by Inara Scott
She hastily pulled off her shirt and pants and threw on the tunic. It barely reached her mid-thigh. She’d have to be careful not to raise her arms up above her head or her butt would show. Still, coupled with a pair of strappy heels, it actually looked pretty hot.
Having decided on her outfit, she took a quick shower, then wrapped a towel around herself and squinted at the long mess of her hair in the mirror. She didn’t have a curling iron, but the hotel provided a hair dryer, so she gave herself a full blowout, using her round brush to curl the hair under the heat of the dryer. Then she dug out her cosmetic bag and added an extra layer of mascara and liner for a dark, smoky eye look.
There was nothing to be done about her boring beige bra. But there was the question of underwear… She stared for a long minute at the neatly folded pairs of white cotton panties in her dresser. You can’t wear those. Not tonight. Simon said no undies, right?
Nibbling on her bottom lip, she pondered the wisdom of following Simon’s directive. She was wearing a minidress, which posed the potential that she would inadvertently flash someone if she made the wrong move. On the other hand, she was in Beijing, thousands of miles from home, having an affair with a man she’d probably never see again after she left.
Why not be crazy?
She threw back her long hair with a determined shake of her head. Glancing down at her watch, she realized she was already ten minutes late to meet Simon in the hotel lobby. She rushed down to find him standing outside the bank of elevators, talking on his cell phone. He wore a black button-down shirt that fit snugly over his broad shoulders and narrow waist, dark pants, and a leather belt. The top of the shirt was unbuttoned, revealing skin she wanted to lick more than anything in the world. The rush of heat between her legs astonished her. He turned when he saw her, stopped, and let his gaze travel the length of her legs. A slow smile turned the corners of his mouth. He slid the cell phone into his pocket and walked toward her. She swallowed compulsively.
I want him to touch me. I want him to tie me up and make me scream.
The turn of her thoughts was so powerful and immediate she couldn’t speak. He didn’t seem to care. With a possessive gesture, he tugged her close and let his hands slide from her waist across her bottom. As his hand made contact with her bare flesh through the thin material, she shuddered.
“Excellent,” he said in satisfaction, though he didn’t mention her panties—or lack of panties. “Ready for dinner?”
She nodded. He took her hand and led her out the front door of the hotel, where a cab waited. He opened the door for her, then slid beside her in the dark backseat. Even as he said something to the driver in Mandarin, he put his hand on her inner thigh and reached under the material of her dress. She struggled not to visibly react to the slow movement of his fingers, which trailed a line up her inner thigh, pausing to stroke the silky curls at the top. She closed her eyes and swallowed.
“Where are we going?” she asked, trying to sound normal, as his fingers tickled the sensitive outer skin. Her clit throbbed and ached, the slow burn of the day collecting and coalescing in a single pulse of need.
“The Courtyard.”
She shivered, both with the steadily encroaching movement of his finger, which had penetrated between soft folds to tease the moist flesh between, and the thought of going to one of Beijing’s best known and most romantic restaurants.
Without any underwear.
She cleared her throat and tried to press her legs together. He pushed back, not allowing her to close the distance. “I’ve heard the duck is very good,” she said.
His finger grew bolder, sought lower. If she wasn’t already slippery and aching, she might have been able to resist and shut her mind away from the intense demand of her body. But as it was, she could no more quiet her mind than she could stop the thrusting of her hips.
He moved his head low, to whisper in her ear. “I’m going to do this all night long.”
Her eyes slid closed and she couldn’t keep a sigh from escaping her mouth. “Simon…”
He placed a gentle kiss at the base of her neck, but didn’t relent. Her hips moved faster, her internal muscles tightened around his finger as he thrust, teased, and then put a steady pressure on her clit.
She had no idea if he knew how close she was, but when they stopped at a light, he stopped his movements, and she wanted to weep with frustration. The sky outside was still light, and though she hoped the driver couldn’t see what they were doing in the back seat, she had no idea if that was the case.
The car started again, and so did the movement of his finger. Casually, he shifted position so he could penetrate more deeply, and one finger became two, or more, she couldn’t really tell. All she knew was that she had no way to stop the spiral of pleasure from rising, cresting, spilling over, and then the hard jerk of her hips as she came to an abrupt, sharp orgasm.
When she relaxed and fell back into the seat, Simon withdrew his hand. “Excellent,” he murmured. “Now that we’ve got that taken care of, maybe it’ll be easier to concentrate.”
Several minutes passed in a luxurious haze. Jenna didn’t open her eyes until Simon started to speak. His voice was quiet, conversational, and she gradually came back to awareness as he described the area of the city they were in and pointed out some of the buildings as they drove.
“Have you had a chance to explore the city?” he asked, as she slid into a more upright position. His hazel eyes danced with pleasure as he touched the side of her cheek gently, then turned back to the window.
“No.” She straightened the hem of her dress and adjusted her position so her legs weren’t spread quite so casually across the backseat. “Not at all, really. I don’t speak the language, which is intimidating. I bought a bunch of guidebooks, but I’ve been at the office so much I hardly had time to look at any of them, let alone plan any sightseeing.”
