But the shiver gave her away. She wanted him too.
He imagined just how much harder he could make her shudder if they were lovers and he had an entire night to devote to her pleasure. As if in response to his unspoken thoughts, her nipples pebbled against his chest as they swayed together.
God, she was something.
His body hardened.
“I’m not going to apologize,” he murmured, mouth at her temple. “There’s not much space on this damn dance floor, and you’re an attractive woman.”
It wasn’t just that, though.
She was anxious to appear professional at all times. Careful. Cautious. Around men in particular? Why did he even care? Theirs was a business arrangement.
Sierra shifted. He felt her heart rate increase and heard her quickened breath. Desire banished thought.
What it would be like to fit himself to her, with no clothing to bar their contact?
A thready sigh escaped her and he groaned.
“Do you know what you’re doing to me right now? How sexy that sound is?”
“This is all part of your lesson in background research, I assume. How am I doing?”
He didn’t buy her light tone. It was forced. “Too well, it seems. Any more dancing with you, and I won’t be accountable for my actions. Let’s get out of here.”
She tensed and he pulled back to look down. She wore a deer-in-headlights expression.
Really?
“I’m taking you home, Sierra, that’s all.”
“B-but the soufflé?”
She was kidding, right? Who gave a damn about soufflé?
He drew her close for one more moment. “Is it really soufflé you’re hungry for, Sierra?” he whispered, his lips just above hers. “Or is it something much more elemental and basic?”
Chapter Four
Dessert was a silent and quick affair, underscored by the tension that still sizzled between them. Sierra couldn’t bring herself to take more than a couple of bites and Michael ate none, watching her as she ate, which made her self-conscious.
“I’m done.” She felt the beginnings of a headache. Whether from too much wine at dinner or the tension of the evening, she couldn’t tell.
Michael stood and escorted Sierra out of the restaurant, bidding a courteous good night to the maître-d and hostess at the front desk. They exchanged no conversation in the hotel elevator going down to street level, the atmosphere thickening between them with each step.
When they emerged from the lobby, Michael’s car and driver were waiting at the curb. As before, the driver held the door, Michael handed Sierra into the vehicle, gave the driver directions, then closed the shaded privacy screen
When he faced her, Sierra’s breath caught at the desire on his face, and then she had no more time to think as Michael reached for her, dragging her half onto his lap and into his arms. His mouth came down on hers in a kiss that was devastating from the start.
Neither sweet, as their last kiss, nor exploratory, as their first, this one spoke of hunger and unmet need as their tongues tangled. Sierra clutched Michael’s shoulders, and he tumbled her hair from its loose knot.
“I’ve wanted to do this all evening,” he muttered, lifting his mouth for a moment. “Bed hair. All I could think of was taking it down and running my hands through it.”
Dizzy with desire, Sierra said, “It’s Jen. She did it this way.” She couldn’t remember when she’d last felt such a strong sexual pull. She only knew she wanted more.
“Well, God bless Jen, then.” Michael took her mouth in another soul-stirring kiss. Sierra arched to meet him, obeying the long-suppressed instincts of her body. She embraced him under his suit jacket, fisting her hands in his shirt, and he whispered, “Yes, that’s it, Sierra. Touch me.”
Beneath her bottom, she could feel Michael growing hard as he had on the dance floor. It was incredibly exciting. She hadn’t felt this way in years. She shifted, pressing down and eliciting a groan from him.
Slipping her hand between the buttons of Michael’s shirt, she explored his hot skin, the brush of chest hair, and at last, the soft nipple that came to attention under her caress. His response to her touch was swift and strong, his burgeoning erection taut against her buttocks.
Sierra lost all sense of time and caution as he half-laid her down on the soft leather back seat, kissing her, nuzzling her neck. Outside the car, the city sped by, but behind the dark tinted windows and the privacy screen that separated them from the driver, their passion flared. Only the sound of their heightened breathing and the whisper of shifting clothing broke the silence.
