed it to the ground. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that she had used him in such a way, but if she thought he wouldn’t pursue it she couldn’t be more wrong.
CHAPTER THREE
‘RUBES, IF YOU don’t hurry up you’ll miss yoga,’ Molly called from outside her bedroom door.
Still in bed, Ruby rolled over and wondered if she could pretend to be asleep. Considering that she hadn’t slept all night, she felt heavy enough to pass it off as real.
‘Ruby?’ Molly opened her door and poked her head inside. ‘Are you ill?’
Yes, she was. She had just told a man she didn’t even like that she needed him the night before. While they’d been having sex. Outside. At a party. The very thing she had warned her younger sister not to do!
Sex?
Was that really all it had been? It felt more like a cataclysmic event that had changed everything for ever from this point on. Certainly it had been the most erotically charged event of her life. In fact, before last night she had never understood how anyone could get so carried away with a man that they didn’t stop when their common sense asserted itself. Unfortunately if her common sense had asserted itself she hadn’t heard it.
It was the way he had looked at her and touched her that was the problem. He made her feel so special and so hot she literally lost her mind in his presence. Not that she was special. How could she be when he hadn’t even known her name?
‘Ruby?’
Or that she’d been a virgin? Although there was a moment of hesitation where she’d wondered if he had guessed at her inexperience. It had been cowardly, but the fear that he would question her about that, coupled with his soft curse of regret afterwards, had been the reason she had run when he’d gone to get her water. Not her finest moment, for sure, but when faced with the alternative of unmasking herself and saying ‘Hi, it’s me, Ruby. Great sex, by the way, thanks for the initiation’ she’d chosen the easier, less confronting option. And didn’t regret it for a second!
The fact that Sam Ventura would never know she had been the one he’d had hot vertical sex with was the one saving grace that made her confident she could face the day.
‘Ruby, you’re scaring me.’
Ruby glanced up to find Molly’s worried brows knitted together. ‘What? Sorry.’ She forced her mind back to the present.
‘You don’t look well. What happened last night?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ Ruby pinned a smile on her face, hoping th
at one day it would be true. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll join you for yoga.’
‘You sure you’re up to it?’
No. But it was better than lying around in bed thinking about how stunningly erotic sex with Sam had been and how she was unlikely ever to experience anything like that again.
‘I’m sure.’
Her sister looked unconvinced. ‘I’ve made coffee, so hurry.’
As soon as Molly closed the door Ruby dashed out of bed. She knew from texting her sister last night that she’d met with the director and after some convincing he’d agreed to give her a call to set up an audition. Thankfully, Molly hadn’t cared that Ruby had left the party without her, happy to continue on with the thespian crowd after successfully completing her quest.
And yoga was the best thing that she could do. It helped re-centre her enough to keep her mind off her excruciatingly bad decision on Friday night and stopped her from conjuring up future disasters as a result of her uncharacteristic indiscretion. Future disasters like the fact that she’d had sex for the first time in her life with a man who didn’t even know her name. Like the fact that if Sam had still worked for the same firm as her, and ever found out it was her and told someone, the gossip would be all over chambers before she’d finished swiping her key card in the office lift.
Fortunately he lived in LA, so he was as likely to find out it was her he’d had sex with as she was of flying to the moon.
Small mercies, she conceded as she ducked out of the Monday morning summer rain and into the coffee shop she regularly haunted before work. She’d almost convinced herself that she’d pushed the whole Friday night affair from her mind when a tall, broad-shouldered man entered the coffee shop behind her, shaking the morning drizzle out of his dark hair.
With her heart in her mouth Ruby waited for him to turn towards her and as he did she felt a sense of unreality come over her when she realised it wasn’t Sam.
The man gave her a small smile as she continued to stare, and Ruby made an apologetic face and swung back to the barista fixing her coffee. She felt jumpy all of a sudden and that just wouldn’t do. She wasn’t going to run into Sam in the middle of George Street. If anything she’d call Miller later in the day, find out how long Sam was in town and then avoid him for the duration.
If only the sex hadn’t been quite so good.
Not good. More like amazing, mind-blowing, incredible. Other phrases that came to mind were: over, never to be repeated, and stop thinking about it!
Determined to listen to her saner side, she nodded at the dark-haired man whose attention she still inadvertently had as she strode out of the coffee shop and crossed the road to her office. The sooner she started work and felt normal again, the better.
‘Hey, Ruby.’ Veronica, her upbeat secretary, called out as she held the lift door open. ‘How was the Herzog gig Friday night? Did you meet anyone nice?’
Why was everyone so interested in her love life all of a sudden? ‘The Herzog party was fabulous.’ She knew if she didn’t show the right amount of enthusiasm that Veronica would prod her for more information. ‘How was your weekend?’
‘Took the kids to the zoo and saw the baby panda. So cute. So was there anyone interesting at the party? A celebrity or two?’
‘Not that I noticed. We were in masks, don’t forget, so that made it harder to recognise anyone.’ Thank God. ‘Why are you getting off at the third floor?’ Their office was on the fourth.
‘There’s a meeting in the big conference room. Didn’t you get the memo? Mr Kent Senior is making an announcement. We all received emails about it on Friday night.’
Ruby had come straight from court on Friday night and even though she remembered seeing the internal memo in her inbox she had forgotten to read it as she was rushing to get ready for the party. ‘When is it?’
‘Now,’ Veronica said. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘Of course.’ Ruby stepped out of the lift, mentally reorganising her morning while juggling the file she’d been reading, her leather briefcase, hot coffee and her phone.
