by Noelle Adams
He grinned and let her pull him to his feet. He nodded to someone and she realized he was signaling for the woman to save his table and watch his tablet.
The woman must work here. Maybe he worked here. Maybe he was someone important.
She gave up her attempt to figure it out once he eased her onto the dance floor. Instead of the usual disconnected dance gyrations, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her against him. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around his neck, the whole length of her body pressed against his.
He was about six inches taller than her, and she had to tilt her head up to meet his eyes.
They were hot, deep, intense. Absolutely mesmerizing.
Their hips swayed in synchronized rhythm to the deep pounding bass of the music. His lean, hard body moved against hers.
She might be inexperienced, but she knew why her breath came out in fast little pants, why her skin flushed hot, and why a deep pressure tightened between her legs.
She was supposed to seduce him, but he’d seduced her instead.
Chapter Two
Harrison should be doing his job instead of indulging his fascination for this irresistible stranger.
He needed to finish taking notes and get that report written tonight, since he had to prepare for the settlement meeting with Edwards first thing in the morning.
He couldn’t tear himself away from this woman, though. Not yet.
Her gray eyes, almost silver in the flashing lights, gazed up at him with a heated attraction. She seemed slightly startled, as if surprised by the intensity of her response to him. His body reacted to the sight of her tousled hair, parted lips, and flushed skin. The feel of her lush little body against his.
If he danced with her much longer, he’d be too far gone to pull back and return to work.
A man passed by carrying two large glasses of beer. Harrison didn’t think the man bumped his dance partner, but she fell out of rhythm and shrunk against Harrison suddenly, clutching at his shirt.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said with a smile that was too bright, too wobbly. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.”
Harrison blinked as the blonde whirled around and wove her way through the crowd to the hallway.
Frowning, he followed her. Something was wrong. She’d acted like she was frightened, although he’d seen nothing to trigger her reaction. He scanned the crowd. Maybe she had a stalker.
He found her far down the hall, past the restrooms, near the fire exit. She leaned against a wall and took deep breaths.
“What is it?” he demanded, lifting her chin so her face wasn’t hidden by her hair. “Did someone scare you in there?”
“No, no, no. Nothing like that.” She smiled again, but it still didn’t look as warm and natural as before. Her face was too pale. “Sorry about the dramatics.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what happened.” He braced one hand on the wall beside her.
“I said it was nothing.” She scowled as if his pushiness annoyed her.
He was glad to see her get her color back, but he wasn’t used to people refusing him. He leaned in closer. “And I don’t believe you. Tell me.”
“It sounds ridiculous, but I have this thing about beer.”
“Beer?”
“I told you it sounds ridiculous, but just the smell of it makes me sick. And…and I didn’t think throwing up all over you was the best way to make a good impression.”
The irony in her voice—despite her obvious embarrassment—tickled him, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Probably not. Why do you have such an aversion to beer?”
She shrugged off the question. “Just a quirk. I’ve always been that way. It’s really no big deal. Sorry about running out. We can go back and dance if you want.”
Harrison shook his head. The man with the beer was still there—and who knew how many other people might decide to order beer tonight.
She sighed and drooped against the wall. “Yeah. I guess the moment is over. Every time I think I can…I end up…” Her resignation changed back into a smile. “Thanks for dancing with me, though. I really had a good time.”
He realized she thought he’d lost interest—as if such a minor thing would dampen his attraction. If anything, he wanted her even more, her delicacy rousing some sort of latent protective instinct.
“So that’s it?” he asked lightly. “You’re blowing me off now?”
Her gaze darted up to meet his. “No, I just thought… I just thought—”
“You thought I was such an ass that I’d be scared off by an irrelevant aversion?”
“No. I didn’t think that.” She had the most delicious faintly French accent.
He leaned in until his lips hovered near hers. “You thought I was such a beer guzzler that I couldn’t stand to spend time with someone who doesn’t love it as much as I do?”
Surprised laughter rippled out of her and her hands closed around the lapels of his suit jacket.
Harrison was mesmerized by her lovely face—warm, amused, sincere, utterly real. The urge to kiss her was so overwhelming he no longer resisted.
He closed the slight distance between their lips, brushing hers gently with his.
He heard her quick intake of breath, felt her fingers clutch at him even tighter. He kissed her again, lingering against her mouth longer this time.
She broke the kiss after a few moments but didn’t pull away—just asked against his mouth, “So are you?”
He tangled his fingers in her hair until he’d cupped the back of her head. “Am I what?” He couldn’t wait for the answer before he closed his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss with his tongue.
She opened for him, her body melting against his and one of her arms twining around his neck. Her responsiveness intensified his desire.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted someone as much as he wanted her.
When she finally turned her head, she panted out raggedly, “Are you a beer guzzler?”
He chuckled and murmured, “I prefer Scotch.”