Their touching grew more urgent. Her long-dormant desire awakened, Sierra communicated her need in a kiss that stated her demands without words. Michael wrenched his lips from hers, breathing heavily, and began working his way down her neck.
“Please,” she whispered.
Was that strangled sound really her own voice?
One of his hands slipped beneath the hem of her dress, and he cursed at the gossamer-thin pantyhose. How she wanted both his hot hands on her skin. It had been too long since she’d felt such sensations.
She wanted that. She wanted more.
He moved his hand toward the waistband, but she stopped him. “No.”
He drew back, misinterpreting her.
“No,” she whispered. “Rip them.”
She held his gaze, reached down, and snagged a tear in the nylon that covered where her leg joined her body. “Like this,” she whispered again, rending the fabric.
With a strangled sound deep in his throat, he ripped the nylons hard. The dim light revealed the soft white skin of her inner thighs and the silk of her panties, damp with the slickness of her arousal.
“You’re gorgeous.”
“Touch me,” she demanded, as he’d requested of her.
He kissed her deeply and at the same time eased a cautious finger beneath the elastic. She was hot and wet, and she bucked her hips as he entered her with his finger. She couldn’t believe she was responding with such abandon, but she didn’t care. It had been so long.
Continuing the deep mating of their tongues, he dampened his finger with her slickness and then found the hidden nub of her desire. She cried out against his mouth as he built the pressure there, eased up, then built it again. He swallowed her cries, whispering encouragement.
“That’s it. You like that, don’t you? Show me how good it feels.”
She gasped her pleasure.
“Come for me,” he growled, and then, with a final touch, brought her to climax hard against his hand. Wave after wave of intense, almost painful pleasure wracked her body as she shuddered beneath him. Raw cries of pleasure she didn’t recognize as her own escaped her, and the musky scent of her arousal filled the enclosed space.
She couldn’t believe it. Evidently her libido wasn’t dead after all.
Michael’s husky voice broke the silence a minute or two later. “God, you’re amazing. You okay?”
Sierra nodded, opening her eyes and allowing him to help her sit up. She glanced out the window and was startled by how close they were to her neighborhood.
“Oh my God, we’re almost home.” She looked down at her disheveled clothing and then at Michael, whose own appearance was in a state of disarray. “We look as if…”
“As if we’ve been doing exactly what we’ve been doing.” Michael’s tone was wryly amused. “We’d better put ourselves back together for public consumption. Although,” he drawled, “You look damn near perfect just as you are.”
She was self-conscious, which was ridiculous considering what they just shared. She began the hopeless task of straightening her clothing. “Wait!” she exclaimed.
“What is it?” Michael was buttoning the shirt she had undone and retucking it.
“You haven’t…I didn’t…”
How did you tell a man with whom you had just had an incredible orgasm that you hadn’t had the presence of mind to make sure that you took
care of his needs as well?
Reading her thoughts, Michael smiled and shook his head. “Sierra, I’m not sixteen any longer. Don’t worry about it.”
“But you’re still…”
“Hard for you?” He was blunt. “Hell, yes. I didn’t say I wouldn’t have to take a cold shower tonight. Or three. But I’ll live, and you owe me nothing.” He snaked a hand around her neck, kissed her hard on the mouth. “Believe me, it was my pleasure.”
And then they were home.
Sierra had thought her mother might be waiting up, but Grace had gone to bed by the time Michael took Sierra’s key with old-fashioned courtesy, unlocked the door, and after a final quick kiss and a growled, “Get inside, woman, or I won’t be responsible for my actions,” pushed her through the entrance and disappeared into the night.
It was past two o’clock in the morning. Kicking off the heels Jen had lent her, she padded into the kitchen and made a cup of tea, hoping it would help her relax enough to sleep. Taking it upstairs to her bedroom, she slipped out of her now-wrinkled dress, then surveyed the remains of her ruined pantyhose.
Good lord, had she really asked Michael to rip them off her?
She’d experienced orgasms before, of course, but never like that.
