A Ruthless Proposition

by Natasha Anders

  “I don’t need to pay a woman to tell me I’m handsome and strong.”

  “True, I’m sure Ms. Inokawa was happy to do that for you,” she said snidely.

  “Jealous, Knight?”

  She laughed incredulously at the question and waved a hand, the pillow slipping dangerously low.

  “Hardly.”

  “You’re having a bit of a—how do you say this?—wardrobe malfunction?”

  She gasped when a quick look down confirmed one of her nipples was indeed peeking up above the pillow. She hastily adjusted before looking back up to meet his avid gaze.

  “Stop staring at me like that,” she snapped.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re hoping it’ll happen again.”

  “But I am hoping it’ll happen again.” She gasped again, sounding, even to herself, like some outraged Victorian maiden.

  “That’s a highly inappropriate thing to say,” she pointed out, and he covered his mouth with his fist and coughed slightly, making her wonder if he was hiding a laugh behind the cough.

  “And me standing here in your bedroom while you lounge around in only your panties isn’t inappropriate?”

  “There are levels of inappropriate behavior,” she informed him primly, not even sure herself what the hell she was talking about. How could she be rattling on about appropriate behavior after everything they’d done the night before?

  “Oh?” He sat down at the foot of her bed. “Please do educate me. Sitting on your bed, how inappropriate is this? On a scale of one to ten? Ten being highly inappropriate.”

  “Uh. Five . . . maybe?” she whispered.

  “And if I moved a little closer?” He shifted up until his butt rested beside her feet.

  “Five and a half.” The words were barely audible, but he nodded before running the back of his large hand over her feet, then her slender shins, before turning his hand over so his palm did the downward stroke back to her feet.

  “What about that?” he rasped as his breathing got a little heavier. He cupped her small feet in his hand, his thumb caressing the instep of the top foot. She fought to gather her scattered thoughts so she could respond.

  “Six and a half.”

  “A full point up?” he mused. “Impressive.”

  He shifted even closer, and before she knew it, he tugged the pillow away, leaving her without the precious barrier. She yelped in protest, but he paid her no heed, and Cleo’s heart slammed into her rib cage as he slid his broad chest into the space that had just been occupied by the pillow. And he was nowhere near as soft and comfortable. He was hard and hot and smelled much too good. Suddenly all Cleo could think about was last night and how fantastic he had felt above her, inside her, all around her . . . and all she wanted was more of the same.

  He dropped his head and nuzzled the sensitive spot on her neck, just below her ear, his lips grazing against the rapid pulse there. He sucked lightly, then bit, and when she groaned, he licked away the sting.

  “I don’t like doing things by half measure,” he muttered into her ear, his hot breath sending goose bumps careening across every inch of her skin and tightening her nipples painfully. “I want a perfect score.”

  With that he lifted his head and planted a deep, hungry kiss on her lips, and Cleo happily opened up for him, drinking him in, wanting him desperately. Every hot, hard, sexy, arrogant, unlikeable part of him.

  She whimpered, once again fighting with that reasonable part of her that kept trying to insert itself into her business. She dragged her lips from his, a little shocked she could get this turned on from just one kiss.

  “I thought we weren’t going to do this again,” she whispered, and for a moment, while he continued to nuzzle and suck on her neck, she thought he hadn’t heard her.

  “But that would be a waste of some perfectly good sex, dulzura.” He ran his large hand down her naked back as he said the words, and Cleo found herself purring like a kitten in response to the caress.

  “It was pretty good, wasn’t it?” She hummed, doing a bit of her own nuzzling. She loved the feel of his expensive silk shirt against her pebbled breasts and lost all inhibition, blatantly rubbing them against his chest, wanting him to start focusing on the important stuff now. He complied, shifting until she was flat on her back and he was sitting on the side of the bed, with the upper half of his body bent over hers. His hot gaze traveled from her face down to her breasts, and with a shaky groan he lifted his hands to cup and caress the pretty little mounds. He plumped one up to receive his mouth, and when he tugged at the aching nipple with his lips, Cleo nearly came out of her skin. She’d always had unbearably sensitive breasts, which Dante hadn’t paid much attention to the night before but seemed to be taking great delight in now.

