by Remy Richard
Holden was sitting at the desk, squinting at the screen in front of him. Unlike the front room, the drapes were pulled closed and everything was cloaked in shadows. Only his workspace was illuminated by the harsh light of a desk lamp. It threw his features into sharp relief and Sabrina bit her lip at how handsome he was. How capable looking. A lock of dark hair flopped into his eyes and her fingers itched to push it back.
She took a step toward him and felt something bounce off of her bare foot. She looked down to see the carpet covered with balls and wads of crumpled up printer paper. Some of the less crumpled pieces allowed her to see complex equations scrawled in Holden’s impatient handwriting. She used her foot to clear a path and moved closer to the desk.
Holden didn’t even seem to notice her presence until she was within arm’s length. He looked up, blinking his eyes like someone woken from a sound sleep or a mole rat coming into the light.
“Sabrina.” He looked around the room for something, a clock if she wasn’t mistaken.
“It’s early evening.” She boosted herself up onto the top of his desk, pushing a few papers out of her way as she did so. “How’s the work coming?”
He leaned back in the desk chair and ran a hand through his hair. “Close. I’m right there and I’m just missing one piece.”
She tilted her head to the side and watched him carefully as he closed his eyes in frustration. “So you’re almost to the end, right? Just find one more piece and all your problems are solved.”
He laughed lightly. “I think I have all the pieces of the equation actually. It’s the order that’s giving me so much trouble.”
“You just need to put it aside for a while. Concentrate on something else.”
He opened his eyes and reached out a hand to rest high on her thigh, lightly stroking. “Got any ideas on what I could concentrate on?”
“Oh, yeah.” She leaned in closer to him, balancing her weight with a hand on his shoulder so that she was almost stretched out on top of him. “How about we order in some dinner, turn down the lights and…watch a movie with Conner, Sam and Lila.”
He moaned in disappointment. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not at all,” she said as she playfully slapped his chest and stood up. “It will do you some good to get out of this room for a little while.”
He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down to sit in his lap. “I think it would do me even more good to stay in this room for a long while. With you.”
Sabrina tried to stay strong as he nuzzled the thin skin below her ear. “Later. For now, you need food and light and some companionship. You’ve been cooped up in here too long.”
Obligingly he let her take his hand and pull both of them to their feet. He started neatening stacks of paper on his desk. “What are we watching?”
“The Lord of the Rings.”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at her in shock. “Really?”
“Yeah. It sounds pretty good.”
“I would not have guessed that in a million years,” he said, shaking his head.
“Well, when Conner explained that it was about the most valuable ring in the world and a bunch of people trying to steal it, I was pretty much sold.”
It took Holden two minutes of solid side-splitting laughter before he could correct her. “That’s not exactly how I would have described it.”
“What is it really then?” she asked suspiciously.
“Kind of that. Except that the ‘people’ are actually dwarves and elves and talking trees and whatnot.”
“But they’re still trying to steal the ring, right? And it’s valuable.”
“Yes…but they’re stealing it to destroy it, not fence it.”
She took a moment to take that in. “Conner is a miserable human being.”
“Face it, you’ve been scammed.” Holden controlled another laughing jag and pulled her in for a hug. She noticed that he somehow got her arms on the inside of the hug so that if she got violent it wouldn’t be very effective.
“No, this wasn’t a scam, this was an outright lie. There’s no elegance to it.”
He dropped a kiss on the end of her nose before releasing her. “How have you never heard of The Lord of the Rings before? It was huge thing a few years ago and before that it was a beloved classic.”
“A book? I don’t really like books. And I like movies about books even less. Add in the elves and that’s pretty much the ‘I don’t give a shit’ trifecta.” She stooped down to pick up a few balls of paper before facing him again. “Still like me?”
She tried to pretend not to care while he studied her carefully. Her heart was beating at a mile a minute. Funny how the answer to such an off-hand question was so important.
Finally, he smiled at her. A soft smile that she hadn’t seen before. Like he recognized her vulnerability and responded to it. “Yeah, I still like you.”
“Well…good.” She stood up and brushed imaginary dirt from her hands before attempting to stride toward the door. Holden intercepted her and pulled her close for a kiss.
His mouth was warm and firm on hers and she quickly gave herself up to the passion between them. He didn’t push like she expected though. He seemed perfectly happy to wait in that moment, their mouths fused, their hearts thumping and breaths quickening together. She’d felt the passion in his kiss before. This was the first time she felt acceptance too.
When he pulled away she was breathing hard and had to close her eyes so he wouldn’t see the tears swimming there.
“Okay?” he asked, brushing aside a strand of hair.
She nodded and stepped aside as he opened the door for her. “I’ll be out in a second, I just want to splash my face with some water. Order me something for dinner, okay?”
The door stayed open behind her as she dithered in the doorway. Conner was still standing by the telephone, studiously keeping his eyes away from her as he looked over the room service menu.
She cleared her throat. “Did you get in touch with Lila and Sam?”