God, the man was sexy. If she and Michael had found themselves in a space more conducive to seduction, they would have ended up in bed together. As it was, they had been only a breath away from a full-on sexual encounter in the back seat of a car, like teenagers.
Only it had been better than anything she’d experienced as a teenager—that was for sure.
She’d had the usual make-out sessions high school and one feckless boyfriend in college to whom she’d lost her virginity. She’d witnessed the misery between her parents as she was growing up. She’d seen first-hand how her alcoholic father used sex to manipulate and threaten Grace to remain in their marriage.
It all added up to her vow never to become vulnerable to a man and dictated her refusal to become involved with them now. If fear of that controlled her choices, so be it. Happily-ever-afters were strictly the domain of romance novels, and as she’d told Jen earlier, she’d given up those long ago.
A no-strings arrangement, she reminded herself. That’s what she signed on for, and that’s what she and Michael would have. She’d enjoyed his caresses as she’d enjoyed no other man’s, but she’d keep her heart and emotions intact. Unusual though her business arrangement with Michael was, she intended to abide by both its letter and spirit. That’s what she expected of herself and that’s what he’d expected of her as well. He’d made that plain over dinner.
With Sierra’s expertise in marketing and branding, she believed she could make a larger success of Claddagh. Once she fulfilled the terms of her bargain with Michael, she would have earned her fee from him free and clear, and she would able to pursue her dreams in ways Grace herself had never been.
Sierra finished undressing, discarded the torn stockings, and finished her tea in short order. If her last thought before sleep was of Michael, she assured herself sleepily that such thoughts were of no consequence. No consequence whatsoever.
“You got in late last night, dear,” Grace observed as she prepared some eggs and fruit for them the next morning. “I assume that means you had a good time?”
“Mother, let me make breakfast. You work hard at the pub all week!” Sierra moved to help, but Grace brushed her aside.
“For goodness sake, Sierra, it’s only eggs and fruit!” She put the finishing touches on a simple salad. “So? How did the evening go?”
Sierra concentrated on pouring a cup of coffee without meeting her mother’s forthright glance. “Um, yes, we had a good time.”
“That’s it? Sierra, with a man like Michael, I’m surprised you’re not more enthusiastic!” Grace smiled to herself as she monitored the sizzling eggs.
“What do you mean?”
Grace turned to face her with her hands on her hips. “He’s a gorgeous man who had eyes for no one but you during the short time he was in this house! If I wasn’t blind, how could you be?”
Michael had played his part admirably in front of Jen and her mother, Sierra had to give him credit. Still, she felt uncomfortable fostering her mother’s belief he was interested in her.
Except it was exactly what she was supposed to be doing.
“We went to dinner and danced, and yes, it was great!” She tried to insert enthusiasm into her voice.
It had been great. Wonderful, in fact. So much so that she wasn’t sure what she was feeling or why she was feeling it.
“Did he kiss you goodnight?”
Sierra choked as a sip of coffee went down the wrong way.
“And then some?” Her mother smiled. “Well, good. It’s none of my business, of course. You’re an adult. You just date so rarely I’m glad when things go well.”
“Are you in that much of a hurry to see me partnered off, Mom?”
Grace sobered, turning back to the stove. “It would please me to see you well taken care of, yes. Our financial picture isn’t pretty at the moment, dear, and I blame myself for that.”
“That’s Daddy’s fault, Mom, not yours. And we can take care of ourselves. I can take care of things. We don’t need a man to do it for us.”
Grace dished up a plate of eggs. “If you say so. But there’s no harm being happy a man of Michael Donovan’s caliber has taken an interest in you. Particularly if you return that interest.” She sat. “I didn’t choose well when I married your father, God knows. But something tells me Michael Donovan is a different kettle of fish.”
****
Brian eyed Sierra opposite him on the Swedish sofa in his office at McKinley on Monday morning. The nut-brown fabric and bright throw pillows made a contemporary splash of color against the dark red brick walls of the converted warehouse. Sierra liked Brian’s taste.