  “Can you come from just this?” he asked huskily. “From someone playing with your breasts?”

  “I haven’t yet,” she managed to wheeze out, and he gave her a rakish little smirk.

  “Ah. Another challenge,” he said, before bending back down to her breasts. “Well, dulzura, allow me . . .”

  More than an hour later, Cleo lay on her back, chest still heaving, body still shuddering, and an arm draped across her eyes to block out her embarrassment at how completely uninhibited she had been with the man snoring gently beside her. She could now check the whole “orgasming from just breast play” thing off her bucket list. He had certainly risen to the challenge there. He hadn’t cheated once, no sneaky hands drifting south, and when she’d attempted to hasten things along with her own hands, he had firmly moved them back up to his chest.

  After all that delicious foreplay, she had been more than ready for him to move on to the main event, but nope, he had made it his duty to find as many of her erogenous zones as possible before finally claiming her body. As before, once he finished, he simply rolled off her and fell asleep. This time in her bed, which was a little annoying and meant she would have to retreat to the spare room. She got up and tugged on the huge, white fluffy robe the hotel provided and padded toward the door. She didn’t really know what the protocol was in this situation, but knew he wasn’t the type to sleep through the night with a woman.

  She threw a resentful look back at the inconsiderate ass sprawled across her bed and then sighed a little at what a fine ass he actually had. He lay in absolute naked magnificence, facedown, one leg bent at the knee and the other straight. His arms were up above his head, and his face was buried in a marshmallowy pillow. As she watched, he turned his head toward her so he could breathe easier. She paused, riveted by how vulnerable he looked in his sleep, how much younger.

  She reluctantly admitted to herself that he was a remarkable man. To take his family’s ailing hotel brand and turn it into this multi-billion-dollar corporation in less than ten years was an almost unheard of feat. He was only thirty-three, and to achieve so much at such a young age, he would have had to be ruthless and cutthroat.

  “Play hard, work harder” was his motto, or at least that’s what the newspapers and tabloids often quoted him as saying. Even if she wanted more from him, Cleo knew she didn’t stand a chance of being much more than a lay to this powerful, handsome man. But that was fine; she didn’t want more from him since he was nothing more than a fantastic lay to her. As long as they both understood that, everything would be fine.

  She turned away from him and slipped into the huge, elegantly furnished living room that spanned the distance between their rooms. Her eyes immediately fell on the service cart standing in the middle of the floor. She moaned, her appetite roaring to life with such ferocity that she almost swayed with hunger. She lifted the domed lids off each dish and almost cried at the congealed mess that was all that remained of what had once been a beautiful dinner. She padded over to one of the ornate sideboards and reached for the telephone to call room service and order another meal.

  It was nearly one thirty, and she felt invigorated after all that glorious sex—not tired in the least—and as she stood at the
floor-to-ceiling window and stared down at the sparkling city lights below, she wondered what adventures were to be had out there. A reckless desire to go exploring surged to life and she tamped it down, knowing that wandering around in a huge city like this on her own, in the middle of the night, would be stupid. She sank into one of the massive Bakokko armchairs angled toward the window and folded her legs up in front of her, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin on her knees.

  “What are you doing in here?” A few minutes later, Dante’s sleep-roughened voice startled her, and she squeaked slightly before turning her head to watch him enter the room.

  “I didn’t think you were the type of guy who liked to wake up next to the night’s casual shag, so I retreated. Since you were passed out in my room, I thought I’d take the spare room tonight.”

  “Still doesn’t tell me why you’re in here,” he pointed out, a sweeping arm indicating that he meant the living room.

  “I’m waiting for room service,” she said. “And don’t you dare distract me again! I can’t go much longer without food.”

