“What about Ian?” she asked.
“Hang Ian.”
She gave him a repressive glance.
“All right. We’ll meet with them,” he growled. “But I’ll give him a half hour tops. And afterward, you’re mine. In the meantime . . . we still have a little while together.”
She swallowed thickly when his deep, rough voice dropped in volume, sounding more intimate. Sexy. Something flickered inside her, like a match being struck at her very core. She avoided his piercing stare. Or maybe she was avoiding studying her own motives. She hadn’t agreed to come with him later tonight, but she hadn’t said no, either. The sexual awareness they’d had of each other all day and night was electrical. She longed to allow the spark to ignite. Still, her doubts lingered. Her motives for lusting after Kam Reardon were not rational.
Nor were they pure.
“We do have a lot to discuss after tonight,” she continued, studying his silk tie, trying her best to keep up the lie, and failing miserably. “And I still need to brief you about our weekend meeting with Jason Klinf, the CEO of Klinf Inc.,” she rambled on stupidly. His hands tightened on her arms. She shivered again and swallowed. Her throat had gone very dry.
“I don’t give a fuck about Jason Klinf.” For some reason, his raw language struck her as honest, slicing through her façade like a hot knife through butter. He drew her closer, so that the front of her just whispered against his length, the tips of her breasts brushing against his lapels. Her nipples drew so tight at the gesture that she nearly whimpered. Liquid heat surged from her core.
“I . . . I left my wrap in the cloakroom. I just realized,” she said in a choked voice. She dared to meet his eyes. “Just give me a moment while I go get it?”
His eyelids narrowed, making his eyes into gleaming crescents of silvery light. Her blood began to pulse like a beacon at her neck.
She turned, and the doorman opened the door for her to reenter the hotel.
Her gaze automatically went to the entrance of Frais in the distance as she hastened through the luxurious lobby. Francesca, Elise, and Lucien were in there.
Ian.
She walked down a hallway that led in the opposite direction, her breath escalated far past what it should be given her activity level. The ballroom door was shut, the room desolate and the lights dimmed when she entered. She felt breathless as she opened the cloakroom. Why was her heart racing so fast?
She found a switch just inside the door. Light flooded the narrow, long room. Her wrap was the only garment remaining after the showing. She passed a rack of hangers and a wooden shelf with dozens of compartments in it for hats or gloves. She had just removed her wrap, when there was a click and the closet plunged into opaque blackness.
“Shhh. It’s me,” a voice said when she gasped.
“Kam?” she whispered, recognizing his familiar, rough growl.
“Yes.”
She started at the sound of the door clicking shut. She heard the metallic snick of a lock. Her pounding heartbeat became a roar. They were alone together in the darkness. Her nipples chafed and prickled against the tight fabric of her dress.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, finding her voice.
His hands enclosed her shoulders, gentle but firm.
“You know what I’m doing,” he replied, his knowing tone sending a thrill through her.
His hands moved over the naked skin of her back, gliding and kneading. A shaky moan escaped her throat when he pushed her against him at the same time he stepped forward. She bumped against a solid surface from behind. She was sandwiched between a storage cabinet and Kam, the fronts of their bodies sealed tight. He was long and hard, all hungry, primal male in the darkness. His hand captured a fistful of her loose hair at the nape. He tugged gently, tilting back her head.
“Here?” she whispered shakily, but she was still clinging on to her lie by asking the one-word question. She’d guessed his intention earlier when he’d said: In the meantime . . . we still have a little while together. She’d seen that look in his eyes when she’d said she was going for her wrap. Somehow, some way, they’d made an illicit, nonverbal pact in those seconds, although she’d doubted at the time she was correctly interpreting his boldness. Her wantonness. Who could really believe they would go to such extreme ends for sexual gratification? Now the undeniable truth was pressed against her, his hands moving over her greedily, her fragile lie turning to mist next to his male heat.
She trembled uncontrollably when he nipped insistently at her mouth and she opened for him.
“Here,” he assured succinctly.
Chapter Six
His warm, fragrant breath brushed over her sensitive lips in the pitch-black room. “You’ve been driving me crazy all day and night. I won’t wait another second to taste you. All of you.”
He seized her mouth with his own. His tongue penetrated her lips. That sinking sensation she felt every time he looked at her struck, but this time, it was exponential; a stark, thrilling plunge straight into lust. Heat swept through her like a flash fire. She dropped her wrap and clutch purse heedlessly and reached for him, grasping his shoulder and twisting her fingers in his gorgeous, thick hair. It was like setting a spark to carefully laid timber. She hadn’t realized until that moment how her desire had been building all night . . . all day, ever since he’d entered Ian’s office this morning and pinned her with his stare. She kissed him back, starved for his taste, begging him without words to take possession, to sweep aside her uncertainties and make her forget everything but this heat.