“Sam’s coming over in a second. Lila said she’s tired so she already ordered dinner and is calling it an early night,” Conner explained.
“Are you sure Lila’s tired? Or does she just know the real plot of the movie you’ve got us watching?” She narrowed her eyes dangerously.
Conner held up his hands in surrender, laughing. “I promise that you’ll like it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you can pick the next movie,” he offered.
“Deal,” she said, firmly intending on saying she hated it whether she did or not.
She crossed the room and took the over-sized menu out of his hands to make her selections.
“Sam said he just wanted a cheeseburger and that sounds good to me. Would you order for us?”
Sabrina nodded and internally debated the merits of chicken fingers versus a pasta dish. Really, with the lack of physical activity she’d been doing over the past few days, she should probably skip both and get a salad but that sounded like the saddest option of all.
Holden walked into the sitting room just then and started chatting with Conner. The ends of his hair were still damp and his face looked a little more rested in the light. She felt a grin growing as she realized exactly how she could supplement her work-out schedule. In bed with Holden.
With a wink in his general direction, she turned away to call room service. While she was on hold, she listened as Holden and Conner talked about his progress. She was glad that Conner had come by. He, at least, seemed to have a pretty good grasp on what Holden was talking about. The rest of them had no clue and could hardly be called a sounding board.
She was pleased that Conner seemed encouraged about the progress Holden had made. She listened with half an ear as he teased his friend.
“That’s quite a bit of progress you’ve made in the last ten hours,” she heard Conner say, a smile in his voice. “Can I ask if you were properly stimulated?”
<
br /> Sabrina kept her face away as the implication sunk in. Her blush was no doubt taking over her entire face. She was really going to kill Conner before this was all over.
To her surprise, Holden answered seriously, “Not in the way you mean, but yes. She sees things…differently than I do. It helps me to get out of my ruts and look at things from a different angle.”
“Well, that’s great, man, really,” Conner commented before turning the conversation to question a specific piece of the algorithm.
The room service attendant chose that moment to come on the line, so she gave their orders, three cheeseburgers and a pasta dish, and requested a rush order. She was pretty sure they would do their best to bring it up quickly since they had eaten every meal from room service for three days and tipped generously each time.
Even after the attendant had hung up, she kept the phone to her ear however. She needed a minute to compose herself before facing Holden again. Was it any wonder that she had no defenses against this man? He forgave her when she didn’t deserve it, was compassionate when she didn’t expect it and thought positively about what everyone else called her failures. Her experiences didn’t stretch to anyone like him.
And as soon as he finished the biggest project of his life, she was going to pull the biggest con of her life and take it from him. She could only hope it wouldn’t be the biggest mistake of her life as well.
Chapter Sixteen
Sabrina fretted with the buttons of her shirt as she heard Holden say goodbye to Conner and Sam at the door to the suite. She had already made her goodbyes and was waiting for him in his bedroom. Throughout the long—and surprisingly enjoyable—movie she had leaned close to Holden and felt his warmth, breathed in his scent and wanted him.
Now that everyone was gone, her time had come. The night before she had relied on the merry widow and Holden to do all of the work, but given the circumstances, that didn’t feel right anymore. She was already sleeping with him even as she planned to steal his work. She couldn’t also count on him being the instigator, something about it felt wrong.
As she heard his footsteps moving closer she undid another couple of buttons on her shirt and turned to face the doorway. Holden was smiling when he rounded the corner and came to a stop to see her.
“Hi, gorgeous,” he said, watching her come toward him with appreciation.
“Hey there, boy genius,” she countered as she wound her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his. She took his mouth in a hard kiss, pushing their lips together and letting her tongue chase his. Blindly, she slid her hands through his hair until she was able to anchor them fully in the silken strands. She used the leverage to pull him even closer, restlessly moving within his arms until he chuckled and caught her at the elbows to pull her slightly away.
He pressed his forehead against hers and smiled into her eyes as they both struggled to catch their breath. “What’s the hurry here? We’ve got time.”
Sabrina had to fight the urge to wince at his words. It took all of her training to keep her emotions from showing on her face as she tried to ignore the guilt that was stabbing at her. She let him keep hold of her elbows but pulled back a little bit so that she could unbutton the rest of her blouse. When that was finished, she leaned forward to start on his pants.
He quickly as he let go of her and started helping, pushing the fabric of her shirt over her shoulders and pressing a warm kiss to the skin there. She shivered as he paused and she felt the rush of his breath down her back.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to coax the reaction she wanted out of him. She was frantic, pushing hard for him to take her in a storm of passion as he had the night before. He seemed almost amused by her rush, indulgent even as he followed her lead until they were both naked. But then he wouldn’t be pushed any longer.
Gently, he took her hand in his and twirled her around until her back leaned against his chest. He pulled her tight against him and laced their fingers together. His voice was a whisper in her ear and a rumble at her back. “Slowly now. Last night was wonderful but I didn’t get to see nearly enough of you. There are plenty of places I haven’t touched yet, tasted yet. I want to see your reaction to me in every part of you.”