It was evidently the right thing to say. She wrapped her other arm around him and kissed him with naked passion. Soon he’d hardened again as his tongue tangled with hers. She practically writhed between his body and the wall, and he wrapped one of her legs around his hip to align her groin better with his. She moaned into his mouth while he rocked into her and stroked her bare thigh.
When his erection started to pulse tightly in his trousers, he knew they needed to stop. He couldn’t take her in the back hallway of a nightclub, no matter how tempted he was.
He forced himself to release her and step back, still bracing himself with one hand on the wall.
Her cheeks were deep pink, her hair messy, and her lips swollen. She was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. “Wow,” she said. “Wow.”
“I agree.”
“Did you want to…” She ducked her head to hide an inexplicably shy expression.
“I hope you were going to ask whether I wanted to continue this elsewhere. Because the answer is definitely yes.”
She raised her eyes, and excitement flickered through her lingering heat. “Really? You don’t have to go back to work?”
He smiled, privately cursing the damned inspection report he still needed to write. He was never late. His responsibilities as a Damon were always his priority.
“Work can wait.” He couldn’t miss out spending the night with this beautiful, passionate woman. The report wasn’t urgent, and he could get up early tomorrow to prepare for the settlement meeting.
She looked surprised when he suggested they go to his hotel, so he wondered if she’d thought he was a local.
It was nice that she had no idea who he was.
While she texted her friend, he ducked back into the main room to grab his tablet and tell the floor manager to release his table.
“By the way, I’m Etta,” she said as they waited for his car.
“Har
ri—” he began, then cut himself off. She might not recognize his face—not everyone did—but she could easily recognize his name. And that might change things.
“You don’t really look like a Harry, but I like it.”
He’d always hated being called “Harry.” In fact, schoolmates had only used that name when they wanted to annoy him. After hearing Etta say his name with that particular lilt, however, he decided it wasn’t so bad.
She beamed with an overflow of warm excitement.
“What did I do to deserve that smile?”
She flushed and glanced down. “Am I too excited?”
He almost choked. “Too excited? Who the hell told you that was even possible?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that the world seems to think being cool is the way to go, and I can never pull it off.”
He realized that was one of the reasons why she seemed so different, why she seemed so real. There was no pretense about her, and it thrilled him. “Cool is overrated.”
She peered up at him curiously. “You seem to pull it off very well.”
“Maybe I’m overrated.”
“That remains to be seen.”
…
Marietta hadn’t realized Harry was quite so rich.
She knew his suit was expensive, of course. After working in the family restaurant for so long—one of the most popular restaurants in Aix—she could evaluate the relative expense of customers’ clothes and accessories.
The car the valet pulled around, however, was much more posh than she’d expected. Plus, both the bellboy and the night manager of the hotel began to greet him by name until they found him kissing her and discreetly withdrew.
His suite was on the top floor of the hotel and looked vast compared to her nice, but compact, room five floors down. It was funny they happened to be staying in the same hotel tonight. Even so, their worlds were obviously very far apart.
“It’s a work thing. I don’t actually need a suite that a whole battalion could bivouac in.” He must have read her expression as she stared at the luxury suite.
His dry tone and clever word choice made her laugh and helped shake the last of her reservations. What did it matter whether he had some high-powered job and could fit her whole apartment in this sitting room?
This was just about sex for the night.
Her excitement returned with full force—not only intense arousal but also a giddy joy that she was actually doing this, taking this step, pulling out of the shelter she’d hid behind for the last two years.
She hadn’t intended to have sex this evening. She’d just planned to pick up a man in the club to prove she was ready to move on with her life. But his interest in her filled her with a heady rush.
She wanted to do this. She really wanted to do this.
“Did you want something to drink? They brought up some Scotch for me earlier, or I could call down for—”
“I’m not thirsty.”
He’d been placing his tablet on the desk across the room, but turned to look at her. “Say that again.”
She frowned and repeated, “I’m not thirsty.”
“I was listening to your accent. Are you French?”
“My mother was French. My father was American.”
“Ah, then that explains it. Your accent is incredibly sexy.”
His smile was so compelling she walked over to him without thinking. “I put it on just for you.”
He chuckled and reached out for her, resting his hands on her hips and pressing her lower body against his. “I’m flattered. What other accents do you have in your arsenal?”
“Comrade, I am not thirsty.” Trying to keep a straight face, she spoke in an exaggerated Russian accent.
“Very, very sexy.”
He kissed her breathless, until she was clutching his shoulders and barely able to stay on her feet. When he finally pulled his mouth away and leaned his forehead against hers, she managed to say in a thick Spanish accent, “Oh, señor, I am not thirsty.”
She felt a warm thrill when he laughed again. Then a hotter thrill when he kissed her.
This time, the kiss took them through the double doors to the bedroom. When the back of her knees hit the mattress, she fell onto the bed with Harry on top. He was hot and hard and heavy above her, and her body pulsed to feel even more of him.