  His lips quirked and he sat down in one of the other chairs, angling his body toward her. She averted her eyes when she comprehended that he was still naked. How had she not noticed that immediately?

  “Do you mind covering up?” she asked, not as comfortable with his nudity as he clearly was.

  “Why? Is it inappropriate for me to walk around like this?” he asked, and she clenched her teeth.

  “You know it is.”

  “But after last night and what we just did in the other room, I think we have probably gone way off the scale by now. This can’t be much more than a four, surely?”

  “I’m not playing this game with you again,” she gritted out. “Just put on some clothes before room service gets here.”

  “I don’t think this is about room service, I think you find me . . . irresistible.”

  “Get over yourself,” she muttered, hating that damned smug look on his face.

  He yanked one of the chair cushions out from behind his back and placed it neatly over his crotch, folding his hands over the top of the embroidered pillow.

  “What?” He challenged at her dubious look. “This worked for you earlier.”

  It hadn’t really worked that well, considering the events that followed, but Cleo wasn’t about to bring that up now.

  The doorbell chimed and she jumped up, grateful for the distrac-tion. She could have hugged the waiter when he pushed the cart into the room.

  “Tip him,” she ordered Dante, already lifting the lids off the bowls and dishes, her knees almost buckling at the divine smells.

  “Bossy little thing, aren’t you?” he murmured directly into her ear as he came to stand behind her, close enough for his body heat to penetrate the thickness of her robe. The waiter kept his eyes averted as Dante signed for the meal and added a generous tip. The waiter thanked them and beat a hasty retreat.

  “You’re naked again, aren’t you?” Cleo asked without turning her head. He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, his hands dropped to her shoulders and kneaded gently. He was pressed to her body, and his growing erection started to make its presence known against her back, even through the thickness of the robe.

  “Not naked again,” he denied. “More like . . . still.”

  His lips dropped to her earlobe and he sucked it into his mouth, giving it a little nip in the process. Cleo moaned, and as he ground his substantial erection against her, she pushed back until he groaned appreciatively. His hand reached around and slid into the front of her robe, finding her breast with unerring accuracy. Cleo allowed him a squeeze before looking down at the food in front of her and stepping away from him.

  She turned around to face him and dropped a quick glance down at his huge, straining penis, which had her salivating for a completely different reason.

  “Put that thing away,” she said softly, nodding down at it decisively. “You and your insatiable penis will not be distracting me from my food this time.”

  He turned away from her and she could have sworn she heard a chuckle, which just about melted her heart because Dante Damaso was not prone to humor.

  “Eat your food, florecita; you’ll need the energy for later.”

  He really was a cocky sonofabitch. But Cleo was beyond caring about that right now, and she carried her food—a salad, penne carbonara, and cheesecake for dessert—over to the expensive-looking coffee table in front of her chair by the window. Dante followed her and sat down, with his pillow thankfully shielding his impressive package from her again. His eyes were intent as he watched her eat, and after satisfying her immediate hunger by scarfing down the first half of her meal with great gusto, Cleo grew more and more self-conscious beneath that relentless gaze.

  “Please stop staring at me,” she finally said around a mouthful of penne.

  “I like looking at you.” Well, that was completely out of left field. She felt her mouth gaping, knowing that with the half-masticated pasta in there, she probably looked like a drooling idiot. She recovered quickly and shut her mouth, barely bothering to chew the rest of the mouthful before swallowing.

  “What?”

  “I like looking at you,” he repeated. “You’re interesting.”

  Well, at least he hadn’t lied and called her pretty. She knew she had a weird face. For one thing, her lips were too big in a too-narrow face. Her schoolmates had nastily called her “Juicy Lips” throughout primary school, and in high school the boys had started making all kinds of offensive suggestions about the things she should be doing with those “juicy lips.” Then there was her crooked nose, broken when she’d fallen during a dance rehearsal years ago. It wasn’t horrendous, and after the surgery to fix the damage had failed, Cleo resigned herself to accepting her slightly off-center nose. And finally there were her ridiculously big green eyes, which had people likening her to a baby doll for most of her life. Cleo hated her bug eyes; she thought they made her look continually surprised.