She let out an unsteady laugh, frightened by how good that sounded. “You make me sound like some sort of experiment.”
His lips grazed the side of her neck. “You know I take my work very seriously.”
He meant it to be funny, but she couldn’t help but realize the truth in his words. They were like a knife to her heart.
She used their already forged grip to tug him toward the bed and pull him down next to her. Laughingly, he allowed her to have her way. His laughter turned into groans as she put her mouth on him, sliding down his chest to kiss his nipples and send her tongue searching through his chest hair to find the salty skin underneath.
He slid a hand into her hair and pushed it back behind her ear so that he could see her face. “I’m crazy about you,” he said in a deep voice.
Her heart skipped a beat and then restarted double time. She forced her lips into a teasing smile. “Maybe you’re just crazy, period.”
His gaze stayed serious though and he tugged on her hands until he had brought her face even with his. With one slow revolution, he had her pinned beneath him and took control of the moment.
She felt her bones, and her guilt, melting under the slow pressure of his hands and mouth. He coaxed her, cajoled her, teased her until her desperation faded and the night dissolved into pure pleasure.
True to his word, he found all of the places on her body that he had been too frantic to touch the night before. She was helpless to say no as he asked about her reaction to every patch of skin he kissed. He discovered that he could make her nipples bead tight just by blowing cool air on them. He delighted in sending his fingers down to circle her navel and watch her giggle in reaction. He loved hearing her sigh as he traced the line of her leg from angle to upper thigh, and he noted aloud that her toes curled when his searching fingers came anywhere near her clitoris.
Any lingering thoughts she had of her plan or guilt or Mike’s predicament fell away and all she could concentrate on was the way he made her feel. He used every part of himself to please her so skillfully, except the part that she wanted the most. She was close to begging him to take her when he let out a curse and leaned over her to rifle through the nightstand.
Glad that his control had finally broken, she watched with rapt attention as he sheathed himself and then hooked his arms under her thighs, tilting her hips up. He took her with one, powerful stroke to the hilt. He moaned against her mouth, tasting of heat and desire, and it was all she could do to keep from coming immediately. But she wanted to wait as long as possible. She wanted to savor every second.
She gasped at the fullness of him inside of her as he rode her gently, and then not so gently. He moved again, sliding back, and Sabrina tilted her hips even further up in his grasp, not willing to lose a single centimeter of him.
Her hands moved down his sweat-slicked back and to his hips, her fingernails anchoring in his ass and pulling him toward her.
He gasped her name and then he was moving faster and harder, stroking her inside and out. She was desperate for the contact and moved with his rhythm. Higher and higher they drove each other until at last Holden’s body tensed in her grasp. When he groaned her name again, she let go of the tightly held reins of her control and her body exploded.
Long minutes passed before she felt like she was able to get her breathing under control. Usually in the afterglow she couldn’t wait to get out. Was already planning the next thing on her to do list. But with Holden, all she wanted to do was snuggle against him and hide from the world. Hide from the fact that the next thing on her to do list was to steal from him.
Her throat ached from unshed tears and her thighs ached from where Holden had held them up for so long. With a satisfied sigh, he released her and managed to settle
on the bed next to her. She bit her lip to stop the tears from falling on his chest when he pressed a kiss to her forehead and slowly started stroking her back.
His touch was so soothing that Sabrina fought against the sleep pulling at her. There was so much she needed to say to him, now, while she could still be able to claim innocence, but she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open. The rhythmic thump of his heart under her ear and the soothing pass of his hand along her spine all made her feel safe and warm.
Her eyelids were just fluttering closed when she heard him softly say her name. “Bree?”
Not up for pillow talk, she kept her breathing even and didn’t so much as twitch a muscle. He kissed her forehead again and she felt his smile against her skin. “I’m still crazy about you,” he said quietly.
I still don’t deserve it, was her last thought as she drifted off to sleep.
***
Holden grinned and settled back on his pillow. He was glad that she was getting some sleep, it seemed like she needed it. She’d been acting strangely this evening. Although he thought she’d liked the movie, she’d been unusually quiet throughout dinner and she hadn’t responded when Conner had pulled out some of his best aggravation techniques.
Of course, when the door had closed behind Conner, Holden had been in for a sexy surprise. Sabrina had come at him full force. Passionate kisses and the best body he’d ever seen outside of a magazine pressed up against him. He couldn’t help responding to her. Although to his credit, he had put up a token resistance. He’d wanted to slow down and draw things out, but she hadn’t wanted any part of that.
At the time, he’d been willing to go along with it, too caught up in the moment and the touch of her skin to question his good fortune. Now that his blood was cooling and he was satiated, he had time to wonder what her urgency had been about. It was as if she had been telling him something. Every press of her lips, touch of her fingers communicated something that he felt too slow to understand.
He figured that no man in the history of time had ever understood a woman’s intentions until she wanted him to, so he wasn’t going to put any more time into thinking about it. He pulled the tangled covers up over both of their bodies and pulled her closer.