‘Want me to hold something for you?’
Ruby shook her head. ‘I’m good. Any idea what the meeting’s about?’
‘Rumour has it that our firm is about to merge with a big-shot outfit from the States.’
Ruby paused with her coffee halfway to her lips. ‘Sorry?’
‘But Bridget from IT said it was about Mr Kent Senior finally retiring and Drew taking over as managing partner.’
Ruby released a relieved breath. That sounded more like it but she wished Mr Kent could have just sent the information in the memo. She had a full day already mapped out and fitting in a Monday morning conference would be like trying to thread yachting rope through a sewing needle.
Seeing her expression, Veronica gave her an encouraging smile. ‘It’s supposed to be brief.’
‘It’s always supposed to be brief,’ Ruby grouched before letting her bad mood wash away. So she’d be inconvenienced for half an hour. She loved her job and if Mr Kent wanted to go out with a bang then she wouldn’t begrudge him his moment. He’d built a wonderful firm and deserved to have everyone acknowledge the work he’d done.
Manoeuvring herself into the overcrowded conference room, she greeted various co-workers with a smile as she moved towards the back. There was a real buzz in the air and Ruby craned her neck to get a glimpse over the sea of heads as to who was seated at the front of the room, only catching a glimpse of her boss, Drew Kent. Drew was a great boss: level-headed and fair-minded even when he didn’t completely agree with some of the cases she took on, like her current one. It made her try that much harder to prove her worth, which she supposed was one of the reasons she’d done so well in the firm since she’d started working here twenty months ago.
‘Everyone, if I could have your attention, please.’
Ruby sipped her coffee as Drew took the floor.
‘It is with great pleasure, and much relief, that I announce the retirement of my father, who we all thought was not going to leave the building unless it was feet first. Fortunately my mother has convinced him that there is more to life than the law, even though we all know that isn’t true.’ A cluster of moans interspersed with chuckles filled the cramped space, making Ruby smile.
He said a few more words about his father’s being an inspiration and introduced him to rousing applause. Mr Kent Senior then good-naturedly harangued his son in return and suggested that the only reason he’d finally agreed to leave the firm in Drew’s capable hands was that someone highly regarded had agreed to merge his firm with theirs and help Drew run the show. Surprised murmurs filtered around her like a colony of bats preparing to take to the skies at dusk.
Ruby’s ears pricked as she waited to hear who the newcomer was, and when she heard the name Ventura International her stomach plummeted to the ground faster than a lead ball dropped from the Sydney Tower.
‘I’m sure you’ll all join me in showing your appreciation for the fact that we’ve lured one of the most esteemed names in law back from the United States and doubled our legal reach by merging two great firms together.’
Although the crowd clapped heartily, Ruby stayed stock-still. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. She forced herself to oxygenate her lungs but it felt as if she’d never done it before and it was a skill she had yet to master. The coffee she’d consumed churned in her stomach and she had to swallow hard to keep it down. How was this possible? It was a nightmare. It was a disaster. It was...there were no words to describe how she felt other than numb. Totally and completely numb.
She heard Sam say a few words about how much he was looking forward to working with everyone and what it meant for him to be there but all Ruby heard was ‘I want to taste you.’
Oh, God, she was going to be sick.
Suddenly everyone around her was forming a line in o
rder to congratulate the new managing partner and Ruby’s stomach did another weird flip. She had to calm down. She had to pull herself together. She had to find a bathroom before she lost her breakfast all over the carpet.
‘Can you believe we’re going to be working out of Wellington Towers from tomorrow onwards?’ Veronica said with barely concealed excitement. ‘The foyer alone is as big as an aircraft hanger and apparently it has one-hundred-and-eighty-degree views of the harbour. No more cramped offices and narrow hallways. We’re going to be working in the lap of luxury. I can catch the ferry to work now rather than taking the smelly old bus!’
Right now Ruby would believe that the sky was falling in if Veronica told her. ‘Wellington Towers?’ Her brows lowered in confusion. She’d clearly missed that part of Sam’s speech.
‘Apparently Sam owns it. Five floors of office space were cleared out over the weekend to make way for the merger. A lot of the hardware and case-sensitive info has already been moved out too, so it’s just our personal stuff that has to be—Ruby, are you okay? You look white as a sheet!’
Ruby glanced at Veronica and gripped her forearm. ‘Actually, I feel terrible. Just...’ She looked around wildly as she felt herself being inched forward in the line to greet their new boss. ‘I’ll see you in my office.’
Veronica frowned. ‘Sure, sure. Want me to give Mr Ventura your apologies?’
‘No.’ Ruby squeezed her arm. Lord, no. ‘Just don’t mention me at all.’ Because she was going to have to resign, so why bother mentioning her name?
Five minutes of deep yoga breathing later she felt no better, but at least she was no longer thinking about resigning. She loved her job and there was no way she was going to have her career sidelined by a man. She’d made that vow a long time ago.
And why would he sideline her career anyway? He didn’t know she was the woman he’d had sex with at the party on Friday night. As far as Sam was concerned, she was Miller’s best friend he had shared a few kisses with a couple of years ago and that was it. No big deal. Nothing to get bent out of shape about. And perhaps he’d been too drunk to remember kissing her that night two years ago...she certainly hoped he was too drunk to remember having sex with her at a party three nights ago.
The Billionaire's Virgin Temptation (HQR Presents) Page 4