  Her ridiculous face, combined with the petite body, often led people to underestimate her. That had been an asset while she was pursuing her dance career; she had wanted to be underestimated before “wowing” her competitors and choreographers with her talent. Choreographers and directors loved that unexpected quality about her, had raved about her “freshness” and her “quirkiness.” But now, in the real world, being underestimated led to fewer opportunities and greater frustrations.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?” Dante’s voice intruded upon her troubling thoughts, and she focused her attention back on him.

  “I was thinking . . .” She cleared her throat before affecting a cocky grin and reaching for her dessert. “I was thinking you still haven’t told me what you did after dinner tonight. Did you go to one of those onsen places?” She was referring to the public hot spas that were so popular in Japan. “Did you have to get naked with Mr. Tanaka and Mr. Watanabe?”

  He winced at the question.

  “Dios, no.”

  “Then it really can’t be that bad, can it?” She enjoyed needling him; his embarrassment made him seem a little more approachable. “Anything my imagination dredges up will probably be a lot worse than reality.”

  “We went to karaoke,” he said, finally relenting, and Cleo choked on her first bite of cheesecake.

  “You’re being overly dramatic,” he scoffed as she waved her hand in front of her face to cool her skin after her coughing fit.

  “Karaoke?” she finally managed on a wheeze, and he nodded. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Can I have some of that cheesecake?” he asked casually.

  “No,” she replied equally casually, deliberately sticking another forkful in her mouth and chewing slowly before asking her next question. “Did you actually sing?”

  “Sí.” His eyes dropped to the remaining cheesecake on her plate. “Just a bite?”

  “No,” she said as she took another teasing forkful. “What d
id you sing?”

  “A bit of Queen, some Rolling Stones, a little Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blondie . . .” he recited. “You don’t seriously mean to eat that entire piece of cake, do you?”

  “I do,” she affirmed. “Blondie? Seriously?”

  “And Cyndi Lauper.” He grimaced. “Ms. Inokawa really likes their songs but can’t sing them because the English is a bit too fast-paced for her.”

  “But they’re so high-pitched.” She laughed.

  “I know. Can we stop talking about this now? And I warn you, this remains between us. Now give me some of that cake.”

  “No, it’s my cake. Get your own dessert!”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh my God, what are you doing?” she asked seconds later when he knelt in front of her chair and ran his hands from her knees to her thighs, parting her robe as he did so. She hurriedly put her cake aside as she stared down at him in shock.

  “Getting my dessert,” he mumbled, moving his hands beneath her butt and dragging her to the edge of the chair until he had her spread wide open in front of him. The corners of his lips quirked upward before he hummed in contentment, bent his head, and feasted.

  Cleo, her own dessert forgotten, stared down at the top of his dark head in disbelief until his very talented tongue started to work its magic on her. She arched back in the chair and entangled her fingers in his hair as her eyes drifted shut.

  “Oh. My God . . .”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The rest of their time in Tokyo sped by. Dante didn’t micromanage Cleo as much as before, solely because he didn’t have the time to oversee her every little move. She did her work efficiently and gave him no cause for complaint.

  Their nights were equally busy. They never spoke about it, never gave what was happening between them a name, but they spent every night together having mind-blowing sex. And when it was over, Cleo always retreated to her room, and Dante never made any attempt to call her back. And if she ever had any doubts as to the nature of their “relationship,” his indifference and distance during the day when he was focused on work certainly made things clear. He never, by word or by deed, let on that theirs was anything more than a working relationship. Yet he had a chocolate-glazed doughnut waiting for her at whatever conference room they happened to find themselves in on any given day, and he always ensured that her plate was full at lunchtime and that the menu would be palatable for her. When they headed back to the hotel in the evenings, Daisuke always took a different route so she got to see a bit of the city, which she suspected was Dante’s doing as well. It was all so sweet, Cleo didn’t know how to respond to it.