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They were drawing attention. She covered her burning lips with her crooked finger.
When she stepped out of his arms, he slid his hand down her bare shoulder, leaving a wake of tingles before he buttoned his jacket to disguise the effect she’d had on him.
As they arrived back at their table, he picked up her handbag. “Do you want to stay for dessert or bring it to my room?”
“I—”
Don’t, she warned herself.
But that deep, inner, intuitive voice said,He’s the one.
Her voice was thick as honey. “I’m sure the staff won’t let it go to waste if we skip it.”
Rather than the smug smile she’d expected, his cheek ticked. He took her hand as they left the restaurant.
CHAPTER THREE
MOSTPEOPLEASSUMEDSaint was a risk junkie. Or at the very least, someone who didn’t care about risks so long as he got what he wanted.
That wasn’t true at all. As a child, he had learned to calculate risk very quickly. If he’d wanted to speak to his father, he’d first weighed whether the subject was worth his father’s wrath at having his work interrupted. If he’d tried out for the school play, would it be worth his mother showing up tipsy and making it about her?
Later, when he and his father had found common ground in programming and hardware, his mother had been hurt and jealous. Which would he rather endure? His mother’s heartbreak or his father’s belittling lecture?
Those early consequences had prepared him for the perils in later relationships: the friend who was only a friend because he wanted access to the newest smart phone, or the girl who liked his money more than she liked him, or the people who invited him to parties to elevate their own social standing.
Saint was always aware when people were trying to use him. He often allowed it. There were silver linings: business advantages, amusing entertainments. Sex.
But he had taught those around him to expect very little from him beyond a sarcastic remark and that he would pick up the bill.
This woman beside him in the elevator, with her quirky sense of humor and understated beauty and fiery depths of passion, felt like a gamble he ought to take more time to calculate. His reaction to her was too sharp. Too intense. That kiss had been so hot, so all encompassing, he’d been seared from hairline to toenails.
This wasn’t purely a carnal reaction, though. That was the part making his nerve endings sting with danger. He’d been drawn to her all night—from the first glimpse to his compulsion to leave the gala with her. To learn more about her. To touch her.
She was as puzzling as she was alluring. Both open and closed. That air of mystery, with her refusing to give him her full name, tickled at his well-strung trip wires, but what damage could she possibly do to him if they spent the night together? He didn’t have anything in his room that he wasn’t prepared to lose. He weathered bad publicity like a seasonal storm.
Hell, he was in a small storm right now, he recalled with annoyance, but that fiasco with Julie reminded him to make clear to Fliss that this evening had its limits.
“I’m due in New York first thing in the morning,” he said. “I’ll be leaving for the airport in a few hours, but stay the night. Use the room tomorrow if you want. Visit the spa.”
The gold in her irises tarnished slightly before she blinked it away. “I have to work tomorrow.” Her mouth twitched. “But you’ve very good at this. Very smooth.” She looked down to where she held her purse and gave its clasp a few nervous clicks. “I’ve always wondered how these things were handled. By that I mean, um, I don’t have condoms.” She peeked up at him in question.
“I do.” Always. There was one in his pocket that he’d pulled from his stash out of habit.
Fliss nodded, but her brows pulled into a frown of consternation.
“Second thoughts? That’s fine.” He might actually die if she changed her mind, though. He’d never felt horniness like this. So specific. So beastly. Like there was a creature inside him that would run her to ground if he had to, he needed her so badly.
“No, I want to.” Her cheeks stained that pretty shade of pink that stoked the fire in his gut. “It’s only that I felt swept away a few minutes ago. Now the mood is a little...” She wrinkled her nose. “Logistical. I’m being silly.”
The doors opened, and she stepped out, looking to him to show her the way.
Her befuddling honesty and that phrasealways wondered how these things were handledmade him realize she didn’t have the experience he did. It provoked a sort of endeared protectiveness in him. As he brought her to the door of his penthouse, he felt almost as though he was initiating a virgin. He wanted to take care with her and meet all her expectations. These sorts of interludes ought to be nothing but pleasure with no reason for regret. He wanted to give her that.
He wanted to give her the best sex she’d ever had so he would remain in her thoughts forever.
And where the hell hadthatcome from?
“Do you want a drink?” He let her in and closed the door, sealing them into a lounge lit only by a table lamp. He threw off his jacket, trying to cool his blood.Patience.