Their kiss broke with the tumble, and he trailed kisses along her jaw and throat.
She arched her neck in pleasure and exerted all her concentration to say in a bad Cockney accent, “Oi, guv’ner, I’m not bloody thirsty.”
He almost collapsed on her, his face buried in the hollow of her neck, shuddering with half-suppressed mirth. Not even his kisses felt as good as his amused, shaking body against hers.
“Damn, Etta,” he said, his voice thick with amusement and something even hotter. “You’re incredible.”
Not the most romantic of declarations, but it thrilled her just the same.
He kissed her again, and the mood shifted. Became more urgent and intense. He stroked her as they kissed, and before she knew it he’d pulled her dress over her head.
She’d worn sexy underwear to boost her confidence, but still felt self-conscious as he stared at her with a palpable hunger.
No one had ever looked at her like that.
She shifted and struggled to keep from blurting for him to hurry up and get on with it.
A smile tilted the corners of his mouth. “You’re so beautiful.”
The pleasure of that remark relaxed her as he mouthed his way from her throat to her collarbone. Her breasts seemed to strain in her bra as his lips got closer and closer to them.
She arched when his mouth teased her nipple through the lace fabric and gasped when he fondled her other breast.
He gently unclasped her bra and caressed her until she wriggled beneath him, moaning and whimpering.
Eager to satisfy the throbbing ache between her legs, she pulled at his suit jacket to get it off his shoulders.
It took a while, since he was too busy twirling her nipples and mouthing her belly to help, but she finally dropped the jacket over the side of the bed and pulled at his tie.
He raised his shoulders when she accidentally strangled him.
“Sorry.” She stifled a laugh. “It would be easier if you’d stop torturing me and help.”
“Torture, is it?” He unknotted his tie while she tackled the buttons of his white shirt.
“A very nice kind of torture, but you’re driving me crazy here.” She groaned when she saw a T-shirt under his dress shirt. “Why are you wearing so many clothes?”
He hid a smile and instead arched his eyebrows. “It is generally considered unprofessional to sweat through one’s shirt.”
She giggled, pushing him onto his back to better attack the buttons. She made quick work of his shirt, pulling the sleeves off over his wrists, until his cufflinks hampered further progress.
Grumbling, she undid them, noting they looked platinum and had probably cost more than her bike, the most expensive thing she owned. Nothing about him was flashy or garish—but everything was worth a fortune.
When she glanced at his face, she noticed his eyes crawling hungrily over her body. She wore only her panties, necklace, and earrings, and had forgotten to look sexy. He didn’t appear to mind.
Her daydreams about sex were either fuzzily romantic or over-the-top wild fantasy. She’d never imagined reality could be so intoxicating.
After she’d rid him of his T-shirt, she enjoyed the sight of his chest. He didn’t look like a body-builder but he was in excellent shape, and she couldn’t help running her palms over the rippling muscles, flat belly, and scattering of dark hair. The bulge at the front of his trousers promised he was aroused, and she couldn’t believe she had done that to him.
But as she caressed him, she panicked—the same panic she’d felt whenever she moved out of her comfort zone. It was why she almost never left Aix.
She was going through with
this. Having sex with a strange man.
And she didn’t know what she was doing.
To give herself a moment to breathe, she asked, “Do you have a condom?” She had protection in her purse but didn’t feel coordinated enough to get it.
“Of course.” He went to the bathroom and returned with the packet, shucking off his shoes, socks, and trousers.
Her heart beat wildly, and she couldn’t take a full breath. “Are condoms part of the amenities here?” She spoke lightly to disguise her anxiety.
“Naturally.” His tone had matched hers, but when his eyes focused on her, his expression changed. He sat beside her on the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He frowned. “Something’s wrong. Do you still want to do this?”
“I do. I definitely do.” She took a couple of deep breaths, his kind expression easing her minor panic attack. “But I need to tell you something.”
She gulped and told herself it would be better to tell him the truth now, before the situation got even more awkward.
There was nothing wrong with her still being a virgin. It wasn’t a deep, shameful secret she needed to hide.
His gaze had sobered, but he said dryly, “If you tell me you’re really a man, I’m simply not going to believe you.”
She giggled.
His face had relaxed too, but his eyes were still watchful. “If you tell me you’re married, I’m going to be very disappointed.”
“No,” she burst out. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just…it’s just this will be my first time. To have sex, I mean.”
He sat very still for what seemed like a long time but was probably just a few seconds. She’d obviously surprised him.
When she couldn’t wait anymore, she asked, “Is that all right?”
His forehead creased. “Are you sure this is the way you want your first time?”
“What do you mean?”
“With a stranger.”
Marietta’s lips tightened at the hesitation on his face. “It’s my choice, right? I’m a stranger to you, too. Surely you’re not going to act like you know better than I do about how I might want my first time.”
“Of course not. If you really want to do this, I’m not about to argue.” He peered at her intently.