“When I referred your name to Murdoch, it was because I knew you needed money. It sounded like John could throw some independent consulting your way.” He rubbed his neck in frustration. “I figured it would be good professional development for you, and I knew the firm wouldn’t mind because John had said it was not up McKinley’s usual alley. But I certainly didn’t intend for you to start dating Michael Donovan, of all people!”
“Brian, you’re making it sound like I’m doing something outrageous.” Sierra smiled, hoping she looked confident. She didn’t feel confident. “I appreciate your giving me the business lead. I do. It’s just that that side of things didn’t work out when the three of us sat down for our meeting.” She avoided his gaze by taking a sip of her latte from the coffee vendor in the courtyard. “Something else…did. That’s all.”
It was critical that Brian and everyone else see her and Michael as a couple rather than as a business proposition, but the water cooler news around the office about their date was bound to come as something of a shock nonetheless. San Francisco’s public relations world was a small one.
She and Michael had been spotted by one of McKinley’s junior partners while they were out on Friday. Of course, that had been part of the see-and-be-seen plan.
At the same time, Sierra wasn’t wild her colleagues were gossiping about her private life. Given her well-known reticence toward men, the gossip was more pronounced than it might have been otherwise.
Brian wasn’t placated. “Sierra, I’m almost old enough to be your father. Bruce and I both are.” He frowned at the thought and then revised. “Scratch that. We’re old enough to be your handsome, charming, older brothers.”
Sierra laughed, but Brian refused to be distracted. “If Bruce and I had kids, boys or girls, I wouldn’t want them to date Michael Donovan”
“Boys or girls?” Sierra stared at him. “Are you trying to say Michael is gay?”
“What? No, of course not! Haven’t you read the papers? He’s most definitely straight and goes through women like water. That’s my point. He’s not your type.”
“I don’
t have a type, Brian. You know that.” Sierra cocked her head at him. “In fact, you’ve always said that was part of my problem: I keep my mind on business only. How many times have you tried to persuade me to date in the past? Now I finally am and you’re upset!”
“Honey, anyone else and I’d be thrilled, but Donovan’s the kind of guy who eats little girls like you for breakfast… You’re going from zero-to-sixty in five seconds flat. Why not start with someone a little more tame?”
“Dare I imagine you’re envious—a tall, handsome billionaire?” Sierra tried to inject a teasing note to jolly Brian out of his concern. Truth be told, it made her nervous. More nervous than she already was. She wasn’t too sure she could handle Michael Donovan, either, particularly after their make-out session in his car.
“Don’t get me wrong. You’re gorgeous and he’s lucky to be dating you. That’s not my point.”
Sierra shrugged. “As you and Bruce well know, pretty much most men are out of my realm of experience. By choice. What difference does that make? I’m a quick study, I promise.”
After their conversation, Sierra spoke with a client, finished drafting a report, and then glanced at the clock on her desk. The morning had passed quickly. “Crap!” She was late for her weekly lunch with Jen.
“So was it hot?” Jen asked. They ate at their usual open-air spot.
Sierra took a bite of her spinach salad. “I thought the weather was rather cool,” she prevaricated.
“Oh. My. God. It was hot. You two totally had sex! Look at you! I told you so!”
“We did not have sex!” Sierra clung to technicalities. Well, they hadn’t, exactly. True, Michael had given her an amazing orgasm, but they’d stayed out of bed. Furthermore, it wasn’t something she intended to let happen again.
“So clothes stayed on, just as planned?” Jen was incorrigible.
Sierra thought of the ripped nylons and flushed. “Um, more or less.”
“Less or more?”
Sierra shot a quelling glance at her friend. “I’m not saying anything else. Eat your lunch.”
Jen shook her head. “I’m not eating another bite until you give me a little dirt. You owe me that much. At least tell me whether Michael liked the outfit.” There was a gleam in her eye. “Although he’d have to be dead if he didn’t!”
Buying His Bride (The Donovan Brothers Trilogy Book 1) Page 5