“Chao told me you’ve been working fourteen-hour days since you arrived. He’s impressed with your dedication, but he’d also be happy for you to take a day off.”
Chao? Her spine stiffened at the thought of Simon discussing her with the other man. “You spoke to Chao about me?”
Simon held up a hand, obviously sensing her irritation. “It wasn’t a big deal. He’s an old friend, you know. We went to business school together. He just wondered if we’d had a chance to catch up. I asked what your schedule was for the rest of your time here and he said things were winding down. He suggested you take a day off while they do their final testing.”
Now she did turn to him, mouth open. “I don’t care if you’re buddies. You can’t start asking people about me and planning my days off. This is my job, you know.”
“Of course,” he said, managing to sound both soothing and amused at the same time. “I wouldn’t dare to interfere.”
“But you just did!” With a flash of annoyance, she pushed back her hair and glared at him.
“Jenna, take it easy. Chao won’t think any less of you because you want to take a day off. I’m just making sure that happens.”
She gritted her teeth. “Easy for you to say. You’re a man. A single man. You have no idea how hard it is to get people to take you seriously when you have a résumé like mine. I worked my ass off to get through college and graduate school while nursing my babies and taking care of my family, and always putting them first. If it weren’t for this job, I’d still be a part-time consultant. So don’t even think about treating this like it isn’t a big deal to me because it is.”
“Jenna—”
She sailed over his objection, barely pausing to take a breath. “I moved my whole family out to Colorado for this job,” she said. “I’ve got to do well. Do you understand?”
Simon touched the side of her face, cupping her jaw in the palm of his hand. “Jenna,” he said, dropping a kiss on her lips. “I don’t want to undermine anything you’re saying, because what you’ve accomplished is incredible. But it’s a day off. It’s not the end of the world.”
She let him kiss her, but stayed still and didn’t react. Tears pooled in her eyes. “Sometimes I feel as though I left part of myself behind when I got pregnant, the part that’s just Jenna. Not Julia’s mom, or Luke’s mom, or Matt’s mom. Just me. I need to find that part of myself again. I realize you have no idea what that feels like, but it’s important. More important than you can imagine.”
As the words tumbled out of her, she realized she’d never thought about it quite that way before. She’d known it was important to her to be successful in her job, but she hadn’t known exactly why. The sudden flood of understanding sent a fresh wave of tears to her eyes. She and Ross had made choices, and she didn’t regret them in the least. But she did miss the other part of herself, too. And it was time for her to get that part back.
How funny that it took being with Simon to help her realize that. She had to stop every now and then to remember that this man—this incredible, sexy, very grown-up and powerful man—was her old boyfriend. It hardly seemed possible that he’d changed so much. But no matter the differences, somewhere inside her heart she knew him. And seeing him was reawakening a part of her she had thought was long gone.
He kissed her again, first on her lips, then on her forehead. “I do understand. And it’s completely up to you whether or not to take a day off. But I’m telling you, you proved everything you needed to prove well before I ever got here. You’re brilliant and hard working, and based on my expert opinion, you’ve helped Beijing Next solve some of its most significant challenges to making the company profitable again. Not to mention that you’re incredibly sexy.”
She sighed and gave a rueful laugh, forcing herself to relax into him. “I’m sorry. I guess I might have overreacted a little.”
“You? No way,” he said.
She poked him in the stomach. “Shut up.”
“Play hooky with me for a day. I’ll make it worth your while,” he said, grabbing her hand and bringing it up to kiss her palm.
“It would be nice to take a day off,” she said, sighing. “And you’re right, this is a good time for me to step away from the office for a little bit. I was just going to be hovering over them at this point.”
The car pulled to a stop and Simon glanced out the window. “Looks like we’ve arrived.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a money clip. Withdrawing several bills, he handed them over the backseat to the driver and said thank you. Then he got out and offered his hand to help her from the car.
As she straightened her dress and slid out of the car, she felt a rush of weakness in her legs and stomach. She wobbled and clung to his arm as Simon steadied her, then closed the car door behind them.
“I didn’t mean to dump all this on you,” she said, shaking her head to try to clear the tangle of emotions the cab ride had provoked.
Simon touched the side of her face. “You’re a gorgeous, successful woman. I can’t keep my hands off you. And I’m not backing off until you see just how incredible you are.”
She blinked rapidly and bit her lip to keep it from trembling. Her gaze darted to a wall of bamboo, with a towering, backlit entryway rising into the dark night behind it. “Is that the restaurant?” she asked, struggling to regain her composure. “It’s so quiet.”
“I asked them to clear it for the night.” He gestured toward a single, white-coated gentleman waiting beside a small break in the greenery. “Chung will escort us in.”
She paused. “Wait, you did what?”
He shrugged. “I wanted us to have some privacy.”
Jenna’s head swam at the financial implication of emptying one of China’s most expensive restaurants. “But that’s crazy. You didn’t need to—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “You deserve to be spoiled. And that’s exactly what I plan to do. All night long.”
Chapter Five
Simon watched as Jenna’s tongue darted out to catch a drop of dark red wine from her upper lip. She must have caught him staring, because she lowered her gaze, and then looked up a moment later with a twinkle in her dark eyes. Her tongue darted back out, touched the center of her lip, and lingered for just a second.
His cock tightened. She smiled and looked away. “So where are you headed after Beijing? Back to L.A.?”
He groaned silently. Minx. She’d done that on purpose.
In fact, she’d been teasing him all night, touching his knee under the table, slipping off her shoe to run the arch of her foot along his calf, then asking him inane questions that he couldn’t begin to focus on.
He’d created a monster.
And no matter what it had cost him, persuading Chung to give them the entire restaurant for the evening had been worth it. Jenna had been getting more uninhibited as the moments passed, and he was seriously contemplating taking her right on top of their gorgeously appointed table. Ancient ceramic plates be dammed.
“For a few weeks. We’ve got a couple of other projects I need to move forward, but nothing definite.”
“You must be looking forward to being home.”
“To be honest, I’m just looking forward to grocery shopping and cooking my own meals for a change.”
“Really?” She cocked her head suspiciously. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m serious.” He narrowed his gaze. “Why don’t you believe me? Because I’m a guy?”
“Because you spend half your life on the road.” She gave a tiny giggle. “And because you’re a guy.”
“Men can cook,” he said, rapidly losing his focus as she raised her glass of wine to her lips and took another delicate sip.
“Name one thing you can make. And chili doesn’t count.”
“I do make a mean chili,” he mused, then laughed when she started to protest. “No, seriously, I spent a few months in Spain and learned to cook tapas. Berenjena con vinagreta, cojonudos, which I particularly like with chorizo, patatas alioli… Should I go on?”
“Whatever.” She took a tiny bite of the praline soufflé she’d ordered for dessert and waved her fork dismissively. “You memorized a few Spanish words. Do women actually fall for that?”
“Cherry tart? Shrimp ceviche? How about homemade cream puffs with dark chocolate sauce?”
“Did you just call yourself a cream puff?”
He laughed. “Sweetheart, if you have any doubts about that now, I’m definitely doing something wrong.”
“It’s your work in the kitchen I’m questioning,” she said. “But I’m happy to be proven wrong. Any time you want to bring me a homemade cream puff, I’m ready.”
He caught himself just before he said something stupid about showing her his kitchen back home. But then he remembered she wasn’t ever going to see his home, and as soon as she left China, this thing between them—whatever it was—would be over and done.
“Challenge noted,” he said, holding out his wine glass and taking a swallow.
“I can’t believe a guy that looks like you and can cook is still single. How did that happen? Did you ever get serious with anyone?”
He took another sip. They were on their third or fourth bottle of wine—he couldn’t remember exactly—and he knew he wasn’t up to any kind of finesse when it came to answering her question. So he simply said, “No.”
“Just…no?” She gestured for him to elaborate. “Nothing? No one? Ever?”
“I’m pretty clear from the start what my parameters are. I don’t do relationships. I travel and move around way too much, and I have no interest in trying to maintain a long-distance thing.”
Please understand, I’m not trying to be harsh. It’s just the way things are.
“Really?” She leaned back, setting down her fork as she studied him. “You’ve never even tried? Never had any interest in something more?”
“You forget where I came from,” he said. “I know exactly what it does to people when you uproot them.”
“So why not settle down?”
He swirled the wine in his glass, staring a
t the dark red liquid. “I don’t know how to do that,” he said, after a long pause. “As much as I resent him for it, I think I inherited the roaming gene from my father.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “After school I tried to stick in one place, but within a year I got restless. I couldn’t seem to quiet myself. Once I started traveling it just got worse. Now, any time I’m in one place for more than a few months I get this uncomfortable feeling, like there’s something more or different I’m supposed to be doing. And then I’ve just got to go. Find something new. I don’t know how to put it any other way.”
He probably shouldn’t be talking to her this way, but something about Jenna made it impossible for him to be anything but honest.
She touched his hand. “Maybe it’s a vicious cycle. The less connected you are, the more uncomfortable and unrooted you become. Maybe you need to take a chance with someone, and then you’ll have a reason to stay.”
He gave a short laugh. “Jenna, don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t see the point in it. I have friends, I get to see the world, and I have more money than I could ever spend. There’s nothing missing from my life. Why would I set myself, and someone else, up for disappointment?”
She pushed a hand through her hair and gave a soft sigh. “But are you happy with this life, Simon? You’re doing exactly what you never wanted to do. Doesn’t that seem a little strange?”
And what about love? He could see her wanting to ask. What about a family?
He sighed at the questions—both the spoken and unspoken. “I guess I’m not fit for anything else.”
He’d spent most of his childhood leaving things behind. Friends, pets, schools…Jenna. She’d been the last straw. Since then, he’d learned not to want connections. So now he was the one doing the leaving. It was better this way.
“I understand,” she said quietly.
He caught her gaze and held it fast. “Do you?”
She set down her fork and squeezed his knee under the table. “Take me back to your place,” she said. “Make love to me until I can’t remember my name. That’s all I want from you. From this.”
